Cohen: No one deserves to be Seahawks lifer more than Chancellor

Safety Kam Chancellor signed a new contract extension with Seattle Tuesday that should allow him to retire as a Seahawk. Check out the rest of the gallery for some of our favorite SeattlePI staff photos of Chancellor through the years. less Safety Kam Chancellor signed a new contract extension with Seattle Tuesday that should allow him to retire as a Seahawk. Check out the rest of the gallery for some of our favorite SeattlePI staff photos of ... more Photo: GRANT HINDSLEY, SEATTLEPI.COM Photo: GRANT HINDSLEY, SEATTLEPI.COM Image 1 of / 35 Caption Close Cohen: No one deserves to be Seahawks lifer more than Chancellor 1 / 35 Back to Gallery

Two years ago, Kam Chancellor shocked the Seahawks' front office, the media and fans when he didn't show up for the start of training camp.

Maybe he got some bad advice from agent Alvin Keels. Maybe he got a glimpse of his football mortality after playing through a series of injuries during the 2014 season, including a badly sprained knee suffered just days before Seattle's Super Bowl loss to New England six months previous. Maybe he felt like he needed more security in the form of guaranteed money and hoped to emulate the result teammate Marshawn Lynch secured the year prior.

Whatever the reason, "Bam Bam" didn't show up at the team's headquarters at the Virginia Mason Athletic Center at all during training camp. Or during the preseason. Or for the team's first two games of the regular season, both losses.

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Chancellor's absence was so puzzling, so out of character for a player who had been the team's spiritual leader; head coach Pete Carroll's proxy on the field and in the locker room.

"Let's not pretend Chancellor is simply any player asking for a raise," I wrote at the time. "He is the heart and backbone of a historically great defensive unit. In a room full of big personalities and bigger egos, Chancellor is the moral center. To call him a leader is a disservice to how much his teammates think of him."

A somewhat deflated Chancellor returned to Seattle after the two defeats, saying he wanted to rejoin his teammates and help them work through the aftermath of the Super Bowl loss and the early-season hole. He was contrite and slightly more withdrawn with reporters than he had been prior, seemingly stung by the criticism he'd received. He didn't apologize for the holdout, but regretted its lingering effects on his his teammates, telling a reporter, "I was messing up that brotherly bond for the sake of money."

He made amends with Legion of Boom teammates Earl Thomas and Richard Sherman after the 2015 season, then turned in one of the best seasons of his seven-year career last year despite suffering through another set of injuries.

Coming into the 2017 season, the final campaign covered by the four-year, $32 million extension he signed with Seattle in 2013, there were questions about whether Chancellor's banged-up body and once-bruised ego would allow him and the team to find a way to agree on another deal.

Those questions were put to rest on Tuesday, when the team announced a three-year, $36 million extension that should allow the now 29-year-old to retire as a Seahawk.

"It's a marvelous day for the whole organization," Carroll said Tuesday. "It's great to have him and we'll get him for the rest of his career."

A fifth-round pick in Carroll's first season in Seattle, Chancellor waited behind Lawyer Milloy before taking Milloy's job and earning his first Pro Bowl selection in 2011. The strong, silent type, Chancellor meshed with Thomas' barely contained freneticism to forge the best young-safety duo in the league in 2012. Joined by the loquacious, larger-than-life Sherman and the physical Brandon Browner, the foursome established the Legion of Boom secondary, the unit that became the team's defensive calling card and the face of a brand new contender.

Known for its uncanny ability to come up with a game-changing hit or turnover, the LOB was the driving force behind the team that faced off against the arch-rival San Francisco 49ers -- ask former Niners tight end Vernon Davis how that went -- destroyed the Denver Broncos in Super Bowl XLVIII and suffered a heartbreaking defeat to the Patriots a year later in Super Bowl XLIX.

Chancellor was the first player of Carroll's core group to receive a contract extension, which took some outside of Seattle by surprise. Now, he's the first to receive a second extension, which should make players like Thomas and Sherman take notice as they enter the final years of their respective contracts next year.

"The first time I signed my deal was just another process, another cycle," Chancellor said Tuesday. "I was one of the first ones to sign at the beginning, four or five years ago. So the guys are going to be in line right after me. When their time comes up, it's going to be another cycle over and over again."

RELATED: Multi-year extension is 'relief' for Seahawks' Kam Chancellor

This cycle will feature Chancellor and Co. in slightly different roles, particularly after Seattle selected four defensive backs in the 2017 draft, including a Chancellor type in third-round safety Delano Hill. But if Chancellor sees the youngsters as a threat, he's not saying so. Instead, he said, it's time to put on his "coaching hat."

"Coaching helps me learn more and more, little by little -- things that I don't see, things that I catch on (to) from year to year," he said. "So helping guys coming in now -- the guys behind us, the young guys coming in, the guys who've come from other teams -- I think it's just another step to the process of me evolving to (be) a better player."

If Chancellor somehow becomes a better player on his second extension, the Seahawks' front office will look like a bunch of geniuses for the way they treated him through the years. As things stand, his career -- and his new deal -- sends a message to the rest of the players in Seattle's locker room.

"We are committed to these guys, we are committed to the core guys, they have been incredible in this program," Carroll said. "This is just his opportunity and his turn, and we are pleased."

Over the years, Chancellor has shown an ability and willingness to use both his successes and failures as examples for teammates to follow and lessons for them to learn. That contrasts him with quarterback Russell Wilson, who has a difficult time showing vulnerability, Thomas, whose intensity sometimes makes it hard for teammates to relate to him, or Sherman, whose anti-authority streak makes him too volatile to emulate. Perhaps that's why, more than any player in the Carroll era, Chancellor deserves to be a Seahawk for life.

Check out the gallery above for some of our favorite SeattlePI staff photos of Kam Chancellor through the years.

Seattlepi.com reporter Stephen Cohen can be reached at 206-448-8313 or stephencohen@seattlepi.com. Follow Stephen on Twitter at @scohenPI.