Kam Chancellor holdout ends; All Pro safety returns to Seahawks

Kam Chancellor is ending his holdout and is taking a private plane back to Seattle.

According to Ian Rapoport, Chancellor told no one and does not have a new deal in place. Apparently, despite the strong disagreement -- a rift, even -- between Chancellor and the Seahawks, ultimately he decided that football was too important. Now it becomes a question of whether the Seahawks will end up enforcing his fines from missing training camp, but the bottom line is that Seattle does not appear to have shifted their stance on giving him a new deal.

ESPN's Gee Scott was the first to break the news, and it was confirmed elsewhere shortly thereafter. Per Scott, Chancellor texted him: "It's go time bro...I got a mission to finish and miss my Brothers. I'm headed to work right now. Call you later today."

Chancellor also texted this to Steven A. Smith, indicating that for the short term, he's willing to forgive all the bad blood that had been building up between he and the organization over this dispute:

"Ima go help my teammates that are understanding of my position and the ones who aren't. God forgives all, why can't i? Time to help us get back to the big dance . I can address business after the season. Me and Marshawn started a mission 2 years ago. I can't let my Dawg down....Real talk."

Chancellor's return couldn't come too soon for an 0-2 Seattle team. The Seahawks have missed their emotional tone-setter on defense and his absence on the field has shown -- Seattle's normally suffocating defense has not looked like itself. After two weeks, Seattle is giving up nearly 100 more yards per game than what they allowed in 2014, has allowed 30.5 points per game (2nd to last in the NFL right now, compared to their league-leading 15.9 ppg in 2014), and has been uncharacteristically sloppy in the tackling department. The hope is, obviously, that Kam can help get his teammates back on track.

As former teammate Michael Robinson pointed out during the holdout, Kam's value isn't just on the field.

"He does a lot of Pete Carroll's dirty work," Robinson said."He talks to players who need talking to because again, Pete doesn't accentuate the negative. You talk about his sacrifice on the field, he's probably the one guy in the National Football League that can set your edge from the defensive end position on the outside part of your defense. He's also a guy that drops in the box, he's also a guy that plays middle-of-the-field safety and gets interceptions ... he's Bam Bam, he's the face of this team, he's the guy they all go to. So I think he'll be sorely missed.

"He's a guy who, he lines (safety) Earl Thomas up, that's what he told me this week. I said Kam, I played with you for four years and I didn't even know that."

The big question now, apart from whether the team will collect approximately $1.6 million in fines, is whether Kam will be ready to play this week against the Bears or not. If I had to guess, the Seahawks will ease him in over the next few weeks before he's back to full-time, full-speed status.