I wouldn't want Branch back at any price. His contract is much bigger than his value. He held out while he was under contract in an acrimonious situation, and left us high and dry in the 2006 season without any WRs. I don't see him having a place on this team.
Branch is not worth a 2nd round pick anymore. I'd be hesitant to offer more than a 4th or 5th. What has he done in Seattle to make anyone think that he is even worth a 2nd?
I would wait to see if Seattle cuts Branch. I guess they could still draft Crabtree and then cut Branch. Here's an interesting article about Branch's cap status fro a fe months ago...
Wide receiver Deion Branch has a 2009 cap number of approximately $7.3 million dollars. Based on my amateur calculations, if Seattle released Branch after this season, and designated the transaction as a “post-June 1st” move, his 2009 cap number would drop to $2.37M, freeing up $4.94M in cap space in 2009, but also creating nearly $4.8M of dreaded “dead money” on Seattle’s cap in 2010.
Releasing Branch and taking the full brunt of the cap hit in 2009, as Ruskell chose to do with Shaun Alexander last off-season, would sweep the deck of the $101M worth of contracts the Seahawks front office paid for the two offensive playmakers in 2006. The cap savings of such a move would be just over $200K.