It’s that time of Seahawks’ year again: Russell Wilson rumors. Pitting fact vs. garbage
Another day, another throw-it-out-there Russell Wilson rumor.
You know the games have stopped and the offseason — and absurdity — have started when someone is “hearing Russell Wilson’s camp” is this or that with the Seahawks.
It’s in the infamous tradition of the “Honey Badger” declaring Wilson will sign with the woebegone New York Giants because his wife Ciara wants her career to move to New York City — yes, that absurdity was “reportedly” a thing for a minute a couple years ago.
On Monday night, Jason LaCanfora of CBS Sports posted on Twitter (that alone should taint the report’s veracity), “I’m hearing Russell Wilson’s camp has grown increasingly frustrated by the Seahawks inability to protect the 8 time Pro Bowler. He has been sacked 394 times in 9 seasons. This situation warrants serious monitoring.”
I’m hearing an agent doing some of what Mark Rodgers did in the months and weeks leading to Wilson’s first contract extension with Seattle in 2015, and again before his second Seahawks extension in the spring of 2019. I’m hearing an agent who is seeking some leverage in public perception and opinion, as Wilson’s contract-talk time comes up again over the next year or two. Wilson’ NFL-record $140 million deal ends after the 2023 season.
This situation warrants serious skepticism.
LaCanfora carrying some PR water on behalf of “Wilson’s camp” came a day after another national NFL reporter, Ian Rapoport of the league-owned NFL Network, did the same. Rapoport reported on the day of the Super Bowl “teams have reached out to Seahawks about trading for Russell Wilson; Seattle not interested.”
I’ve reached out to Jeff Bezos to ask if he’d just give me Amazon. The entire company.
He is not interested.
All this, and it was just the first day of the long NFL offseason.
To even acknowledge them gives these “stories” more credibility than they merit. But it’s 2021. Everyone with thumbs and a screen is a reporter. Fact and fiction are presented as one and the same. They aren’t.
And here we are.
Fact: The Seahawks aren’t trading Russell Wilson. Next.
Fact: Since Russell Wilson poked his head out from under his bed sheets and whispered, “Hey, Seattle, we’ve got a deal,” next to his giddy wife online — yes, that also happened, after midnight one day in April 2019 — the Seahawks have actually made their offensive line BETTER since he got the richest contract in NFL history.
Seattle this past year drafted Damien Lewis. He started at right guard since the first game of a rookie season through all of 2020. The team signed Brandon Shell to a two-year, $11 million contract to replace liability Germain Ifedi at right tackle. Shell, the former New York Jets right tackle, has been a marked upgrade as Wilson’s front-side pass protector.
They still have pass-protection issues. The Los Angeles Rams, the league’s No. 1 defense, particularly exposed those. They sacked Wilson 16 times and hit him 30 times in three games from November through Seattle’s season-ending playoff loss to L.A. Jan. 9. Wilson got sacked 48 times in 16 regular-season games in 2020, the third-most times in the league. But the offensive line has improved, above what for years in Seattle has been a very low bar.
Wilson is justified in being frustrated at constantly running for his life after dropping back to pass for the last several years. He was sacked the sixth-most times in the NFL in 2019, with the same number (48) as in 2020. In 2018, he got sacked 51 times, fifth-most in the league. In 2017 it was 43 times, seventh-most in the NFL. In 2016, 42 times, sixth-most.
At least they are consistent, consistently poor in pass protection.
That is the result of coach Pete Carroll and general manager John Schneider setting their franchise approach in the salary-cap era to pay Wilson and All-Pro linebacker Bobby Wagner the richest contracts at their positions. They decided to re-sign the since-departed “Legion of Boom” secondary to keep Richard Sherman, Earl Thomas and Kam Chancellor and the team’s championship-winning window open after consecutive appearances in the Super Bowl at the end of the 2013 and ‘14 seasons. They gave deals to 100-catch wide receiver Tyler Lockett and before that Pro Bowl pass catcher Doug Baldwin.
You can’t pay everyone, not with the cap limiting each team’s payroll each year. The area the Seahawks have chosen to skimp over the last decade has generally been the offensive line.
They’ve signed an undrafted former college basketball player to be a starting tackle (George Fant). They’ve converted a former college defensive tackle to Super Bowl guard (J.R. Sweezy). Their last two starting centers, Justin Britt and Ethan Pocic, failed first at guard and tackle before holding down a starting job as Wilson’s snapper.
The Seahawks drafted more offensive linemen than any other team over the last decade. Those picks have more often failed. Justin Senior, anyone? Rees Odhiambo?
Duane Brown has been a notable exception. Seattle traded with Houston to get the Pro Bowl left tackle as the vital backside protector for Wilson, then gave him a rich, new extension. It took Wilson renegotiating his contract and restructuring salary into bonus money to fit Brown’s deal under Seattle’s cap.
Brown turns 36 in August. This coming year will be the final one of his contract. The Seahawks have a decision to make at left tackle beyond 2021.
Same for center and left guard. Pocic’s rookie contract ended with the end of this past season. He can become a free agent when the 2021 league year begins next month. Mike Iupati is headed out from left guard. The 33-year-old has been limited in his two Seahawks seasons by a chronic nerve issue in his neck.
Kyle Fuller at center and Jordan Simmons at left guard are cheaper, in-house options. But with the exception of drafting Lewis, cheaper hasn’t been better for the last half-dozen years along Seattle’s offensive line.
It’s understandable for Wilson to not want the Seahawks to skimp on the needed upgrades to the O-line.
Fact: This is a tough offseason for not skimping. The salary cap is going down for each team, for only the second time in the NFL’s cap era that began in the early 1990s (the other time was during the lockout of 2011). Reduced in-stadium revenues from the 2020 season played through the coronavirus pandemic is going to result in the cap dropping from $198.2 million per team in 2020.
The league and its players’ union have agreed the floor for the cap in 2021 will be $175 million. There are indications it will settle at around $185 million for this year before free agency begins in mid-March. A reduction of $10 million per team in cap space means many veteran players with middle-class salaries are going to get cut for money reasons this offseason.
There will be options in free agency for Seattle to add and seek to improve the offensive line, but Duane Brown-like expensive options are going to be tougher than ever to fit under the cap this spring and summer.
Fact: Wilson is part of the reason Wilson has been getting sacked a lot.
The quarterback often holds onto the ball far longer than plays are designed for him to, far longer than any offensive lineman should have to repel a charging pass rusher on any play. That’s been an issue for years. It became more obvious the latter half of this past season.
Wilson and play caller Brian Schottenheimer continued trying to throw long-developing long passes against defenses that dropped a second safety deep in pass coverage to prevent the longer throws Wilson had made spectacularly over the first half of the 2020 season.
That’s why Schottenheimer is no longer the offensive coordinator.
And it’s why Carroll has hired Shane Waldron from the Los Angeles Rams to be his new play caller, to call the Rams’ quicker passes and more running plays so the offensive line will have a better chance to pass protect against defenses that, in theory, will play Seattle more honestly with a safety closer to the line of scrimmage in 2021.
Fact: Wilson remains where he’s been for nine years, since the Seahawks drafted him in the spring of 2012: under contract with Seattle. For three more seasons.
Everything else is what’s become standard, offseason noise.
This story was originally published February 9, 2021 at 9:03 AM.
