Seahawks top draft pick Devon Witherspoon ends holdout, signs rookie contract deal

At 1:24 p.m. Friday, it could finally, officially, be said that Devon Witherspoon was a Seattle Seahawk.

After signing his four-year rookie deal a few hours earlier, Witherspoon took the field Friday afternoon for his first training-camp practice with the Seahawks, and also his first in front of fans.

He did so jogging through the tunnel and raising both arms as he headed onto the field at the VMAC, fans surrounding him.

He greeted a few teammates, who gave him some congratulatory handshakes, and joined the cornerback line as the Seahawks began pre-practice conditioning.

Thus ended a two-day holdout for player who was the No. 5 overall pick in the 2023 draft, an impasse that never figured to last long.

Witherspoon will get a four-year deal worth $31.86 million that includes a signing bonus of $20.17 million.

Those details were not in dispute as all rookie contracts are slotted by draft position via the league’s collective bargaining agreement. Witherspoon and the Seahawks had been at odds over how much of that signing bonus he would get up front — Witherspoon was said to want it all, while the Seahawks wanted to pay much of it now, as much as 75%, and the rest by April, sticking to their long-standing policy of not paying out all of large signing bonuses at once.

Initial national reports did not indicate if the Seahawks budged, but there were indications that the team had not. Regardless, he will get all of the money eventually and most of it soon.

And as safety Quandre Diggs had said the day before when asked about the impasse, once Witherspoon returned it would be “water under the bridge.’’

That appeared to be the case Friday as the Seahawks began quickly reintegrating Witherspoon into what is a loaded cornerback room.

Witherspoon worked mostly with the backups, and appeared to play mostly on the outside at both right and left cornerback.

He had been used inside at the nickel spot some during the offseason program in the spring and coach Pete Carroll said Thursday that he would be used there again once he returns, and on Friday his snaps were surely kept limited as the team re-integrates him into things.

Seattle continued to use Michael Jackson (right) and Tre Brown (left) as the starting outside cornerbacks with second-year player Coby Bryant generally manning the nickel, an alignment the team has used with Witherspoon out and Riq Woolen on the physically unable to perform list after having arthroscopic knee surgery in May. Woolen has been attending practices and Carroll indicated he will be back soon.

“They’ll both play nickel and both will be competing there,” Carroll said Wednesday of Witherspoon and Bryant. “Really happy for the depth at corner. Today we jumped out with Tre and Michael playing corner when Woolen and Devon aren’t out there. It shows we have really nice depth there with Coby playing the nickel spot. That’s going to be a very competitive position throughout and we can’t wait to see what happens. Coby did a really nice job of nickel for us last year and Devon seems natural playing there as well. We’ll see how it goes and figure out the right mix. We may get them out on the field all at the same time.”

If Witherspoon is working with the second unit — and with it unclear what will be his position — few doubt that when the regular season rolls around he will have a major role.

“The biggest thing I think, he’s going to help us out a lot,’’ said receiver Tyler Lockett after Friday’s practice. “I think it doesn’t matter if we put him at corner, if we put him at nickel. The biggest thing is his value and what he brings, that physical toughness that we look for in corners just to be able to make that tackle and just to be able to guard the best receivers.’’

Certainly, the Seahawks are past what was their first holdout of any kind by a draft pick since the rookie wage scale took effect in 2011.

Carroll said Wednesday he did not expect the holdout by Witherspoon — who was the only one of the 259 players taken in the draft last April — to last long.

“He knows everything he needs to know,’’ Carroll said. “I can’t imagine he won’t be here very soon. … It’s so clean that it will be over. He knows what’s going on right now and we’ll see what happens.”

Witherspoon, who was not made available to the media, will count $5.7 million against the team’s salary cap.

The Seahawks made several moves in the past week to open up some cap space, aimed in part at signing Witherspoon.

As reported by OvertheCap.com on Friday, a three-year extension for rush end Uchenna Nwosu opened up about $3 million in cap space for 2023, giving Seattle just over $16 million. But then adding the signing of Witherspoon, Seattle had about $11 million in cap space, when accounting for all of the team’s recent moves.

That may seem like a lot, but about half of that has to be reserved for the practice squad and the injured reserve list during the regular season. The Seahawks also like to leave enough to account for things that may happen during the season, such as incentives being reached, and also having enough to be flexible if a player acquisition suddenly becomes available, such as the Jadeveon Clowney trade in 2019.

There was no initial indication they had a specific immediate move in mind with the cap space created over the past week, though with the Seahawks nothing would be a surprise.

There had been speculation the Seahawks would use some of their newfound cap space to bring back defensive lineman Shelby Harris. But in what was apparent acknowledgment that his return isn’t imminent, he was reported to have had a visit Friday with Denver — the team that traded him to Seattle a year ago March as part of the Russell Wilson deal.