We found ourselves one Sunday closer to the 2018 NFL season on July 1st, and surprisingly there was a bit of football news that dropped.
Longtime Seattle Seahawks safety (hold your breath) Kam Chancellor essentially announced his retirement from the game he dominated. It sounds like the end of an era.
Gods Grace pic.twitter.com/60J2DugpD1
— Kameron Chancellor (@KamChancellor) July 1, 2018
While the move isn’t technically a retirement, Chancellor appears to be moving on from football. This means the last member of the “Legion of Boom” standing in Seattle is the safety Cowboys fans have been coveting since he announced his desire to play for the team on Christmas Eve, Earl Thomas.
There have been rumors that Kam’s time in the game could be over, but now that it seems official the reality is obviously more clear. Now that Earl Thomas is the last LOBer left, there are two potential ways the Seahawks could look at this situation if they are still interested in trading him.
The Seahawks might not want to purge the entire Legion of Boom all at once
In one offseason the Seahawks have now released Richard Sherman and had to watch Kam Chancellor walk away. Earl Thomas is the third leg of the tripod that served as the face of this group. It might be too much to get rid of it all in one fell swoop.
The biggest name within their franchise is inarguably, partly because of the position he plays, Russell Wilson. Gone are the days of Beast Mode, moving on from the whole LOB at once could be too drastic of a change for the organization and fans alike. As Cowboys fans we know this well as three franchise-defining players have left just in the last two years.
It might be too daunting for the Seahawks to rip the entire band-aid off all at once. Maybe they think they’re good enough to compete, or maybe they just aren’t ready to say goodbye to everyone all at once, but maybe they feel something else.
Seattle might now be in a firesale sort of mood
Seattle is in a division with some serious up-and-comers. The Los Angeles Rams are the favorites to win the NFC West (they added plenty of stars over the offseason) and the San Francisco 49ers are expected to take the next step in Jimmy Garoppolo’s first season in the Bay Area.
Nobody ever wants to, but Seattle might be mature enough to accept that it just isn’t in the cards for 2018. It’s true that anything is possible, but it stands to reason that the Seahawks are looking at a steep uphill climb this season.
There’s already a large level of logic to trading away Earl Thomas for the Seahawks. For one, he’s holding out and wants a new deal that they don’t want to give him. Secondly, it doesn’t seem like Seattle is going to pay him and his deal is up next offseason. Why not cash out now for whatever you can instead of being left hanging a year from now after a year of simply treading water?
The calendar now reads July which means training camp is officially this month (huzzah!). If a move is ever going to happen for Earl Thomas and the Cowboys then logic stands to reason that it could be soon.
Is Kam Chancellor’s announcement a domino that pushes Thomas to Dallas or does it make the Seahawks hold onto him even more tightly? Only time will tell.