Seahawks draft pick at the center of NFL contract intrigue

Published 8:30 am Wednesday, July 16, 2025

Nick Emmanwori is poised to be dynamic. Right away. He’s on his way to being a new piece all across the Seahawks defense, front to back.

The rookie impressed his new coaches throughout Seattle’s offseason practices this spring. Head man Mike Macdonald’s defensive schemes had the 220-pound Emmanwori playing multiple positions. He was a big nickel as a third safety. He was a traditional nickel as a coverage defensive back inside. He was an outside linebacker blitzing starting quarterback Sam Darnold.

He picked up all of it. Coaches raved about the rookie’s desire and ability to learn.

“He’s gets it,” defensive coordinator Aden Durde said this spring.

Macdonald said last month: “Nick keeps showing up. I have to tell him, ‘Hey, man, the door’s closed, knock.’”

The night the Seahawks drafted him in May, Macdonald likened Emmawori to Kyle Hamilton, the 220-pound, do-it-all safety Maconald coached into an All-Pro in Baltimore. Macdonald also compared the rookie in size to Kam Chancellor. Yes, the Seahawks legend at the position.

Heady stuff.

But Emmanwori hasn’t signed his contract.

Seattle’s rookies reported for training camp at the team’s Virginia Mason Athletic Center in Renton on Tuesday, though not all of them. All signs into the evening were that Emmanwori and fellow second-round draft choice Elijah Arroyo, a tight end from Miami, did not report with the other Seahawks rookies, including nine other draft choices from May.

It’s not yet a holdout. Seattle’s first practice of training camp is next week.

Emmanwori and Arroyo aren’t alone. Thirty of the 32 second-round picks from this year’s draft have not signed.

Emmanwori is the trigger man on the league’s impasse with second-rounders. There are 25 other teams with 29 second-round picks other than Seattle’s all waiting to see what Seahawks general manager John Schneider does with Emmanwori’s deal.

All contracts for rookies drafted over seven rounds each year have their salaries slotted in predetermined values by the league’s collective bargaining agreement. For most of this decade under this CBA, that has meant rookies dutifully sign their contracts and show up for their first NFL training camps on time. That ended the days of rookies holding out to grab the most money their agents could get them, even more than some of the established veteran players on their new teams.

So what’s the holdup on second-round not signing picks this summer?

The Seahawks and the rest of the league can blame Houston. And agents.

A few years ago, agents for rookies drafted in the first round began succeeding in negotiating over the one aspect left in a rookie contract they could negotiate with teams: Guaranteed money. First, agents haggled with teams over the timing of the payments of signing bonuses.

In 2022, agents succeeded in getting the entire rookie contracts of first-round picks fully guaranteed. That’s become the NFL norm.

This year, Houston went further. The Texans became the first team to fully guarantee the contract of a second-round pick. And it wasn’t the first player selected in round two this spring. The Texans gave the 34th-overall selection, wide receiver Jayden Higgins from Iowa State, a fully guaranteed contract as the second pick of round two this year.

That pretty much forced Cleveland to then give the first pick of round two, UCLA linebacker Carson Schwesinger, a fully guaranteed deal.

The third pick of the second round was Emmanwori. Seattle traded up 17 spots to get him.

Schneider assuredly did not do that to fully guarantee Emmanwori’s deal and set a league precedent for the remaining 29 rookies selected in this year’s second round.

The agents for all the other picks in the round are waiting to see if the Seahawks do what the Texans and Browns did, or whether Schneider continues his and the NFL’s usual course of not guaranteeing rookie contracts beyond round one.

The Seahawks’ veterans report July 22. The first practice of training camp is July 23 in Renton.

If Emmanwori is on the field for that, the rest of the NFL’s second-round picks likely will be on their team’s fields to begin camp, too.

If he’s not …