Huard: Franchise tag on Frank Clark comes with hidden cost for Seahawks

Mar 4, 2019, 1:32 PM | Updated: 2:02 pm

Frank Clark finished 2018 with more sacks than any Seahawks player since 2007. (Getty)

(Getty)

Editor of SeattleSports.com

The Seahawks have reportedly placed a franchise tag on defensive end Frank Clark, but they have over four months to agree on a contract extension that would nullify the tag.

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Brock Huard of 710 ESPN Seattle hopes the two sides eventually find their way to that extension before a mid-July NFL deadline on extensions for players who have had a franchise tag placed on them.

“I don’t want the alternative, which is for him to not be around,” Huard said Monday during Brock and Salk’s Good News, Bad News, No News segment.

By that Huard means the potential of Clark sitting out any of the Seahawks’ offseason program, training camp or preseason. And that is certainly a possibility if the tag sticks, which would keep him in Seattle on a one-year deal no less than the average of the top five salaries at his position or 120 percent of his previous salary rather than the multi-year security of a long-term extension.

Seattle was reportedly is doing its best to avoid using the tag with Clark, as a report over the weekend by NFL reporter Jason La Canfora stated that the Seahawks and Clark were still working toward a new deal.

Hearing the Seahawks continue to make progress on a long-term deal with Frank Clark ahead of the franchise-tag deadline next week

— Jason La Canfora (@JasonLaCanfora) March 2, 2019

That was welcome news for Huard.

“I’ll be ecstatic (if an extension is agreed upon) because of what this will say to that locker room to actually have Frank around,” Huard said of the potential of Seattle and Clark signing a long-term deal. “I don’t agree with (those) who say, ‘Oh, not a big deal, he’s a football player, he can just show up.’ I don’t think that works well, especially for a young guy that’s going to have $19 million minimum in his pocket being franchised.”

Huard said Clark has become too valuable both on the field and in the locker room for the Seahawks to lose his leadership.

“I want that guy around being an impact. He was their voice, he was their emotional heartbeat. Bobby (Wagner) is the unquestioned old man lion alpha in that room; Frank’s the next one up, and I want him around,” he said. “I want him around in April and May and June and July and totally invested. I don’t want to have to hear the alternative of, ‘Well, is he going to show up Week 1 of the season? What kind of shape is he in? There goes the hamstring.’ To me, go get a deal done and it will be great news.”

To hear the whole conversation from Brock and Salk, listen to the Good News, Bad News, No News segment in this podcast from Monday’s show.