Pete Carroll says Seahawks’ offer to Golden Tate in 2014 ‘didn’t get communicated really well’

SEATTLE – Seattle’s wild-card playoff game against Detroit on Saturday marks another reunion with a key member of the Seahawks’ 2013 Super Bowl champs – receiver Golden Tate.

And in comments made to Detroit reporters during a conference call Tuesday morning, Seahawks coach Pete Carroll made clear that he had hoped that Tate would remain in Seattle – while saying he’s not sure Tate understood how much Seattle wanted to keep him.

Tate became an unrestricted free agent following the season and signed with Detroit almost immediately when the signing period opened, agreeing to a five-year, $31 million deal that included $13.25 million guaranteed.

Tate agreed to the contract while on a visit to Detroit, with the Lions portrayed as essentially willing to do whatever it took to get him to sign before leaving to visit anyone else.

Tate has said in several interviews since that he felt the Seahawks sort of low-balled him, at one point calling the offer “laughable.”

In an interview that day on KJR-AM Tate said: “I tried to find every excuse to justify coming back. But at the end of the day it just didn’t make sense for me or my family. I didn’t feel like I was going to get what I was worthy, despite the market, despite the draft class.”

Carroll, in what are some of the more expansive comments he’s made on the topic, said Tuesday that he thinks Tate was unaware of what the Seahawks were willing to offer him.

“We did try to bring him back,” Carroll told Detroit media. “We made an offer that didn’t get communicated really well at the time and I think he’s a terrific player. I loved him on our team, but you can’t keep everybody and so during the process of the negotiations it just, he went elsewhere. But our players and our coaches, we think the world of him and he’s fun to watch and we watch him every week and we’ll have a good time competing against him.”

Asked what it meant that the offer didn’t get communicated to Tate, Carroll said: “I’m not going into it. That’s the agent’s talk. You can talk to them.”

Asked if the numbers were close, Carroll said: “I don’t remember those numbers at the time, but I’ll just tell you this. There was a time when Golden didn’t know that we had made him an offer and he thought we didn’t, and that’s because it wasn’t communicated. I just felt bad about that. I don’t even know what the numbers were at the time, but that wasn’t the point.

“It was we were interested in bringing him back and he didn’t get that sense from us, and I was disappointed in that. But they were going to go higher than we were able to go anyway. I just think the world of him and I didn’t like that it didn’t come across really clearly at the time. That’s my opinion of it. And at this point, I could care less about it.”

It’s worth remembering Seattle’s situation at the time.

Seattle had Percy Harvin returning and also had Doug Baldwin and Jermaine Kearse emerging – Baldwin signed an extension a few months later.

Seattle also that year re-signed Michael Bennett, Richard Sherman and Earl Thomas. Essentially, it was generally considered that Tate was sort of the odd man out when it came to free-agent priority, with Seattle banking on Harvin, Baldwin and Kearse and what was regarded at the time as a really good receiving class in the draft (Seattle used its first pick on Paul Richardson and another in the fourth round on Kevin Norwood).

Tate also expressed enthusiasm at the time about going to an offense that passes more (at the time, almost no one in the NFL was passing less than Seattle).

Tate’s numbers have indeed increased substantially – after catching a then career-high 64 passes in 2013 to lead the Seahawks, Tate has caught 90 or more in each of his three seasons in Detroit, including a team-high 91 this season for 1,077 yards.

Carroll told Detroit reporters he is not surprised by Tate’s increased production with the Lions.

“Well, I think he’s had an opportunity to be in a system that was willing to really go for it with him, and he’s taken full advantage of it,” Carroll said. “He’s a great player and a great athlete. The more activity the better for him. As you know, he’s such a great run-after-catch guy, too. They were just more committed to dropback throwing and utilizing him in the way they have, and they’ve done a great job with him.”

Tate first returned to Seattle for a Monday night game last October, catching three passes for 29 yards in a 13-10 Seahawks win.