Kam Chancellor's holdout in Seattle reminds me of a similar holdout that I dealt with during my time as general manager of the Vikings. That holdout — with future Hall of Fame offensive tackle Gary Zimmerman 22 years ago — ended with Zimmerman being traded. Nonetheless, we lost the services of a Pro Bowl player as a result of his holdout.
If Seattle GM John Schneider holds the line and doesn't alter from his stated policy of not renegotiating until one year remains on a contract, it won't bode well for the Seahawks' chances to retain one of their top defensive players and leaders, at least in a productive, non-distracting way.
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The Chancellor situation is well documented. A former fifth-round pick in 2010, the three-time Pro Bowl safety jumped at the opportunity to sign a lucrative extension in 2013 — $28 million over four years. (He now has three years remaining on the deal). He was happy when he signed it, but as the Seahawks and their young stars matured into a Super Bowl winner and runner-up the past two seasons, the price tag rose for Seattle's star players who got their deals after Chancellor, including quarterback Russell Wilson, running back Marshawn Lynch, corner Richard Sherman, linebacker Bobby Wagner, and most pertinent to Chancellor's case, fellow Pro Bowl safety Earl Thomas.
Since he was a first-round pick in the same 2010 draft, Thomas always made more than Chancellor. But when Thomas received a four-year, $40 million extension in 2014, he was then making 43 percent more than his safety partner. With Sherman having received a four-year, $56 million deal in 2014 (also one year after Chancellor's extension), it all was too much to take in Chancellor's mind.
Zimmerman's situation was similar. I signed him to a two-year extension at $950,000 per year during the 1992 season, so 1993 would have been his first under the new deal. That also happened to be the first year of unrestricted free agency, and our starting center, Kirk Lowdermilk, signed a free-agent deal with the Colts for $1.2 million per year, 26 percent more than Zimmerman had received. Lowdermilk was a good player but nowhere near Zimmerman's class, and they were close friends.
Zimmerman focused in on the Lowdermilk deal and refused to report to training camp unless we increased his contract.
We certainly wanted our All-Pro tackle on a team that was coming off a division championship. After making no headway with his agent, Frank Bauer, I went to Zimmerman's home to talk with he and his wife Lisa. I told them it was against our team policy to extend contracts with two years remaining, and in his case, he had not played a down under his contract. I asked him to play one season under his contract, and then I would extend him and pay him equal to the highest-paid tackles in the NFL. He still refused to report.
A couple weeks later with no resolution on the horizon, we traded Zimmerman to Denver for three draft choices — first- and sixth-rounders in 1994, and a second rounder in 1995. We were equally adamant about not trading him unless we got a great deal in return, and we did get three good starters from the trade. But it hurt our team in that 1993 season to lose our best O-lineman (although we still made the playoffs, it was as a wild card team).
Dealing with holdouts was one of the worst parts of my job as a GM and president. And I dealt with many more holdouts as a GM in Minnesota and a president in Tennessee than GMs/presidents do today. It was a fairly regular part of doing business before the current collective bargaining agreement was signed, putting more pressure on draft picks to sign early (with the rookie salary scale). For veterans, there is now more teeth in the fines for holdouts, increasing from $5,000 per day to $30,000 per day that a team could fine a player.
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The team can now seek a percentage of a holdout's pro-rated signing bonus, which is $250,000 in Chancellor's case. There also is the fact that salaries have increased significantly, so that if a player misses a regular season game, he would be out one-seventeenth of his salary — about $264,000 for each regular-season game Chancellor misses.
How does the Chancellor holdout end? Of the two likely scenarios, neither is pretty for Schneider or Seahawks coach Pete Carroll. If Chancellor reluctantly ends his holdout and reports prior to the regular season opener in St. Louis on Sept. 13, what will be his frame of mind? Will he be the same physical, hard-hitting safety who leads the Legion of Boom from the standpoint of intimidating receivers and running backs, and can he be the same team leader if he's unhappy with his compensation?
If the Seahawks get a trade offer and send Chancellor elsewhere, they lose a great player and a big piece of their core until whatever new players (probably future high draft picks) come and establish themselves.
Chancellor likewise is unlikely to win in the final analysis. If he stays with the Seahawks, he's not a happy camper and has to wait for his time to come on a new deal — not that he can't live on $7 million per year. But in his mind, he's still way underpaid. If he's traded away, he leaves teammates he loves playing with, a great player's coach in Carroll and a prime Super Bowl contender for the foreseeable future. He may get a new deal from another team, but it's not his ideal scenario.
It is inevitable that championship teams will have to deal with tight salary caps. Schneider knows this and anticipated that his team's success would ultimately create problems with keeping his top players happy. He thought he was doing the right thing in locking up a great player in Chancellor at top safety pay during that time, but then the market increased.
In Lynch's case, there was an eight-day training camp holdout last season that was resolved through moving up some money from 2015 to 2014 and rolling incentives into the base salary. But Lynch had two years left on his deal, so they appeased him in 2014 to get to 2015, when he had one year left and the extension could then be accomplished without breaking team policy. Schneider knows if he tears up Chancellor's current contract and gives him a new top-market deal with three years remaining, there's nothing that will stop pass-rusher Michael Bennett and others from asking for similar treatment.
Just as I dealt with in the Zimmerman case, it appears the Chancellor holdout is headed toward a trade. And just as I hated to trade a future Hall of Famer (even with fair compensation in return), Schneider will hate to trade Chancellor.
But if Chancellor remains steadfast that he won't play under his current deal, or if Schneider wants to avoid a headache and the risk having Chancellor get hurt because he missed training camp, a trade is the best alternative. Then he avoids having an unhappy player on the team, and he can maintain contract sanity in the Seahawks' organization. Above all, Schneider knows it's just bad business to renegotiate a contract with three years remaining.
Jeff Diamond is former president of the Titans, and former vice president/general manager of the Vikings. He was selected NFL Executive of the Year in 1998. Diamond is currently a business and sports consultant who also does broadcast and online media work. He is former chairman and CEO of The Ingram Group. Follow Jeff on Twitter: @jeffdiamondNFL
