Witherspoon Ain't Sweating the Bag: Seahawks Star Stays Locked In While Contract Talks Simmer

RENTON, Wash. – Devon Witherspoon has a message for anyone waiting on a contract holdout: Not happening. Not now. Not while there's football to be played.

The Seattle Seahawks' shutdown cornerback is in the middle of extension talks, but you wouldn't know it from his training camp attendance. While the NFL has turned hold-ins into a yearly tradition, Witherspoon has been on the grass every single day, grinding like a man with something to prove – even with a bag up in the air.

“Contract or not, we've got a long season”

Speaking for the first time since Seattle's Super Bowl LX victory over the New England Patriots, Witherspoon made it crystal clear where his head is at.

“We've got a long season ahead of us, man, contract or not,” he said. “We've still got to play football at the end of the day, and we've got to be out there and be prepared. If you're not practicing, you're not getting ready for the season because everybody else in the league is practicing and they're getting better.”

That's the kind of mentality that makes coaches drool. And it's exactly why head coach Mike Macdonald is publicly gushing over his star corner.

Macdonald: “I'm really impressed by it”

“It's something that you're not used to dealing with as a player,” Macdonald said. “So to be able to take ... whatever's going on in that front and compartmentalize that, it shows you his maturity and his commitment to the team, and really his own personal development, too. How much he loves football, and how he wants to be out here and try to get better. I really respect his approach so far. It's been great.”

Witherspoon, a 2023 first-round pick and three-time Pro Bowler, watched his teammate Jaxon Smith-Njigba cash in as the NFL's highest-paid wide receiver this March. The expectation was that Witherspoon would be next. But the extension that seemed inevitable has dragged, and no one's saying exactly why.

Still, Witherspoon refuses to let the business side become a distraction. Even after dropping his first public comments on the situation in last week's “Hard Knocks” premiere, he kept the focus on the field Wednesday.

“I'm not worried about that right now,” he said. “I'm out here focused on making plays and trying to get better day by day. We've got other stuff we're focusing on. Ultimately we're trying to win games, so that's what I'm focused on.”

With two years left on his rookie deal – including the 2027 option year Seattle picked up in March – Witherspoon isn't panicking. He's practicing. He's preparing. And when the season starts, he plans on being ready for war.

That's the kind of energy that wins rings.