DK Metcalf reports on time to Seahawks training camp. Now, will he practice?

DK Metcalf wasn’t about to give away money to make a statement.

He’s about to get money, instead.

As expected, the 24-year-old physical marvel who set a Seattle record for yards receiving in his Pro Bowl season of 2020 reported with his teammates on time for the start of Seahawks training camp in Renton Tuesday.

ESPN.com’s Brady Henderson was the first to report that.

It’s news because Metcalf skipped the team’s mandatory minicamp last month. It was the one relatively safe leverage play he could make while seeking a new, second contract beyond his rookie one that ends after the 2022 season. Skipping minicamp left him subject to fines of $30,000 for the three days of offseason practices in June, though the Seahawks per NFL rules were not obligated to fine him.

Coach Pete Carroll refused to say last month if the team did.

Skipping training camp results in a mandatory fine of $40,000 per day for players still on their rookie contracts, as Metcalf is, and $50,000 per day for veterans. The league’s collective bargaining agreement doesn’t leave fines for training camp absences up to teams. It’s a must.

Also, the new CBA between the league and its players states if a player in the final year of his rookie contract fails to report to camp, his season doesn’t accrue toward his first chance at free agency the following spring. Such holdouts from camp become a restricted free agent instead, losing tens of millions by missing out on the open market.

That wasn’t going to happen with Metcalf.

Now the question becomes whether he will practice with the team in the first workout of camp Wednesday afternoon.

He spent the offseason rehabilitating his foot on which he had surgery this winter. He’s been working out over the last month in Southern California, running and catching passes and appearing ready for training camp.

It’s become chic in the NFL for players seeking new contracts to report to training camp to avoid the mandatory fines that pile into six figures within three days, but to “hold in” and not practice until they get the money they want. Safety Quandre Diggs and left tackle Duane Brown did that to the Seahawks last summer.

The team eventually gave Diggs and Brown more guaranteed money up front for 2021. They re-signed Diggs, 29, this offseason for three years and $40 million following his two consecutive Pro Bowl seasons, the first two of his career. They let the 36-year-old Brown’s contract end without a new deal. Seattle drafted Charles Cross ninth overall in April to take Brown’s place as the starting left tackle.

Metcalf is due to earn $3.99 million in the final year of the contract he signed after Seattle traded up into the bottom of the second round to get him in the 2019 NFL draft. His draft classmate and former University of Mississippi teammate A.J. Brown got a $100 million, four-year deal from Philadelphia in a trade from Tennessee this spring.

It was the latest example of how the market for wide receivers has skyrocketed this offseason. That has Metcalf in line for at least $25 million per year for 2023 and beyond.

The Seahawks have a precedent of re-signing foundational players to contract extensions, particularly second NFL deals, on the first day or within the first days of training camps.

The final details to complete a contract this large is usually guaranteed money, how much and when it will be paid. Players seek increasing percentages of their total contract value to be guaranteed in this non-guaranteed sport. One injury can alter or end a career and NFL player’s earning potential.

In January, Metcalf said he wanted to stay with Seattle for as long as he can see.

“I’m not trying to leave,” he said six months ago.

He reiterated that in May on Hall of Famer Shannon Sharpe’s podcast, saying: “We’re going to get something done. I think I’m going to be in Seattle for the next couple of years.”

Carroll has said the team has no intention of letting Metcalf go after the 2022 season, and that getting this new contract done remains a top Seahawks priority.