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The Witherspoon Standoff Finally Has a Dollar Sign
After weeks of a staring contest with no visible scoreboard, we finally have a number. NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport reported Tuesday that the Seahawks have made Devon Witherspoon an offer “upwards of” $30 million per season, and that a deal could be close. Three days before training camp opens. That timing is not an accident.
For context, Trent McDuffie currently sits atop the cornerback market at $31 million a year. So an offer starting north of $30 million puts Witherspoon in that same rarefied air, and “upwards of” is doing some quiet work in that sentence. He is playing 2026 on a fifth-year option worth $21.2 million, so this isn’t about him being underpaid this fall. It’s about locking down a Pro Bowl corner before the number only climbs.
$21.2M
What Witherspoon is set to earn in 2026 on his fifth-year option, before any extension.
The complicating wrinkle is still the same one: Witherspoon and New England’s Christian Gonzalez share an agency, and both 2023 first-rounders are negotiating extensions at the same time. Nobody wants to be the one who sets the floor for the other guy. It’s two poker players who share a coach, each waiting for the other to show a card.
Numbers leak for a reason. Somebody wanted this one out three days before camp, and it wasn’t the guy who has to write the check. If it gets done before Week 1, remember this was the week the silence broke.
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Two poker players who share a coach, each waiting for the other to show a card.
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Hard Knocks
HBO Dropped the Trailer, and We Have a Premiere Date
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This is the first time the franchise has ever been on the show, and the first time since 2001 that the series follows the reigning Super Bowl champion. The trailer opens on the championship celebration before pivoting to Mike Macdonald doing what Mike Macdonald does, which is refuse to act like anyone has arrived.
For a fan base that spent two decades watching this show happen to other teams, it’s a strange feeling to be the main character. Just remember what Hard Knocks actually is: five weeks of edited footage designed to find drama whether it exists or not. Enjoy it. Then go back to worrying about the third cornerback spot.
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AROUND THE COOP
Around the Coop
The first training-camp jump scare arrived early: Seattle placed Nick Emmanwori on the PUP list Monday, four days before camp, with an undisclosed injury that came out of nowhere after a full minicamp and OTAs. The good news, per NFL Network’s Steve Wyche: the team isn’t overly concerned. File it under “annoying,” not “emergency” — for now. Yahoo Sports
Seahawks.com published its list of 10 camp storylines to watch, and it reads like a group of people trying to invent problems for a team that returns almost its entire Super Bowl roster. When your biggest question is whether a loaded defensive front can somehow be even better, you’ve already won the offseason. Seahawks.com
Camp opens Saturday, July 25, and that first public practice is already sold out. Nine more remain, which means there’s still time to stand in the July sun and watch grown men in shorts do individual drills. Somehow, we will all be there anyway. Seahawks.com
NFC WEST SCHADENFREUDE REPORT
RAMS
The Rams’ big training-camp plan for their reigning MVP is to keep him away from training camp. ESPN’s Sarah Barshop reported Los Angeles is expected to limit 38-year-old Matthew Stafford’s throwing reps again to manage the back that cost him nearly all of last summer. It worked once, so they’re running it back: protect the quarterback by hiding him. Super-Bowl-or-bust, powered by a heating pad.
NINERS
San Francisco opens camp this week with a roster full of stars and, per SI’s Albert Breer, a season that actually hinges on the young guys nobody can vouch for yet. Kittle, Williams, McCaffrey, Bosa, and Warner all need one more peak year at once, and the plan around them is “please let Pearsall and the kids develop fast.” Nothing steadies a contender like betting the window on players you’re still projecting in July.
SEACHICKENS TRIVIA
This strong-legged kicker spent five seasons in Seattle, hit multiple game-winners including a walk-off 50-yarder in Denver, and became notorious for actually making tackles on returns — the Seahawks franchise-tagged him in 2007. Who is he?
Tap to Reveal the Answer
Josh Brown. Drafted out of Nebraska, he handled Seattle’s kicking from 2003 to 2007 and was one of the rare kickers who’d throw his body into a return man rather than politely wave him by.
Got a Question? Yell It Into the Void.
The mailbag is open, camp is about to start, and I have opinions I haven’t been asked for yet. Send your questions, your conspiracy theories, and your bad trade ideas. The good ones get answered. The great ones get roasted.
Three days out, and the quietest thread in the building just got loud. — The Rooster