Seahawks’ Devon Witherspoon NFL’s only rookie camp holdout. Pete Carroll: It’s no big deal
Having the NFL’s only rookie holdout from training camp isn’t a big deal to his coach.
At least not on day one.
Bobby Wagner was there, for his 12th consecutive summer in the league.
Fellow 30-something veterans Geno Smith, Quandre Diggs, Jarran Reed, Jason Myers and Nick Bellore, they were there practicing, too.
Devon Witherspoon was not. The 22-year-old fifth-overall pick in this spring’s draft, Seattle’s starting left cornerback from the first offseason practice in May, was absent from the first day of Seahawks training camp Wednesday at the Virginia Mason Athletic Center. As of Wednesday evening he had yet to sign his rookie contract — even though its value in salary and signing bonus is slotted and predetermined by the league’s collective bargaining agreement.
Pete Carroll brushed off Witherspoon’s day-old holdout as a non-story.
“He’s not here today. He knows everything he needs to know,” Carroll said.
“I can’t imagine he won’t be here very soon. Like, right away.”
Like, for Thursday’s second practice, perhaps?
It would behoove Witherspoon and his representatives to not make more with Seahawks general manager John Schneider and salary-cap/contract executive Matt Thomas over this than they already have.
Until about a decade ago, the reason rookies held out of training camps was, of course, to get more money in their first NFL contracts. Contracts and guaranteed money for top rookies in draft classes rose astronomically into the 2000s. In some years they were richer for those who had yet to play an NFL game than for proven veterans who’d played a decade.
That’s when the NFL and its players union agreed by collective bargaining agreement to assign rookie contract values for each pick in each draft. The values and amounts of signing bonuses on each four-year deal descend from the richest for the first-overall choice to the lowest for the final pick 250-choices into each draft.
Witherspoon is due a four-year contract with $31.8 million in guaranteed money as the fifth pick in this year’s draft, per NFL CBA. His signing bonus is $20,171,000.
Done. There is nothing to negotiate on any of that.
Now that rookie contracts are formulaic, holdouts from training camp have disappeared almost entirely. Witherspoon is the only one in the league this summer, among the 259 selections in this year’s draft.
So what’s he haggling over with the Seahawks?
Exactly when he gets his $20.17 million in signing-bonus cash.
Seattle is like most NFL teams. It has as a common business practice spreading payments of a top rookie’s signing bonus over two or four installments. Players of course want their money as soon as they can get it, to invest it, spend it...to possess now what’s due to them.
Complicating this from the Seahawks’ perspective: This week the Houston Texans agreed to give quarterback C.J. Stroud, the second pick in May three spots ahead of Witherspoon, all $23.38 million of his slotted signing bonus up front. Right now. That got Stroud to sign his rookie contract and report to Texans training camp on time.
Will Anderson, the third-overall pick by Arizona, got the Cardinals to pay him 85% of his signing bonus within 15 days of signing. That was $19,218,000 to him basically up front. Arizona will pay the remainder of his signing bonus to Anderson on Oct. 15.
The Colts didn’t do the Seahawks any favors this week. Indianapolis reportedly guaranteed rookie quarterback Anthony Richardson, the fourth-overall pick just ahead of Witherspoon, all of his $33.9 million contract — salary and signing bonus.
That may be what Witherspoon is seeking, a fully guaranteed contract with the entire signing bonus paid up front. The Seahawks have never given a rookie a fully guaranteed contract.
Whenever the cornerback wants Seattle to pay his signing bonus, Carroll isn’t seeing Tre Brown and Michael Jackson being his starting cornerbacks Wednesday as an issue. At least that’s the way the coach is portraying it.
Jackson, Seattle’s starting left corner in 2022, was replacing Riq Woolen as right cornerback Wednesday. Woolen is on the physically-unable-to-perform list recovering from arthroscopic knee surgery in May. Carroll said Woolen likely won’t be on the PUP list long, that he’s running full speed but just have to prove he can run consecutive days without swelling or pain.
The bottom line is Woolen will be the Seahawks’ starting right cornerback soon and Witherspoon will be the starting left cornerback again — whenever he signs his contract.
“Yeah, it’s so clean that it will be over,” Carroll said. “ I can’t imagine...he knows what’s going on right now.
“And we’ll see what happens.”
This story was originally published July 26, 2023 at 4:33 PM.
