They both acted like tools. The Hawks touched base with Hutch about extending him before the season was over. His agent's very words were Hutch 'intended to test the waters in free agency' In light of that, Ruskell decided that the franchise tag might result in a prolonged holdout, so he opted for the transition tag, so Hutch could test free agency, as he said he wanted to do, and the Hawks would have the right to match any offer. This approach worked well for one of our guys prior to Hutch (I forget who exactly), but Hutch #sigh!# viewed the lack of the Franchise tag as disrespect. There was also input from our salary cap guy (Reinfieldt), so i think that's where the perceived slight may have come from.
Hutch is still very much to blame for allowing the poison pill into the deal. Had that not been there, the Hawks would have matched anything the Vikings offered. They even went as far as reworking Big Walt's contract in order satifsfy the conditions of the poison pill, but the 'arbitrator' decided the Hawks couldn't do that 'after the fact' which is really fishy because intent of the transition tag includes allowing the incumbent team to match offers from other teams.
For that arbitrator to allow language in the contract that basically said Hutch's salary from the Seahawks had to satisfy the conditions of the poison pill before anybody had a chance to even read it is completely ridiculous.
The vikings sleasy ownership and GM suffered a lot of backlash from the league for making the transition tag basically worthless. From my understanding, the new transition tag terms have been revised, so as not to allow that type of under-handed activity.