RENTON, Wash. (AP) - Not every Seahawk was eager to feel the intensity Jim Mora brought to his first practice as Seattle's coach.

Starting linebacker LeRoy Hill chose to stay away from Mora's voluntary - but highly encouraged - minicamp for veterans Tuesday instead of signing a tender offer worth a guaranteed $8.3 million for 2009 as the Seahawks' designated franchise player for this year.

Hill wants a multiyear deal in lieu of playing this season under the franchise tag. The Seahawks and Hill's representatives remain in touch, though little progress has been made over the last month in negotiations.

"I was certainly hoping he would be (here). I did not expect him to be," Mora said, after the former Falcons coach spent much of his first two hours on the field as a head coach since 2006 yelling at his players to run - to the ball, to the huddle, to the next drill.

"We would like him to be here. It's hard to duplicate what we are doing here, the first steps of the process. But that's a business decision that he made. And I respect that.

"But I would certainly like him to be here."

Mora said Hill, who also could sign a waiver to practice while not under contract, has been in the team's headquarters for off-field workouts in recent weeks and that he spoke to his outside linebacker about a week ago. He added Seahawks coaches are staying in contact with their third-round draft choice from 2005.

Hill has added value to the Seahawks, and perhaps leverage in contract talks, now that the team has traded its other starting outside linebacker, Julian Peterson, to Detroit.

"It's a contractual decision. ... He just made a business decision to stay out this camp," Mora said. "It's not like he's hiding. It's not like he's trying to avoid us. He's been very reachable.

"There's no acrimony. It's not an acrimonious thing. It's a business thing. There's no bitterness. There's no back-and-forth."

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ANOTHER SURGERY FOR BRANCH: Wide receiver Deion Branch was the second of about a dozen Seahawks held out of practice with various injuries. Mora revealed Branch had "very minor" surgery last month, a follow-up to the reconstructive knee surgery he had 14 months ago.

"A little cleanup," Mora said, adding the team hopes to have the 29-year-old practicing during a minicamp in June.

Branch, who has yet to fulfill expectations Seattle had when it traded a first-round draft choice to New England to get him in 2006, spent the practice hopping and sliding along the grass while a trainer watched next to him.

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BURLESON BACK (SORT OF): Wide receiver Nate Burleson was on the field doing individual drills at the start of practice, then got a bag on ice on his left knee and watched the rest. He is seven months removed from surgery to repair a torn anterior cruciate ligament in his knee.

He is wearing a knee brace that he would like to shed, though he knows he'll be with that for a while.

"It's almost like a boot on your car. It feels like I can't go anywhere," Burleson said.

The seven-year veteran was injured while trying to cut on a pass pattern on a rain-slicked, synthetic field in Buffalo last September during Seattle's season-opening loss. He said Dr. James Andrews, the noted specialist in Birmingham, Ala., who performed his surgery, has been amazed at the progress of Burleson's recovery.

Yet Burleson was hesitant to say he will be full-go when training camp begins in late July.

"Uh .... I would hate to guess timelines. I would assume so," he said.

The 28-year-old, signed as a free agent in the spring of 2006, is suddenly the longest-tenured wide receiver on the team now that Bobby Engram has left in free agency for Kansas City.

"I know. You make me sound like an old man," Burleson said, chuckling. "Making me want to look in the mirror for gray hairs."