Few options for Seattle's David Hawthorne

Published on July 30, 2010 by Seahawk Fanatic

The Seattle Seahawks’ David Hawthorne fired his agent earlier this offseason and he remained the NFL’s only unsigned exclusive-rights free agent as training camps got under way late this week.

The circumstances raised questions about whether the linebacker would report for training camp.

We’ll know for sure when the team practices Saturday morning, but Hawthorne participated in a team meeting Friday. That seems like a good indication Hawthorne will sign and participate in practice.

Hawthorne arguably deserves more than the $470,000 Seattle was required to offer him as an exclusive-rights free agent. He started 11 games last season and he’s the leading candidate to start in Week 1 this season while Leroy Hill serves an NFL suspension. The collective bargaining agreement affords little leverage to exclusive-rights free agents, however.

Exclusive-rights free agents can either re-sign with their teams or not play. If they do not sign, they do not receive credit toward free agency. In Hawthorne’s case, he would return as an exclusive-rights free agent, no closer to becoming a restricted or unrestricted free agent (unless the NFL and its players were to change the rules as part of a new agreement).

The smartest approach for Hawthorne would be to continue improving as a player, endearing himself to a new coaching staff and putting himself in better position to capitalize when he has more leverage.

Seahawks 12th Man Army has now gone mobile! Go to http://www.noticeorange.com/r/Seahawks12thManArmy to get an app for your phone. It's free and it has alerts so that you'll know whenever Seahawks 12th Man Army has anything new. What could be better?

Tags: Circumstances, Collective Bargaining Agreement, David Hawthorne, Few Options, free agents, Games, Leroy Hill, Leverage, Linebacker, NFL FOOTBALL, Offseason, S David, Saturday Morning, SEATTLE SEAHAWKS, Team Practices, training camp, Training Camps, unrestricted free agent, Week 1

Fair Use Notice This website may at times present copyrighted material, the use of which might not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Such material is made available in an effort to advance understandings of democratic, economic, environmental, human rights, political, scientific, and social justice issues, among others. The author believes that this constitutes a fair use of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U. S. Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the articles published on this website are distributed without profit for research and informational purposes. In most instances a link is placed to originator of Article and it is never expressly mentioned as written by, we use published by certain entities who write or publish for this said Blog..