Seahawks’ top picks close to signing deals

SEATTLE – Good news for new coach Pete Carroll on the eve of his first season running the Seahawks: It sounds like Seattle may not have to endure late reporting by another first-round draft choice

The agent for sixth-overall pick Russell Okung says he is working to ensure his client is on the field when Seahawks training camp begins Saturday.

“We’ve had discussions every day for the last two weeks,” agent Peter Schaffer told the Associated Press in a telephone interview Wednesday. “If he won’t be on the field, it won’t be for a lack of effort on our part.”

The Seahawks want their replacement for the retired Walter Jones in camp from Day One. They named the rookie from Oklahoma State their starting left tackle the day they drafted Okung in April.

Seattle was without last year’s top pick, linebacker Aaron Curry, for the first eight days of 2009’s training camp because of an impasse in contract negotiations. The fourth-overall selection eventually signed for $34 million guaranteed. Curry’s deal has a maximum total value of $60 million.

The word on progress with Seattle’s other first-round pick, safety Earl Thomas from Texas, is similarly positive for the team.

Thomas’ agent, Andrew Kessler, is hopeful the 14th overall pick – who has been on Seattle’s starting defense throughout spring minicamps and organized team activities – will be in camp well before Saturday’s opening practice. Rookies are to report today.

“Hopefully he will be signed before they report,” Kessler wrote in an e-mail to the AP.

Okung and Thomas are the only two of Seattle’s nine draft picks still unsigned.

Only two of the NFL’s 32 first-round picks had signed as of Wednesday afternoon – Dallas’ Dez Bryant, the 24th overall pick, and New England’s Devin McCourty, selected 27th.

Deals often get finished quickly just before teams begin camps, as other picks sign and establish a going rate at each level of the first round.

Some have cited uncertainty with the future of the collective bargaining agreement as a factor gumming up negotiations. The current CBA expires after this season. Negotiations on deals for top picks are taking place with the possibility of a lockout in 2011 if management and the players’ union can’t agree on a new labor agreement.

Yet the agents for Seattle’s first-round picks say potential labor issues haven’t affected their talks.

“I don’t think the CBA situation should have a major impact on negotiations, it is not on the ones I have worked on and am working on,” Kessler wrote.