SEATTLE -- The Seattle Seahawks said no thanks to Steve Hutchinson.
The Seahawks were told Monday they needed to match the guarantee provision in the $49 million, seven-year Minnesota offer to their All-Pro guard if they wanted to keep him.
A team official for the NFC champions confirmed they let the league's midnight Monday (EST) deadline pass without doing anything, making one of the keys to their Super Bowl season now the highest-paid Vikings lineman.
In fact, Hutchinson's agent, Tom Condon, said the Seahawks never contacted him about possibly matching the offer after Hutchinson signed the unprecedented offer sheet on March 12.
When asked if Hutchinson wanted to leave the team that drafted him 17th overall out of Michigan in 2001, Condon said: "Not at all. I think that there wasn't any reason for him to leave Seattle.
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| The Seahawks lose half of their dominating OL duo. (AP) |
The Vikings' seven-year contract became binding at 12:01 a.m. (EST) Tuesday. It includes $16 million guaranteed and is the richest deal ever given to a guard.
And Monday's ruling means it just got richer.
The most guaranteed money in NFL history is the $34.5 million signing bonus Peyton Manning received in March of 2004 from Indianapolis, part of a record $98 million Colts contract.
A league spokesman and an attorney for the NFL players' union confirmed that a special master ruled against Seattle earlier Monday, saying a provision guaranteeing all of the $49 million in the offer sheet Hutchinson signed with Minnesota should he not be the team's highest-paid offensive lineman is valid.
"The Seahawks lost," NFL Players Association general counsel Richard Berthelsen said.
The two teams had declined comment on the ruling.
Berthelsen attended the two-hour hearing Monday in Philadelphia before special master Stephen Burbank, who ruled on the matter.
