The holdout Kam Chancellor is having is costing him money, but it’s also making the Seattle Seahawks think long and hard about the player that fills his shoes this season, and it just might be Dion Bailey.
The Seattle Times are reporting that the undrafted 23-year old out of USC will get his chance sooner rather than later because of Chancellor going all-in on his holdout to try and get a salary increase, which is proving to be quite costly for him, maybe even already losing his base salary for the season.
The Seahawks might have needed some time to realize, but Bailey is about to step up and play opposite Earl Thomas in the secondary. Richard Sherman is calling this a blessing in disguise, with more young and inexperienced players getting more chances than they initially would have gotten.
It’ll be interesting to see if Bailey gets to play what he’s assigned to do. If Thomas is healthy (currently with a shoulder injury), that might give Bailey more freedom in his role, with less definitive and rigid assignments.
The frustration over contracts and money is nothing new for the Seahawks, but they’ve been able to deal with it so far, until this offseason. Who knows, maybe Chancellor’s absence will be negligible as well if the Seahawks can keep their track record of finding gems at secondary where no one else seems to pick them up. If not, we might start to see a decline after three fantastic years.