11:39pm: The Seahawks were hoping that Arnold could play in the preseason, per Bob Condotta of The Seattle Times, but a placement on the commissioner’s exempt list will preclude that. He will have to spend one day on their active roster before moving to the exempt list, so the team may wait until after their final preseason game to officially sign him for a league minimum salary. At that point, Seattle would add Arnold, release a player they intended to cut anyway, and move Arnold to the exempt list the following day.
12:55pm: Cornerback Terrion Arnold agreed to sign with the Seahawks on Aug. 13, but nothing is official yet. While the two sides remain on track to finalize an agreement, “it will take a while,” Mike Garafolo and Ian Rapoport of NFL Network report.
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The Lions waived Arnold on June 29, five days after the 2024 first-round pick was arrested in Tampa, Fla., on eight felony charges of armed robbery and kidnapping. Arnold has denied wrongdoing, but with the legal process in its early stages, the NFL will place him on the commissioner’s exempt list when he signs his contract, per Garafolo and Rapoport.
Arnold will not be eligible to practice or play in games for as long as he is on the list. However, he will receive pay and count against the Seahawks’ salary cap.
Before he reached an agreement with Seattle, Arnold visited with at least eight teams and possibly upward of 10, head coach Mike Macdonald revealed (via Brian Nemhauser of Hawk Blogger). The Saints, Giants, Texans, Colts and Jets were all identified as teams that met with Arnold or at least showed interest, but it is unclear who else pursued him.
As Arnold lined up visits, teams were unsure whether he would end up on the exempt list, according to Garafolo. There is now clarity on that front, though it is still not a lock that the 23-year-old will actually sign with the Seahawks. Neeru Khosla and Vinod Khosla, Seattle’s incoming new owners, may not even want Arnold, Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk observes. NFL owners are expected to approve the Khoslas’ $9.6 billion purchase on Aug. 26. While it is unknown how the Khoslas feel about Arnold, he already has multiple key advocates in the organization. Macdonald and general manager John Schneider are among them.
When discussing Arnold last week, Schneider said that “all the character stuff was off the charts for us. Now, we’ve got to see where this goes. It’s very serious. But we feel like we’ve got the people, the foundational people in the building … that can help with this situation and put him in a good spot to succeed” (via Brady Henderson of ESPN).
It is indeed a “very serious” situation for Arnold, who is potentially facing life in prison. Arnold was allegedly the main conspirator in orchestrating a revenge kidnapping plot against three men he believed robbed more than $250K of personal property from his AirBNB rental unit in Largo, Fla., in February. He is now facing four counts of kidnapping and four counts of armed robbery. A trial date has not been set.
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