Giants a long shot at best to land Chancellor from Seahawks

By staff
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Updated: September 6, 2015

If the Seattle Seahawks ever decide to deal their holdout safety Kam Chancellor, the Giants made it clear they want in on the bidding.

But it still remains a longshot that it will ever get that far.

The Giants did indeed place a call to Seattle over the weekend, according to a team source, to see if the Seahawks would trade the 27-year-old, three-time Pro Bowler who has yet to report to the Seahawks and is threatening to stay away until they renegotiate his contract. But according to multiple NFL sources, many teams have reached out to the Seahawks for the same reason.

And those sources all believe the Seahawks either won’t trade Chancellor, or will set a price that is prohibitively high.

It wasn’t immediately clear what the Giants were told. There were reports on Saturday that the Giants and Seahawks were engaged in “serious” trade discussions, but one team source indicated the call was mostly to express an interest and gauge the situation and perhaps the price.

So at least the door isn’t closed, at least not on the Giants’ end. The Seahawks, though, have never appeared interested in moving Chancellor, and a source familiar with his situation said he hasn’t been granted permission to seek a trade or discuss a contract with other teams. And any team that trades for him would surely want to have that conversation, since Chancellor is entering the second year of a four-year, $ 28 million contract and is due $ 4.55 million in salary this season and carries a salary cap number of $ 5.65 million – and he wants more.

How much more isn’t exactly clear since Chancellor’s demands for a new deal haven’t gone public. But he surely saw what safety Devin McCourty got from the Patriots in March – a five-year, $ 47.5 million contract with $ 28 million guaranteed. And he likely knows the Giants’ offer to McCourty was pretty close to that before he decided to re-sign with the Patriots.

But all McCourty would have cost the Giants was money. Chancellor also will cost a fortune in trade. Since no one is sure the Seahawks will trade him, their asking price hasn’t been made public either. But many around the NFL guess the asking price would start with a 2016 first-round selection and at least one other high-round pick.

It seems unlikely the Giants would pay that, just as it seems unlikely the Seahawks would cater to a player demanding to renegotiate with three years left on his contract. Then again, the Giants are pretty desperate at Chancellor’s position. The two starting safeties on their depth chart (rookie Landon Collins and Cooper Taylor) have combined for zero starts between then, and their two backups (Stevie Brown and Brandon Meriweather) were recently cast off by their former teams.

Chances are, those are the four safeties the Giants will have to get by with, at least through the early part of the season. But at least if the door is ever opened in Seattle, the Giants let the Seahawks know they’ll be waiting for Chancellor on the other side.

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