Seahawks Take Next Step to Acquire Broncos' Marshall

Pete Carroll’s feel-good style was on display at the NFL owners meetings in Orlando, Florida when asked about the over time change.

When asked where Carroll was during the vote.

 “To tell you the truth I was probably at Space Mountain”.

At least Carroll is fired up but lets hope he doesn’t cut in front of an eight-year old waiting inline for the rides at Universal Orlando. Now to real off-season news there was a new found buzz regarding Denver Broncos’ restricted free agent wide receiver Brandon Marshall today at the NFL owners meetings.

According to the Denver Post’s Mike Klis the Seahawks have taken the “next step” to acquire Brandon Marshall from the Denver Broncos however he does site that nothing is imminent.

“There has been some talk,” Carroll said. “John has handled that so far. But it’s very preliminary.”

Now before fans can jump up and go down to Qwest Field to purchase their No. 15 Brandon Marshall jersey there are still some hurdles that both sides have to go through.

The Seahawks brought in Marshall for a “get-to-know you” visit back March 6th, however since then the Seahawks have taken a toned down approach to see who else is interested in the pro-bowl wide receiver.

Bad news for the Broncos’ is there are no other confirmed teams interested in Marshall making the leverage swing in Seattle’s favor.

The Seahawks know that with no other interested teams the price of both compensation and contract both diminish because they are only bidding against themselves.

Charlie Whitehurst’s two-year $8 million dollar contract with the Seahawks was higher than expected because there was another team bidding for his services, the Arizona Cardinals.

Simple math more teams the higher the compensation and contract figure.

So with Seattle being the only team involved with Marshall they now control the stakes of both contract and compensation terms.

Brandon Marshall is going to get paid there is no doubt about that but knowing how interested Marshall is in the Seahawks and vice-versa the terms of the contract might be a little lower than expected.

So now the question is where does this all lead to, Marshall, Seattle, compensation and contract. They all tie together but it won’t be an overnight trade. However according to a few close sources there is strong feeling that a deal could get done before the April 22nd draft.

What Seahawks general manager John Schneider is doing right now and will continue to do over the rest of this week is meet with Brandon Marshall’s agent Kennard McGuire to see if the two sides can come to an agreement on a long-term contract.

Once Schneider and Brandon’s agent settle on a contract then the Seahawks and Broncos can work out compensation for the star wide receiver.

Seattle has been animate that they will not sign Marshall to an offer sheet which would result in giving up the sixth overall pick in the upcoming draft however they are willing to negotiate reasonable compensation.

The Seahawks have been active in recent weeks to acquire more picks in the 2010 draft (fourth-round pick from Philadelphia) as well as having their second-round pick now No.60 overall and other player chips as well.

Seattle was in the same situation with the Chargers and Charlie Whitehurst who received a third-round tender.

The Seahawks don’t have a third-round pick in this year’s draft so both Seattle and San Diego came to an agreement on reasonable compensation.

The Seahawks wound up surrendering twenty spots in the second-round as well as a third-round pick in 2011 in order to acquire Whitehurst.

However Whitehurst and Seattle already had a contract in place before the trade was confirmed which would be the same case here with Marshall. What will have to happen is over the next week or so Seattle and Marshall’s agent will most likely come to an agreement on a long-term contract (not signed but in place).

Then once the Broncos and Seahawks come to an agreement on trade compensation Brandon Marshall would then sign his one-year tender with the Broncos and then be traded to Seattle.

Once the trade became official Marshall would sign the long-term contract that would have already been in place before the trade went down. So obviously there are a lot of moving parts involved that will take place over the next week or so but with nothing imminent as of now the Seahawks and Broncos will still be working out details involving a possible Brandon Marshall trade.

The compensation for the Broncos is what will take the most amount of time because Marshall has already told close friends he wants to be in Seattle and a member of the Seahawks organization.

Notes:

-ESPN NFC East blogger Matt Mosley listed the Seahawks as one of six teams that could interest Donovan McNabb.

-The Seahawks have brought in free agent guard Chester Pitts for a visit but are more keen on Ben Hamilton over Pitts.

-The Seahawks are not interested in trading for Miami guard Justin Smily. -It is also worth nothing that Brandon Marshall and TJ Houshmandzadeh both share the same agent. Houshmandzadeh signed a five-year $40 million dollar contract with Seattle last off-season and TJ has been pushing for Marshall to come to Seattle since the off-season began.