John Schneider clearly is trying to smooth Bruce Irvin’s feathers after the Hawks decided not to pick up his 2016 option — perhaps hoping Irvin will be amenable to the kind of deal Whitney Mercilus signed with Houston on Monday.

Schneider told 710 ESPN on Monday that the team had not decided on the option yet, which was an odd thing to say considering Pete Carroll admitted Saturday that they were not going to pick it up and Irvin himself indicated the same with his series of bitter tweets Sunday night.

Apparently, the deadline for the option was Monday night, but that didn’t change the fact that the Hawks were not going to pick it up. It would have cost the Hawks $7.75 million in 2016 (some reports say $7.8 million, which is the DE option number, not the LB option number; Irvin was drafted as an end but his primary position the past two years has been linebacker). The Hawks aren’t going to want to pay that much to Irvin.

Carroll and Schneider both have said they want to keep Irvin long term. They talked to him Friday, and Schneider told 710 ESPN that he apologized for the Atlanta trade rumors. Schneider also said he will sit down with Irvin again this week.

The market for Irvin seemingly was set by the Texans’ deal with Mercilus: $6.5 million a year. It remains to be seen whether Seattle will want to pay that much for Irvin — considering Russell Wilson is going to get a huge deal eventually and Bobby Wagner figures to get $9 million a year.

As we have said before, it very likely will come down to whether the Hawks want to pay Irvin or Russell Okung.