Cap Still Has Negotiations Bottled Up

Seahawks officials haven’t lost their sense of humor as they attempt to sign first-round draft picks Shawn Springs and Walter Jones.

“We just signed Mr. Jones,” executive vice president Mickey Loomis told a handful of reporters Wednesday afternoon in Cheney.

After the necessary pause, he supplied the punch line with a grin: “Carlos Jones.”

Carlos Jones was the Hawks’ seventh-round selection. He’s contending for a reserve role in the secondary.

Walter Jones is expected to start at offensive left tackle.

To Randy Mueller, vice president of operations, the negotiations are clear-cut, the math indisputable.

“We only have a certain amount of dollars to sign two guys,” said Mueller, who spent another fruitless day of discussions with Springs’ and Jones’ respective agents.

“We’re not into this very far, so it’s not ugly by any means. We’re trying to be as creative as we can.”

Seattle has roughly $3.28 million to sign the pair. The Hawks reportedly are leaning toward six-year contracts and retain hope of having the two in training camp by the weekend.

“It’s not fair for me to say what Walter’s getting himself into,” said second-year guard Pete Kendall, a camp holdout for five days last year. “The most important thing is to come into training camp with nothing else but football on your mind. Walter’s a young kid, and he’s young for a rookie because he only has one year of major college experience (at Florida State).

“He’s going to see some things up at this level he’s never really seen before. Conversely, I saw the same things and I had five years of major college experience. It’s just a matter of getting in here and learning the techniques. He’s a tremendous athlete. He may pick that stuff up in two weeks.”

Get used to it

Some Seahawks insisted they didn’t mind as the afternoon sun scorched Wednesday’s no-pads, 90-minute practice.

“This is a cakewalk,” defensive tackle Sam Adams said, “until we get those pads on and it gets to 90 degrees. This is nice weather.”

The pads go on for today’s 9 a.m. workout. The remainder of practices, coach Dennis Erickson hinted, will be plentiful.

“I love the weather. If it stays like this every day, we’ve got a chance,” Erickson said. “My thought is to be in two-a-days a lot more than last year, but a lot of that depends on injuries.”

, DataTimes