|
 |   |
|
EVENTS Fantasy Central Inside Game Multimedia Central Statitudes Your Turn Message Boards Email Newsletters Golf Guide Cities Work in Sports
CNNSI.com GROUP
COMMERCE |  |
'The deal speaks for itself' Seahawks happy to be done with Galloway situation
Posted: Saturday February 12, 2000 06:31 PM
KIRKLAND, Wash. (AP) -- After Joey Galloway's bitter 101-day holdout, which cost the Seattle Seahawks his services for half a season, Mike Holmgren decided to get rid of his unhappy wide receiver. The Seahawks did that Saturday, when Holmgren, the team's coach and general manager, traded Galloway to the Dallas Cowboys. In return, the Seahawks received two first-round draft selections: Dallas' 19th pick in April's draft and the Cowboys' first-round choice next year. Holmgren sounded happy that he'd rid himself of a problem player. "I certainly wanted him last year with us the whole season," he told a news conference. "It didn't work that way, unfortunately. When you go through something like that, you sure don't want to go through something like that again. I don't ever want to do that again. "The way I look at this is that it is really a win-win situation for the Seahawks and Dallas," Holmgren added. "We get a couple more picks. We're a growing and, in some instances, a young team, with some holes in the dike that we have to fill. They get a very, very good player who will probably go very nicely with their quarterback." On Thursday, the Seahawks named Galloway as their exclusive franchise player after an arbitrator in Washington, D.C., ruled he was an unrestricted free agent. By putting the team's exclusive franchise player tag on Galloway, the Seahawks controlled which team or teams he could talk to. On Friday, Holmgren granted permission to Cowboys owner Jerry Jones to talk to Galloway. Galloway fired his agents, Eric Metz and Ethan Lock, on Friday night and hired a new agent, Leigh Steinberg. The Cowboys were the only team that talked to Galloway, though Baltimore, Cleveland, Washington and Philadelphia also reportedly were interested in acquiring his services. Galloway's departure leaves the Seahawks with Mike Pritchard and Sean Dawkins as their prime receivers returning for sure. The team would like to keep wide receiver Derrick Mayes, but could lose him as a free agent. Galloway, from Ohio State, was Seattle's first-round draft pick and the eighth overall choice in the 1995 draft. Although he was never selected to play in the Pro Bowl, Galloway became one of the NFL's top deep threats because of his blazing speed. He had three 1,000-yard receiving seasons. But he butted heads with Holmgren and refused to come to training camp. Then he missed the exhibition season and the Seahawks' first eight games, and Holmgren took a $35 million, seven-year contract offer off the table for Galloway. The Seahawks made the playoffs for the first time since 1988 and had their first winning season since 1990 under Holmgren, but Galloway wasn't much of a contributor. The team was 6-2 without him and 3-6 with him, including a playoff loss to Miami in which he made one reception for 22 yards. In eight games, he had 22 catches for 335 yards and one touchdown. The holdout ruined Galloway's season, Holmgren said. "You compare what he did to what he had done previously and it wasn't the same," the coach said. "Regardless of how gifted a player is, to miss all that time and to come off the street and play and think you can function like you're used to functioning, that doesn't happen." However, Holmgren said he didn't believe Galloway's lackluster season hurt his market value. "The deal speaks for itself, I believe," he said. By dealing Galloway, the Seahawks subtracted the $4.095 million they were going to have to pay him as their exclusive franchise player from the team's salary cap of $62.2 million. During the week, the Seahawks released guard Brian Habib, center Kevin Glover, linebacker Darrin Smith and fullback Mack Strong to help them get under the salary cap. Holmgren said he waived Habib, a starter last season, and Glover, a starter whose season was cut short because of a blood clot in his lung, because he didn't think they could help the Seahawks any longer. "Right now, we don't have a tremendous amount of room in the cap," Holmgren said. "Quite frankly, I had to let go of a couple of players and I will have to probably release a couple more players." In addition to Dallas' 19th pick in the first round, the Seahawks have their own first-round choice, No. 22. The Seahawks could lose two starting defensive linemen, end Phillip Daniels and tackle Sam Adams, as free agents. They'd like to keep at least one of them.
| ||||||||||||||||||||
