Strong Safety Kam Chancellor, arguably the anchor and the glue of his defensive unit, has ended his contract dispute with the Seattle Seahawks today and is returning to work (cue: citywide applause). This has a myriad implications for the player, the team and the organization. Let’s go through a few of them here. 

His defensive mates will no longer have it in the back of their minds that he isn’t there. It is super-duper hard to play football well – and it’s even harder if, in the back of your mind, you know there is someone missing behind you. Chancellor’s position, strong safety, is the final line of defense for an aggressive Seahawks unit. It’s the center position in basketball, to use an analogy. Imagine if you’re the Lakers and Shaq isn’t there as a failsafe. You’d be screwed, too. 

There will no longer be a replacement player in his stead. To continue the basketball analogy, not only is Shaq not there, but a young, inexperienced replacement is backing you up. This can make things even worse. Not only is your rock not around, there’s someone back there potentially missing assignments, screwing up your timing and the chemistry you’ve built with a Pro Bowl defender. Dion Bailey, bless his heart, gave up the go-ahead touchdown with 53 seconds left in the game week 1 against the Rams. This. Would. Not. Have. Happened. Had. Chancellor. Been. There. 

The precedent is set by the organization that they won’t re-do contracts with multiple years on them. This is a big one. Chancellor has three years (including this season) left on his deal. He signed the contract last year. He didn’t have to. And no one thinks he doesn’t deserve more money in a perfect world, but in the NFL there is a salary cap and only a finite amount of money to go around. Chancellor hits hard and gives up his body to make the play, which is why he should be paid, but there was no way the team was going to budge this year for him and, sadly, he realized that two games too late. The lack of movement by the team sets a valuable precedent for them in years to come: We don’t negotiate if you have multiple years left on your deal. 

Chancellor won’t be back to full form yet, but the ‘Hawks have a couple easier games ahead for him to get his feet under him. Thank the lord the team has two home games on the schedule. Their first two to open the season were as brutal as any (a HUNGRY Rams team and a Packers team that wanted capital-R Revenge). But now Seattle gets the Chicago Bears without their starting quarterback, who is terrible anyway, with a defense that acts like a sieve, and Detroit Lions team as confused and center-less as a jar of jelly just dropped to the kitchen floor. It’s the sort of thing that makes a team facing these two squads whole again and the perfect way for Chancellor to get his sea legs back. 

Even for someone who wants more money, the lure of football and the comradery of a team is inescapable. This might be the most surprising. Football, in many ways, is a minor death wish. But Chancellor, who did not win more money from the team, couldn’t keep saying no to the allure of game day. He said he owed it to teammate Marshawn Lynch (how cool is Lynch, by the way?) to come back and finish with the two had started years back. The bond formed on the field is hard to break and Chancellor wasn’t going to do it this season. 

Prognosis? ‘Hawks win the next two games and regain some of their magic. Will it be enough to get back to the Super Bowl? Let’s hope so. In the mean time, let me leave you with a highlight reel of Chancellor’s plays, to see what all the noise was about in the first place.