Seahawks Sign Receiver Antonio Bryant

The Seahawks have signed veteran receiver Antonio Bryant to their 90-man roster. Bryant was at the VMAC today for a workout, and caught passes alongside fellow tryout receiver Braylon Edwards from tryout quarterback GJ Kinne. Bryant, 31, is 6'1, 211 pounds and has 372 receptions in his career for 5685 yards and 30 touchdowns. He's got two 1000+ yard seasons under his belt -- 2005 and 2008 -- and has the flashed the athleticism and physicality at points in his career to, in theory, be a candidate for the X-receiver spot opposite of Sidney Rice.

Bryant has spent time with Dallas, Cleveland, San Francisco and Tampa Bay, and was in Seattle earlier this offseason on a tryout basis. Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll said at the time that Bryant looked good but was out of football shape -- "He's not in very good shape, but he's very natural," Carroll told The Seattle Times at the time. "He's got terrific instincts for catching the football and getting in and out of breaks. ... He's not there right now though. He's a ways away and he admits that he has not been working out in the kind of setting that he needs to be at his best, so we'll see what happens." Also, props to Danny O'Neil for what he called "the Pete Carroll Deluxe Translator," as he predicted "it doesn't sound like the Seahawks will be signing him right away, but rather following up to see if his conditioning improves to the point of adding him to the roster for training camp." It looks like the extra month or two of working out has done the veteran receiver some good.

Still, he'll be facing an uphill climb still to make the active 53-man roster and will have to beat out some of the Seahawks younger prospects and bubble-type veteran receivers for a spot. He becomes the 13th wide receiver on the Seahawks current 90-man roster and it's likely that the Hawks will keep, at the most, six from that group. Bryant will challenge Ben Obomanu, Deon Butler, Kris Durham, Ricardo Lockette and some of the UDFA rookies like Phil Bates and Lavasier Tuinei on the depth chart.