By Rick Anderson
For The Daily World
After obtaining broadcast rights to National Basketball Association games during the late 1970s, CBS Television commissioned a rather cheesy introductory theme song that contained the lyric, “The time is now. The name of the game is action.”
Some 40 years later, executives of two Seattle professional teams didn’t get the message.
The Seattle Seahawks remain in a stalemate with All-Pro safety Earl Thomas, with Thomas continuing his training-camp holdout in an attempt to receive a lucrative contract extension. If the extension is not granted, Thomas is requesting a trade.
In contrast, Seattle Mariners general manager Jerry Dipoto hasn’t exactly been sitting idly — completing trades for three relief pitchers and a journeyman outfielder in the past few days. But the major league trading deadline passed without Dipoto pulling the trigger on a blockbuster deal.
Both organizations have legitimate reasons for their management strategy. Nevertheless, their patience (or caution) might not be rewarded. In professional sports, action usually trumps inaction.
The Seahawks-Thomas deadlock can be summarized simply. Thomas wants a contract that would make him the highest-paid safety in pro football. After seeing a run of seven consecutive playoff appearances end last year with an aging roster, the Seahawks appear to be in a rebuilding mode. They’ve already cut ties with such defensive stalwarts as Richard Sherman and Michael Bennett, among others.
While management’s official position is that Thomas is under contract for one more year and should be in camp, the subtext is that a fat future contract in a sport with a salary cap would hinder Seattle’s restructuring efforts.
There’s only one flaw with this argument. Thomas deserves the money.
While some others (Sherman, Kenny Easley, possibly Steve Largent before Jerry Rice came along) can make that claim, there are only three Seahawks in franchise history that, to my mind, were clearly the best in the business at their respective positions.
Offensive tackle Walter Jones was one. The late defensive lineman Cortez Kennedy was another. Thomas is the third.
Although Sherman and recently retired safety Kam Chancellor were the faces of the Legion of Boom, Thomas represented the secondary’s foundation. More than any other player in recent history, his occasional absences due to injury had a huge impact on Seattle’s defensive fortunes.
Although he has hinted at early retirement and famously expressed a desire last year to eventually join the Dallas Cowboys, Thomas is young enough at 29 to remain a key contributor for several years.
In contrast to their baseball and pro basketball brethren, NFL teams often need only two or three years to rebuild. A healthy and happy Earl Thomas would accelerate the process for the Seahawks.
The poisoning of the relationship between Thomas and management, however, makes a divorce seem inevitable.
The Mariners, on the other hand, are not in a rebuilding mode. Once considered to be a lock for no worse than a wild-card playoff berth following an overachieving opening 80 games of the American League baseball season, they struggled mightily in July and were caught by the surging Oakland Athletics on Wednesday in the race for the AL’s second wild-card slot.
The M’s haven’t made the playoffs since 2001 — the longest postseason drought of any franchise in professional sports.
Given the team’s recent difficulties, there were two schools of thought on Seattle’s biggest need as the trading deadline approached.
One faction argued that a top starting pitcher was necessary to counteract Felix Hernandez’s career decline and Wade LeBlanc’s anticipated second-half drop-off. Others, noting Seattle’s inability to consistently manufacture runs against even mediocre pitching, believed that a slugging outfielder (particularly one capable of playing center field) was a higher priority.
Despite possessing greater financial resources than usual (courtesy of not having to pay Robinson Cano during his 80-game PED-related suspension), Dipoto chose neither option.
Traditionally passive at the trading deadline despite his reputation as an aggressive dealer otherwise, the Mariner GM acquired a trio of middle-inning relievers who might represent a slight upgrade over the likes of Nick Vincent and Juan Nicasio. He then picked up the well-traveled Cameron Maybin, a possible improvement over Guillermo Heredia in center.
Dipoto’s defenders can offer a litany of excuses as to why more wasn’t done at the deadline.
The M’s lacked the minor-league prospects to offer in exchange for top-level talent. They didn’t want to sacrifice their future to obtain a player they might possess for only two months. Slugging center fielders were in short supply and one mentioned as a target, former Mariner Adam Jones, had the contractual right to reject a trade from Baltimore (which he evidently did on a deal that would have sent him to Philadelphia).
Some of those arguments are valid. But they ignore one inescapable fact.
Nearly all of the playoff contenders, including the traditionally conservative-spending Athletics and Pittsburgh Pirates, made at least one major move at the trading deadline. The Mariners — again — did not.
That could well haunt them if the longest playoff drought in professional sports reaches 18 years.
