RENTON -- The Seattle Seahawks have acquired left tackle Duane Brown from the Houston Texans in exchange for cornerback Jeremy Lane and a pair of draft picks.
The deal was first reported by Adam Schefter of ESPN.com, who reported that Seattle is sending Lane, a 2018 fifth-round pick an 2019 second-round pick to Texans in exchange for Brown.
Seahawks general manager John Schneider confirmed the deal has been agreed upon but has not yet been finalized. The deal is contingent upon physicals being passed and other administrative actions that need to be completed.
"We reached an agreement with the Texans today to acquire Duane Brown," Schneider said. "He's a heck of a player, been a heck of a player for a long time.
"We're just very excited about it. He's been a leader for them. He's been the captain of their offense for a number of years."
Seattle had already traded their 2018 second-round pick to the New York Jets as part of the Jermaine Kearse-Sheldon Richardson deal in September.
The deal solves the biggest problem spot for Seattle on the offensive line. Rees Odhiambo has given everything he has since George Fant went down for the season with a torn ACL in the preseason. However, he has been the weakest cog in Seattle's front.
Brown is a three-time Pro Bowl selection and was a first-team All-Pro in 2012.
The Seahawks need to do more in order to make the space for Brown to be added to the roster. Seattle had just over $1.4 million in salary cap space on Monday, according to NFLPA records. Brown was set to earn $4.97 million the rest of the season for the Texans. Lane was set to earn $2.12 million the rest of the season with the Seahawks.
Even in taking Lane off Seattle's roster, that would leave them with just $3.56 million in salary cap space, which isn't enough to absorb the remaining amount of Brown's deal. They could create the remaining space needed by restructuring Brown's current contract, giving him a new contract and/or doing the same for other players already under contract with the Seahawks.
"Because we acquired Duane, we want him to finish his career here and have him be here for several more years," Schneider said.
That would seem to indicate that Schneider has the intention of signing Brown to an extension. He is under contract only though the 2018 season. An extension could create the space the Seahawks need to get Brown on the roster and sufficiently manage their cap space.
Schneider said the discussions with the Texans about Brown have been ongoing since Fant went down in the team's second preseason game in August. Brown was holding out in hopes of leveraging a new contract with Houston. Instead, he missed the first seven weeks of the season before reporting to the team last week.
Brown made his season debut against the Seahawks on Sunday.
"We're really excited to get him up here, get him back up here," Schneider said. "He could have just stayed overnight, I guess, but we're just really excited to add the player and his leadership and the guy.
"Power. Physicality. He's got great hands, really good instincts. He's just a mountain of a man."
Brown will almost certainly slot in at left tackle for Seattle, though he's played other positions in the past.
Head coach Pete Carroll was particularly pointed with criticism of the offensive line's physicality in the running game against the Texans on Sunday.
"Running game just didn't happen," Carroll said. "We just got beat to the punch at the line of scrimmage. ... We really thought we would run the ball better. The plan that we had, they played above it. I thought that (Jadeveon Clowney) played great football and we thought we'd be able to run the ball some and he was really a big factor in causing problems in the backfield."
Odhiambo was the player that had to deal with Clowney most of the day and had significant issues. While he held up in pass protection, the run game was completely ineffective.
"Pretty big news, huh?" Carroll said with a grin walking through the media room afterward. "Pretty exciting. I didn't even know."
The deal likely won't be finalized until late-Tuesday or Wednesday.
Lane spent his first six seasons in Seattle after being selected in the sixth-round of the 2012 NFL Draft. He lost his starting job to Shaquill Griffin while out with a groin injury and played just six snaps on Sunday against Houston before a thigh bruise made Seattle turn to Justin Coleman the rest of the game.
"There's so many parts that have to go into this thing. Jeremy was part of it," Schneider said. "He's accomplished a lot of great things here. Tyler, Texas, man -- he's a scrapper. We'll miss him around here. He did a great job for us. He overcame his injury and everything from the second Super Bowl, but he had to be part of the deal."
Photo Credit: SEATTLE, WA - OCTOBER 29: Defensive end Dwight Freeney #93 of the Seattle Seahawks blocks tackle Duane Brown #76 of the Houston Texans during the first quarter of the game at CenturyLink Field on October 29, 2017 in Seattle, Washington. (Photo by Otto Greule Jr/Getty Images)