After short holdout, Seahawks ink top pick Witherspoon to deal
Published 1:30 am Friday, July 28, 2023
By Bob Condotta / Seattle Times
RENTON — Devon Witherspoon’s holdout ended up lasting two days.
The fifth overall pick in the 2023 draft — Seattle’s highest in 14 years — signed his four-year rookie contract with the team on Friday and is expected to be with the team when it holds its third practice of training camp, and its second open to the public, on Friday afternoon. The team officially announced the signing late Friday morning.
Witherspoon will get a four-year deal worth $31.86 million that includes a signing bonus of $20.17 million.
Those details were not in dispute as all rookie contracts are slotted by draft position via the league’s collective bargaining agreement. But Witherspoon and the Seahawks had been at odds over how much of that signing bonus he would get up front — Witherspoon was said to want it all while the Seahawks wanted to pay much of it now, as much as 75%, and the rest by April, sticking to their long-standing policy of not paying out all of large signing bonuses at once.
None of the initial reports indicated how the paying out of the bonus worked out with Witherspoon’s contract, but one source indicated that it was not thought the Seahawks had budged on their policy.
Either way, the deal is said to now be done, and Witherspoon could report and practice with the Seahawks as early as Friday’s practice, set for 1:30 p.m.
Seattle coach Pete Carroll said on Wednesday he did not expect the holdout by Witherspoon — who was the only one of the 259 players taken in the draft last April — to last long.
“He knows everything he needs to know,’’ Carroll said. “I can’t imagine he won’t be here very soon. …. It’s so clean that it will be over. He knows what’s going on right now and we’ll see what happens.”
Witherspoon is expected to compete at the nickel spot with Coby Bryant, who played the position last season as a rookie, as well as at left cornerback, with Riq Woolen expected to again be the starter on the right side as soon as he comes off the Physically Unable to Perform list.
Witherspoon will count $5.7 million against the team’s salary cap once he is signed.
Seattle made several moves in the last week to open up some cap space, aimed in part at opening up the space needed to sign Witherspoon.
As reported by OvertheCap.com on Friday, a three-year extension for rush end Uchenna Nwosu opened up about $3 million in cap space for 2023, giving Seattle just over $16 million. But then adding the signing of Witherspoon, Seattle had about $11 million in cap space, when accounting for all of the team’s recent moves.
That may seem like a lot, but about half that has to be reserved for practice squad and the injured reserve list during the regular season. The Seahawks also like to leave enough to account for things that may happen during the season, such as incentives being reached, and also having enough to be flexible if a player acquisition suddenly becomes available, such as the Jadeveon Clowney trade in 2019.
There was no initial indication that Seattle had a specific immediate move in mind with the cap space it had created over the past week.
Seattle on Friday also waived cornerback Montrea Braswell and signed former UW running back Wayne Taulapapa. Taulapapa, who rushed for a team-high 887 yards last year for the Huskies, participated in the team’s rookie mini-camp as a tryout player.
