Despite their Week 1 loss to the Rams, the Seahawks and Kam Chancellor are “no closer” to resolving the holdout, a source tells Ed Werder of ESPN.com (on Twitter). Chancellor’s absence was clearly felt in the team’s season opener as the Rams beat Seattle 34-31, but they’ll try to get by without him once again when they face Aaron Rodgers and the Packers.
Chancellor reportedly wants to earn $9MM in 2016, while the Seahawks have offered to pay him $8.1MM, with no change in his 2015 payout. The safety also wants the team to waive all of the fines that he has accrued over the course of his holdout. Assuming that nothing gets done between now and Sunday, the total cost of Chancellor’s fines, lost wages, and missed compensation will reach a whopping $2.1MM+.
If Chancellor misses significant regular season action, it would be the first time since Carson Palmer sat out six games for the Bengals in 2011 that a player’s holdout has extended that far into the regular season. In Palmer’s case, he never returned to the field for Cincinnati, as the team ultimately traded him to the Raiders.
Chancellor recently told Dan Hellie of NFL Network that he has been willing to meet the Seahawks halfway and that the two sides are less than $1MM apart, but apparently there is still a ways to go between both sides. Of course, that $1MM gap that Chancellor speaks of probably doesn’t include the ~$2.1MM in lost compensation for which he’s seeking restitution.
Chancellor – who racked up 104 total tackles with seven pass deflections and one interception in 14 regular season games last season – is a key part of Seattle’s defense. However, the advanced metrics don’t portray him in quite as flattering a light. In 2014, he graded out as the 20th-best safety in the NFL according to the advanced metrics used by Pro Football Focus (sub. req’d). In the year prior, Chancellor came in as the 12th-best safety in the NFL.
Here are a couple more Chancellor-related links:
- With the salary cap having increased significantly over the past couple years, and on the rise going forward, multiple teams are worried that more players will follow Chancellor’s lead, taking a stand and demanding a raise, writes Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk. As Florio explains, that raises the stakes for the standoff between Chancellor and the Seahawks.
- With many Seahawks fans taking the team’s side in the contract dispute and rushing to blame Chancellor for Seattle’s Week 1 loss, Robert Klemko of TheMMQB.com comes to the safety’s defense, outlining several reasons why the holdout might be warranted.
