The Earl Thomas saga may never end for the Seahawks
Every time you think you can relax, new rumors about Earl Thomas erupt. This time the source is far too trustworthy to ignore.
We all thought we could relax a bit about Earl Thomas. Sure, he skipped the OTA, but he’s far from the only star player to do so. Both Pete Carroll and John Schneider assured us their All Pro safety made it clear he’d be in Seahawks minicamp in July. Brock Huard may have burst our bubble earlier this week.
On Tuesday’s Brock and Salk Show on 710 ESPN radio, Huard gave his thoughts on the situation between Earl Thomas and the Seahawks. It all comes down to one of Earl’s closest friends, a gentleman who isn’t exactly the biggest fan of the Seahawks right now. You guessed right, our old friend Richard Sherman had something to say. Here’s what Huard said:
"“I think Richard Sherman’s a guy who’s been in his ear. We heard Richard Sherman say publicly a couple of weeks ago Earl’s got to be the highest paid guy in the league period, end of story. And those two are friends, confidants and I think Earl’s going to trust him and Richard’s going to say to him, ‘Dude, look what happened to me. They’re not paying you and if they’re not paying you, you cannot show up and you cannot put yourself at risk of playing.’ I think it’s 50-50 at best from what I’m hearing today and this may change with Earl. It may be even much worse than that.”"
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Earl Thomas will do his thing
You could look at this in several ways, and not many are good for Seattle. Sherman could just be stirring up trouble. After all, he didn’t seem to be too happy about how he left Seattle. That’s one of the few good scenarios, that Sherman is just talking smack, and Huard is giving too much credence to his influence on Thomas.
Hopefully that’s the case. Unfortunately, I think Huard could be right about this. A lot has been made about the fact Thomas would be fined if he misses minicamp. The total of those fines? $84,435. That’s a pretty small price to pay to let your boss know you really want that $3 million raise. The fine is no deterrent whatsoever.
Kam Chancellor held out through the first two games of the 2015 season when he wanted an extension. The Seahawks didn’t budge during his holdout, although he did eventually get his big payday. If we’re lucky, Kam will talk with Earl and remind him that Pete and John came through in 2015. Whether the Seahawks intend to give Thomas an extension is literally another story for another day.