TOP STORIES
Ownership
The Sale Cleared the Only Vote That Could Have Gotten Weird
The sale of this football team is now a formality with a date attached to it. The NFL’s finance committee and ownership policy committee voted unanimously to recommend approval of the record $9.612 billion sale of the Seahawks from the Paul G. Allen estate to the Khosla family, with the league passing the recommendation along to its clubs Thursday, per Front Office Sports.
$9.612B
The agreed price, a record for an NFL franchise, and both league committees approved it without a dissenting vote.
Unanimous is the word to sit with. Committee review is where debt limits and equity structure and the actual humans involved get taken apart in a conference room. That was the stage where this could have slowed down. Nobody so much as raised a hand.
What’s left is the full ownership vote Wednesday in Atlanta, where at least 24 of 32 owners have to say yes. Owners essentially never overrule their own committees, so this is the part where everyone shows up and does the paperwork. Circle it anyway. It’s the last box on the form.
One detail I plan to enjoy for a very long time: Vinod Khosla is a minority owner of the 49ers, and league rules require him to divest that stake. A man is being formally obligated to get rid of San Francisco in order to buy Seattle. You cannot improve on that sentence.
“
The last real obstacle to a $9.6 billion sale was a committee meeting, and the committee did not even flinch.
The plan all along was new ownership in place before Week 1, with Neeru Khosla holding the control stake. So when the second banner goes up against New England on September 9, the people who own this franchise will have had the job for about two weeks.
SOURCES →
Camp
Somebody Else to Hit, and Macdonald Had to Invent That Here
Keep Reading ↓
Here is the part I keep turning over. Pete Carroll never held a single joint practice in 14 seasons in Seattle, per ESPN. Fourteen years of competing against ourselves in Renton, and now the guy who replaced him treats a road practice as a load-bearing week of the calendar.
0
Joint practices Pete Carroll held across 14 seasons as Seahawks head coach, per ESPN.
The football is only half of it. Julian Love told the team’s website that the trips have been “a pivotal point in our season, our journey,” and the itinerary includes team meals and the rookie talent show, which is where you actually find out who has been paying attention in the huddle.
And after 156 total yards against Dallas, a controlled two hours against a defense that doesn’t know the install is not the worst prescription available.
SOURCES →
AROUND THE COOP
Around the Coop
Seattle worked out fullback Jackson Acker, recently waived by Buffalo, with Robbie Ouzts on IR. Brian Fleury’s offense genuinely wants a fullback on the field. Behind Brady Russell right now, the depth chart is a phone number. Field Gulls
Cooper Kupp is opening a brick-and-mortar shop for Dodo Coffee, the brand he founded with his wife Anna. It’s about 500 square feet. It’s in Fayetteville, Arkansas. He plays wide receiver in the coffee capital of the country and built the café most of a continent away. ESPN
Two of Seattle’s first four opponents have lost starting offensive linemen, including Washington left tackle Laremy Tunsil, who tore a triceps on a one-on-one rep and had surgery. Sympathy is a finite resource and ours is fully committed elsewhere at the moment. Field Gulls
NFC WEST SCHADENFREUDE REPORT
NINERS
Kyle Shanahan called edge rusher Mykel Williams a “longshot” for the opener against the Rams in Melbourne. Williams, last year’s first-round pick, tore his ACL in November. Nick Bosa is working back from one too. San Francisco is flying to Australia to start its season with a pass rush assembled out of rehab notes and optimism.
CARDINALS
Arizona’s top four draft picks are all hurt. Guard Chase Bisontis and defensive lineman Kaleb Proctor are out for the season, running back Jeremiyah Love has a high ankle sprain, and rookie quarterback Carson Beck hasn’t practiced since injuring his ribs. Four picks at the top of a rebuild, four medical files, zero of them on a practice field.
SEACHICKENS TRIVIA
In October 2010, Seattle acquired running back Marshawn Lynch from the Buffalo Bills. What did the Seahawks send to Buffalo in the deal?
Tap to Reveal the Answer
A 2011 fourth-round pick and a 2012 conditional pick that became a fifth-rounder. Three months later he ran through most of the Saints defense in the playoffs, so the Bills sold Beast Quake for a Day 3 flier and a maybe.
Got a Question? Ask It.
The mailbag runs on reader questions, and the weirder the better. Contract math, roster bubble arguments, grudges you’ve held since the Kingdome. Send it in and I’ll answer it honestly, which is not always the same thing as kindly.
Wednesday in Atlanta, they hand over the keys. Go Hawks. — The Rooster