The Seahawks’ contract agreement with Terrion Arnold is a definite gamble, and Mike Macdonald confirmed that today when he said he has no idea when the cornerback might be able to play for the team.

The coach said the Seahawks got “overwhelmingly positive” reports on Arnold from people who know him. Macdonald declined to say anything about the criminal case that led to Arnold being available to sign in the first place (after Detroit cut him), but he did say, “There’s allegations there that are serious. If you separate that from the person that they talk about (him being) on a daily basis and their history with him, it’s been overwhelmingly positive.”

You could loosely translate that to this: He’s a good person who got caught up in a bad situation and people should not be afraid of him coming into the community. Seems like that is about as close as Macdonald will come to saying that.

The coach also referred to the player being honest with him in their personal conversation.

“We had a great visit,” Macdonald said. “We had a great discussion. It was a real discussion. We just kept it real. I have a responsibility coming from the organization about what we expect and also what our vision would be for him and how it would operate, and he was great. He was great. I appreciated his honesty in those moments, and that’s really all you could ask for.”

The Seahawks obviously know enough about the case to feel confident that Arnold will be legally free to play football this year, as we expected. Macdonald said, “There’s an availability, if the league let’s it happen, that he could play.”

Seemingly, it rests on whether and how long Arnold might end up on the commissioner’s exempt list, which is where almost every player who faces allegations of a violent crime ends up. Typically, players are on that list (which is basically paid leave) until their felony cases are resolved.

Arnold has a status hearing Oct. 5. It’s hard to imagine charges being dropped entirely – they likely would have been by now. And it also seems unlikely that he will end up going to trial. The best-case scenario probably would involve reduced charges (not reporting a crime or obstruction, for example) and a plea deal that includes just probation – which might lead to him coming off the exempt list immediately (Week 5).  

We’ll find out more about that over the next few weeks. In the meantime, we expect Arnold to arrive Monday (even though Macdonald said he did not have a timeline yet) and start working his way into the defense over the rest of the month.  

“It’s a really great opportunity that we think his skill set fits in our secondary,” Macdonald said. “He plays with a lot of energy, physicality. Some of the pattern-match stuff that we do is more up his alley – (stuff) that he did at Alabama. And then just personality-wise, I think there’s an opportunity there, if he’s the best version of himself, that he could be a fit for us. So, we’ll see.”