Kam Chancellor and the Seattle Seahawks remain gridlocked in one of the worst holdouts in NFL history.

Chancellor will reportedly continue to miss regular season games until he receives more money, and his absence is sorely felt. The Seahawks’ secondary gave up a number of big plays late in the second half against the Rams en route to a Week 1 loss.

While Chancellor believes he deserves more money from Seattle, the Seahawks organisation has a firm policy to not restructure players’ contacts unless the contract is in its final year. Because this isn’t the case with Chancellor, Seattle is worried that if they relent and give Chancellor more money, other veteran members of the Seahawks roster will follow suit.

Prior to this season, at least one other key member of the Seahawks defence considered holding out along with Chancellor. Super Bowl MVP Michael Bennett skipped voluntary practices in the off-season to boycott his contract and said he would have joined Chancellor if not for one key difference — his wife.

“My situation is different than his,” Bennett told reporters on Thursday. “I’ve got three kids, I’ve got a wife. My wife wouldn’t let me hold out, so I had to come to work.”

That’s certainly one way to deal with contract negotiations!

But as Pro Football Talk noted, Bennett’s words perhaps provide some new insight to the logic of Chancellor’s holdout. Had Bennett held out alongside Chancellor, as it sounds like he had strongly considered, the Seahawks would have been in a much tighter spot and likely paid both players. For one thing, they couldn’t pay one and not the other, and missing both Chancellor and Bennett would be catastrophic for the Seahawks. If, say, a third key member of the Seahawks had joined them (Richard Sherman or Earl Thomas, for example), the Seahawks would have been in even more trouble.

It seems like Chancellor hoped his teammates would follow his lead. This, of course, didn’t end up happening, and in part because of Mrs. Bennett. Now Chancellor’s total losses from the holdout are set to pass $US2 million this weekend, and the Seahawks defence looks shaky without him. The Seahawks travel to Green Bay on Sunday and could be in danger of beginning the season 0-2.

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