I’M IN.
It’s one of the Seahawks’ mantras. And clearly not everyone is buying in completely.
Offseason team workouts don’t offer too much football value — they’re like glorified walk-throughs — but they are a great vehicle for seeing who is committed to the team and who isn’t.
Russell Wilson and Bobby Wagner certainly are. Michael Bennett and Bruce Irvin are a different story.
All of them have contract concerns. Wilson and Wagner are entering the final year of their deals, but neither is complaining that he doesn’t have a deal yet; Wilson is leading the offense in workouts and Wagner is right in there with his higher-paid defensive teammates.
Meanwhile, Bennett and Irvin are pouting about their contracts, boycotting voluntary work with the rest of the team.
Sure, Marshawn Lynch is not there either — but he never is. He prefers to work out at home in Oakland until mandatory camps, and the Hawks don’t care because they don’t run him during camps anyway.
This year, Irvin is training at home in Atlanta because he is upset the Hawks chose not to pick up his $7.75 million option for 2016.
Then there is Bennett, who told The Seattle Times last weekend that he wants to be paid among the top seven or eight at his position — which would entail a raise of about $3 million per year.
“Trying to get the contract right,’’ Bennett said. “I’ll be there shortly. I don’t know when I’ll be there. Depends on the team and stuff. See how it works out.
“I just want to be in the realm of the guys that play like me,’’ he said. “There are only so many guys that do what I do, and I would love to be like somewhere in there where they are at.’’
That clearly is not going to happen — at least not this year. The best John Schneider will do for him is offer to discuss it next year, when Bennett has two years left on his deal. But it’s hard to see the Hawks wanting to extend Bennett’s deal beyond the remaining three years, as OverTheCap.com suggested. Bennett will turn 30 in November.
Bennett and Irvin already were two of the team’s biggest chuckleheads. Bennett led the NFL with 13 pre-snap penalties last season; Irvin cost the Hawks a chance to beat the Chargers in San Diego with a late hit on Philip Rivers out of bounds; and both defenders added to the disappointing finish in the Super Bowl when they engaged in a brawl at the end of the game.
As good a player as Bennett is — he was superb in the Super Bowl — and as much as many people love his sound bites, the Hawks don’t really need him if he doesn’t want to play for them. And they certainly don’t need Irvin.
It’s no coincidence that Pete Carroll — at the Seahawks Town Hall on Wednesday — mentioned Cassius Marsh and Kevin Pierre-Louis as players he expects to break out this year. They are the guys who are practicing in place of Bennett and Irvin. Carroll clearly was sending a message to his pouting defenders by calling out the second-year players.
With rookie Frank Clark seemingly set to take Irvin’s pass-rush snaps and Kevin Williams interested in returning to the team, the Hawks could even trade Bennett and Irvin if they wanted to. Imagine a blockbuster deal before the season in which the Hawks sent both players to Dan Quinn in Atlanta for a first-round pick and perhaps a third-rounder.
Obviously the Hawks are very unlikely to make any move like that, and Bennett and Irvin almost surely will return in time for training camp — or even the mandatory minicamp June 16-18 — and do their best to earn better deals in 2016 while helping the Hawks win another Super Bowl.
But the fact that they are sitting out now and not working with Wilson, Wagner and the rest of their teammates clearly tells us Bennett and Irvin are not really in.
