KIRKLAND, Wash. -- When the Seahawks were trying to draft overlooked Lofa Tatupu three years ago out of Southern California, they couldn't reach him. He was in a beach house -- and out of reception area for the family's cell phones, the only numbers the middle linebacker had given Seattle.
"Do you want to play football or what?" Seahawks coach Mike Holmgren growled when he finally talked to Tatupu that day.
Now, after three Pro Bowl seasons, the Seahawks have gone from not being able to get a hold of Tatupu to not wanting to ever get rid of him.
Tatupu and the four-time defending NFC West champions agreed on Friday to a $42 million contract extension that could keep him as the leader of Seattle's defense through 2015. It also keeps Tatupu from becoming a free agent after the 2009 season.
"This isn't just Good Friday. It's great Friday," Tatupu told Seahawks president Tim Ruskell upon finalizing the contract.
The deal reworks the final two years on the original contract he signed after being selected in the second round out of USC in 2005, plus six more years worth a potential $42 million.
Fletcher Smith, Tatupu's agent, said the deal includes about $18 million in guaranteed money from 2008 to 2010 and is similar in structure to the $50 million, nine-year contract Chicago Bears star middle linebacker Brian Urlacher signed in 2003, also three years into his career.
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| 'I think I've exceeded a lot of people's expectations, but not my own,' Lofa Tatupu says. (Getty Images) |
Not bad for the sixth linebacker taken in '05 because he was supposedly too slow and too short. Last season he became the second player in Seahawks' history to be named to the Pro Bowl in each of his first three years.
"He has gone way over what anyone could expect from a guy who has played in the league as long as he has," Holmgren said.
Anyone, that is, except Tatupu.
"I think I've exceeded a lot of people's expectations, but not my own," he said with his mother, Linnea, and his girlfriend of six years, Rachel Marcott, sitting a few feet to his right.
The Seahawks were already pressed against their salary cap for 2008. Ruskell said it took Tatupu's defensive mates Patrick Kerney, Deon Grant, Jordan Babineaux and Craig Terrill restructuring their contracts to get the new deal done for the defense's beloved signal caller.
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