Russell Wilson at unusual spot with Seahawks’ ‘critical’ play-caller hire: a crossroads
Russell Wilson sees himself at a place he’s never really been in during his spectacularly successful Seahawks career.
A crossroads.
Seattle’s $140 million franchise quarterback used the words “critical” five times, “super-critical” twice, “super-significant” and “imperative” one time each while answering a question about how involved he will be in coach Pete Carroll’s selection and hiring of a new offensive coordinator and play caller.
Oh, yes, Wilson is going to be involved. Intricately.
He already is—remotely from his offseason vacation home in Mexico. He’s gone there in the days since Seattle’s season-ending home loss to the Los Angeles Rams in the first round of the playoffs.
That’s what earning $35 million per year as the highest-paid player in NFL history at the time he signed his current contract, in the spring of 2019, buys: heavy influence over who calls his plays.
“I think it’s huge. Obviously, going into the 10th year of my career, it’s a critical time of being able to be involved,” Wilson said Thursday, also saying he did not favor the firing of Brian Schottenheimer, his play caller for the last three seasons.
“The next 10 years are super-critical, right, for everybody involved, the whole organization. And also myself and me as a player, the legacy that I want to create and do, to be able to set the tempo on, you know what I mean?
“So I think it’s vital, it’s critical, super-significant that obviously I am a part of that process.”
His team made the announcement Tuesday it had “parted ways” with Schottenheimer over “philosophical differences.” The only quarterback to win a Super Bowl for the Seahawks said since and before then, he and Carroll have had a lengthy talks on whom to bring in next to set Wilson’s course the next few Seahawks seasons. Wilson said he’s had those same talks with John Schneider the team’s general manager.
“Coach and I have definitely been talking about it—John, too, as well,” Wilson said. “We’ve had some super-long dialogue, great dialogue about the thought process of who we want, kind of that idea of a leader...innovator, that thought process and different stuff that you want.
“I think that’s the super-critical thing, obviously, at this point in my career. Because you spend every day with that person, right? You spend all the time you spent, as many hours in meetings that me and ‘Shotty’ spent together. I mean, I’m going to miss the guy because we spent so much time together, you know?”
On Friday, NFL Network reported Carroll has talked to former Los Angeles Chargers head coach Anthony Lynn about Seattle’s coordinator job. With lead back Austin Ekeler missing six games this season, the Chargers had the ninth-most rushing plays in the NFL this season—and fifth-most pass attempts, sixth-most passing yards. In 2019, the Chargers were 28th in rush attempts.
“The next person, whoever that is, it’s really critical that we are on the same page at all times, and always talking and vibing and just really, really on the same page,” Wilson said. “I think that it’s a really critical point, not just the wins but also the championships that we want.
“And also, to be honest with you, me, personally, as a quarterback it’s imperative for my career, as well, and how far I want to go as a player.”
His window of opportunity
Wilson is the winningest quarterback in NFL history in the first nine seasons of a career. He is second in league history behind soon-to-be Hall of Famer Peyton Manning for the most passing touchdowns in a player’s first nine seasons. Wilson has 267, after his Seahawks-record 40 TD throws in 2020. Manning had 275.
Wilson will turn 33 during next season. He has three years remaining on his third Seahawks contract, through 2023.
Co-captain and All-Pro linebacker Bobby Wagner, the quarterback of the defense and also the highest-paid player in the league at his position, turns 31 in June. Wagner has two years, through the 2022 season, remaining on his deal signed a couple months after Wilson signed his in 2019.
DK Metcalf, the second-year phenom who spent Seattle’s bombs-away first half of this season leading the NFL in yards receiving, has two years remaining on his rookie deal. Wide receiver Tyler Lockett has just the 2021 season left on his contract. Lockett turns 29 in September. He broke Doug Baldwin’s and Bobby Engram’s Seahawks record with 100 receptions this season.
The Seahawks have been peeking through their window of opportunity to win a second Super Bowl for years. They’ve bucked the NFL-legislated parity by going to the playoffs eight times in Wilson’s nine seasons, winning five NFC West titles, including the latest one they earned last month.
But Wilson won’t be in his prime forever.
And before that, his contract will end. He will again seek to re-set the league record for money earned.
The main comparison his agent Mark Rodgers has used in each of Wilson’s previous, mammoth extensions with Seattle has been Green Bay quarterback Aaron Rodgers. In the spring of 2019 a key comp in Wilson’s negotiating camp was the ultimate measure of success for a quarterback in pro football: how many Super Bowls has he won?
Wilson and Rodgers have each won one.
But Rodgers is likely about to win the NFL most valuable player award for the third time this month. Wilson has never received a single vote for league MVP. He was the front-runner to win it early this season. But then over the season’s latter half he, Schottenheimer and the Seahawks’ offense never adjusted to defenses taking away Wilson’s deep passes to Metcalf and Lockett that had them leading the NFL in scoring in September and October.
Rodgers, 37, led the league with 48 touchdown passes in 2020, with just five interceptions. It’s the third time in his 13 seasons replacing Brett Favre as the Packers’ starter that he’s thrown for at least 40 TDs. He’s been an All-Pro twice. That’s two more times than Wilson.
Wilson is likely rooting privately for Aaron Donald and the Rams to do to Rodgers and the top-seeded Packers in the divisional playoffs this weekend what Rodgers and L.A. did to Wilson last weekend. A second Super Bowl title for Rodgers while Wilson stays at one will reduce much of Wilson’s leverage come next contract time.
For all those reasons—and Wilson restating Thursday he wants to be the best there ever was, to win more Super Bowls than Tom Brady’s six—he feels urgency.
And that means he’s absolutely, intimately involved with Carroll in choosing his new play caller.
“What’s really important is, what’s next, and that we try to do the best we can to figure out the next person and who that is,” Wilson said. “It’s a big decision, obviously, right?
“I mean, it’s a pretty big decision to have a change at this point in my career. But I think also, too, to make sure it’s the right change and making sure we find the right person.
“I know Coach will do everything we can to find the right person. And I’ll do whatever I can to help that process, if I can, and making sure that we get the best person for our football team so we can go win Super Bowls and we can all celebrate in a couple weeks, instead of (lamenting a playoff loss) now.”
Wilson said there is no conflict between him and the head coach who is the final authority on all of the franchise’s football matters—personnel, scheme, coaches, trades, signings, draft picks, music blaring at practices.
“I think what’s really, really important is making sure that moving forward that we’re all on the same page with me and coach,” Wilson said. “We’ve had great conversations about what’s the next step of this organization in terms of who the next person (will be).
“I think also, too, what’s really important is also for my career to go as far as I can possibly go.”
Losing a friend
Asked by The News Tribune on a end-of-season Zoom call whether he favored keeping or changing his play caller, Wilson paused.
“How do I answer this here?” Wilson said, noticeably wearing a pullover from Super Bowl 48 that he won with the team at the end of the 2013 season.
“I think that it wasn’t my decision to change ‘Schotty,’ in other words. But I think that Coach Carroll made that decision. I think that I trust his decision. But at the same time, obviously Schotty and I have been so close. I mean, he’s going to be a tremendous coach somewhere else.
“But what I am in favor of is our football team getting better. If you ask me what’s really important, it’s winning championships. That’s what I’m in favor of. I think what’s really critical is whatever decision—whether it’s the offensive coordinator or the guys that we sign or draft to every decision throughout the season, the offseason, everything else—the philosophy, the most important thing, is it’s about this winning process, and doing everything to make sure we do that.
“That’s what I’m always of favor of, is winning. So Coach Carroll decided it was time to make a change. Listen, he has been doing this a lot longer than I have. So you have to trust his decision.”
Then Wilson said, wryly: “I get paid a decent amount, but Coach makes those decisions.”
Wilson was so close with Schottenheimer he got to know the coach’s wife Gemmi and their children well. Wilson and Schottenheimer led team Bible studies each week.
Wilson called Schottenheimer “one of the best people I’ve ever known” and “a friend.” He said he’s gotten close with the play caller’s family.
“Unfortunately for us, in Coach’s eyes, it was kind of time to see if we needed to make a change,” Wilson said.
“The bottom line is, we were the best offense in football for the first, middle part of the season. And (Schottenheimer) was a major part of that.”
What Wilson wants
Carroll said repeatedly, in November, December and after the team’s dismal, season-ending loss to the Rams Saturday in which Wilson completed a season-low 11 passes the Seahawks’ offense needed to “adapt better.” Carroll wanted more balance. He wanted more running the ball, to get teams out of the two-high-safety schemes that were throttling Wilson’s and Schottenheimer’s deep-passing game. Carroll wants to force defenses to bring a safety closer to the line of scrimmage to defend the run, as in previous years.
Schottenheimer, in Carroll’s view, never countered the opponents’ counter this season. Wilson ended 2020 having thrown the ball 558 times, the most in his nine-year career.
Wilson said “general” football wisdom is to run to take defenses out of two-high safety looks.
“But you can also throw it,” he said.
“We have to do everything well...we have to be able to throw it down the field,” plus throw shorter passes, and screens, and run the ball, and with faster tempo, Wilson said.
”I want to do it ALL well,” he said. “I want to be the best in the world, at everything.”
Wilson’s one differing point with Schottenheimer: playing with a faster pace. Wilson wants more no-huddle play than his now-former play caller gave him. Wilson reiterated he thinks the offense is best playing fast, and with him calling plays on the fly instead of receiving them in a huddle from the coach through his helmet headset.
“I don’t think we are crazy-far off,” he said.
“What I am in favor is our football team getting better. If you ask me, what’s really critical is us winning championships.
“That’s what I’m in favor of.”
This story was originally published January 15, 2021 at 7:24 AM.
