[Seahawker 562]

INDIANAPOLIS -- In the end, and just before the deadline for doing so, the Seahawks decided Thursday to use their franchise tag on linebacker Leroy Hill.

Club president Tim Ruskell made the announcement during a break at the NFL scouting combine.

With the decision comes an $8.304 million tender, but Ruskell said the clubs will continue negotiating with Hill and his agent, Todd France, in hopes of signing the fifth-year linebacker to a long-term contract.
The Seahawks took the same approach last year with cornerback Marcus Trufant. They used the franchise tag to restrict his mobility in free agency and then signed him to a multi-year contract.

"I wouldn't say we're exactly close," Ruskell said of the negations with
France regarding Hill. "But it's been good-faith negotiating and this allows us to keep doing that while protecting our rights to the player."
By using the non-exclusive tag on Hill, he can sign an offer sheet with another team after the free agency period begins Feb. 27 but the Seahawks would get two first-round draft choices as compensation if they decided against matching the offer.

The decision to franchise Hill was not a slam dunk, because of the size of the tender, the reality that the team already has some much of its salary cap committed to linebackers Julian Peterson and Lofa Tatupu and the fact that Hill was arrest last month for alleged marijuana possession in Atlanta.

"It's been a difficult ordeal, with many twists and turns," Ruskell said.
The club brought Hill in last week to talk with him about the incident in Atlanta and also to have Hill meet the new members of the defensive coaching staff.

"I had to see him face-to-face, and hear that from him and see the sincerity," Ruskell said. "Had Leroy said, 'No, I'm not coming in,' we would be going down a different path right now."


This is good and bad news in my opinion. Tatupu and Peterson both have admitted that Hill was the better LB of the 3, about time he got recognized. But at the same time he took away a lot of money that could of gone towards FA