T.J. Houshmandzadeh will sign with Seahawks

T.J. Houshmandzadeh has made a career out of his catches.

On Monday, however, it was the Seahawks who were on the receiving end of Houshmandzadeh's decision about his future.

Houshmandzadeh, 31, said he has agreed to sign with the Seahawks as a free agent. The team had not announced his addition as it awaited the final paperwork. A news conference is scheduled this morning at 11 a.m. It is a five-year contract that will pay Houshmandzadeh at least $15 million and as much as $40 million, the terms first reported by ESPN.com.

"Ultimately, I just thought Seattle was the best place for me," Houshmandzadeh said in a telephone interview with ESPN. "Ultimately, I'm going to go there and do my part."

Houshmandzadeh was considered the top receiver available in free agency. He has caught 90 or more passes in three straight seasons, and he deepens the position at which the Seahawks were decimated by injuries last season.

Rookie tight end John Carlson led the Seahawks with 55 receptions in 2008. No Seattle wide receiver caught more than 47 passes.

Nate Burleson went down with a season-ending knee injury in the first game. Deion Branch missed the first month as he continued rehabilitating a knee injury, then hurt his foot when he did come back. Injuries depleted the Seahawks so severely that Koren Robinson — who wasn't even active the first four games — finished third on the team in receptions with 31.

Houshmandzadeh caught 112 passes in 2007, tied for most in the league, and was named to the Pro Bowl. Bobby Engram caught 94 passes that season, 10th in the league. Engram remains unsigned.

Houshmandzadeh is 6 feet 1, 199 pounds, and played eight years in Cincinnati after he was drafted out of Oregon State in the seventh round. He is the only player in the NFL who has caught 90 or more passes each of the past three seasons. In fact, there are only four other players who have caught more than 90 passes in each of the past two seasons: Tony Gonzalez (Kansas City), Larry Fitzgerald (Arizona), Wes Welker (New England) and Brandon Marshall (Denver).

Houshmandzadeh chose the Seahawks over Minnesota, the team he visited on Saturday and Sunday. The Bengals had also sought to re-sign him. He chose Seattle after a visit that unfolded in a way that was reminiscent of a scene Seahawks CEO Tod Leiweke imagined back in 2006 on the day the team announced its plans for a new waterfront headquarters.

A computer-generated graphic showed a boat pulling away from the dock.

"As we say, the boat pulling away from the site depicts the most coveted free agent in the NFL pulling away to get on a seaplane having just signed a contract to be a Seahawk," Leiweke said in May 2006.

The team moved into those headquarters before last season began. Houshmandzadeh arrived in Seattle on Friday aboard a seaplane, landing on a sunny day and spending the night, before leaving for Minnesota the next day before deciding that he would be coming back to Seattle for good, making him the Seahawks' biggest catch of this free-agent season.

Danny O'Neil: 206-464-2364 or doneil@seattletimes.com