What’s the meaning of the Seahawks’ silence over the latest Russell Wilson drama?
Why are the Seahawks so quiet during all this Russell Wilson noise?
Why aren’t they saying something about their franchise quarterback and their commitment to him?
They don’t have to.
The $140 million coach Pete Carroll and general manager John Schneider gave Wilson in the spring of 2019 to be Seattle’s quarterback through the 2023 season speaks for them.
From Marshawn Lynch off rehabilitating an injury with his own trainer in the Bay Area during a season to Doug Baldwin flipping off his play caller from the huddle during a game to Earl Thomas telling the coach of the Dallas Cowboys to “come get me” after a game, drama is far from new for Carroll’s and Schneider’s Seahawks.
Drama isn’t even new for Wilson and the Seahawks.
Remember when Ciara, the quarterback’s wife, supposedly wanted Wilson to sign with the Giants so she could further her singing and marketing career in New York? That was just before Wilson signed with...the Seahawks. Again. For the richest contract in NFL history.
That was not even two full years ago.
Carroll’s and Schneider’s way throughout their 11 years running the franchise has been to not comment on that to which they don’t want to add validity. Especially at this time of year, when they don’t comment on anything. Schneider has commented to reporters who cover the team every day since April 2020, at the end of last year’s draft.
What’s filling their void of silence is Wilson saying, remarkably, “I am frustrated with getting hit too much.” He stated very publicly this month he wants better pass protection at age 32 after 10 years in the league.
The Athletic’s story on Wilson, published this week, described Wilson’s “rift” with the team, including an anecdote that the quarterback “stormed out” of a meeting with his coaches before a November game against Arizona after they “dismissed” his suggestions for fixing Seattle’s slumping offense.
Wilson’s agent, Mark Rodgers, told ESPN’s Adam Schefter Thursday in a 2021, manufactured-drama, passive-voice way: “Russell Wilson has told the Seahawks he wants to play in Seattle but, if a trade were considered, the only teams he would go to are the Cowboys, Saints, Raiders and Bears.”
Once again, for those in the way back: the Seahawks aren’t trading Russell Wilson.
The salary-cap charge to trade him right now is $39 million, almost one-quarter of the team’s expected cap limit for its entire roster in 2021. That’s one of many reasons Wilson will be playing for Seattle this year.
Another: if they trade him the Seahawks won’t have Russell Wilson as their quarterback anymore. Carroll would be starting over while he turns 70 years old in September, having just signed a contract extension to keep running the team through 2025.
Carroll has never met a person or situation he didn’t think he could fix by his will and personality. He’s never met a quarterback like Wilson, who since the coach made Wilson Seattle’s starter from week one as a rookie in 2012, has brought him championships, success and longevity Carroll never achieved in his previous stints with New England and the New York Jets.
So how is Carroll going to fix this?
First, by changing play calling and scheme.
Carroll included Wilson in the decision to hire Shane Waldron from the Los Angeles Rams last month to replace fired Brian Schottenheimer as the Seahawks’ offensive coordinator. Waldron is bringing coach Sean McVay’s run-based, play-action, quicker and more varied passing game from L.A. to Seattle.
As Wilson loudly stated this month, he’s been sacked 394 times in his nine seasons. That’s the most in NFL history to start a career. He should take far fewer hits if he’s throwing the ball as quickly in Waldron’s passing game as Jared Goff did for Los Angeles in the three seasons Waldron was the Rams’ passing-game coordinator under McVay.
Consider: Wilson has been sacked the third-most, sixth-most and fifth-most times in the NFL with Schottenheimer as his play caller the last three seasons.
The Rams have taken the sixth-fewest, fewest and eighth-fewest sacks with Waldron as their quick-pass-game coordinator the last three years.
Next, Carroll and Schneider will set out to get a new starting left guard and likely a new starting center to revamp at least 40% of Wilson’s offensive line in 2021.
Former All-Pro left guard Mike Iupati announced last week he was retiring at age 33. Ethan Pocic, the team’s second-round draft choice in 2017, had his contract expire with the end of this past season.
While the football world went bonkers Thursday over agent Rodgers creating a trade market for Wilson that doesn’t exist and the quarterback hasn’t asked for, Green Bay Packers All-Pro center Corey Linsley was telling Sirius XM radio “looks like all signs are pointing towards snapping the ball somewhere else next year.”
Including Linsley, Seattle could have an unusually large market of veteran starters available across the league from which to choose as free agents to replace Iupati and Pocic when the market opens with the new league year March 17. The league’s salary cap is dropping from $198.2 million last year to no lower than $180 million this year. That is going to result in teams cutting many veterans who have what are middle-class salaries in the NFL, in the range of $3-8 million per season, to get under the lower cap limit.
The challenge for the Seahawks is, this may not be the offseason to change their approach and buy expensive, All-Pro offensive linemen.
Assuming a cap of $180 million (it could end up closer to $185 million), Seattle has just $4.9 million of space, according to overthecap.com. That is the second-lowest total in the league among teams that aren’t over the new cap for 2021.
The Seahawks are likely to join the many teams cutting veterans or restructuring expensive contracts to save cap space. The prime candidates for converting base salary to bonus money for a more team-friendly cap number: Wilson ($32 million cap charge for 2021), Bobby Wagner ($17.15 million) and Tyler Lockett ($14,950,000).
Seattle’s fourth- and fifth-highest cap charges on the team are for defensive linemen Carlos Dunlap ($14.04 million) and Jarran Reed ($13,975,000). Both were key to the team’s resurgent pass rush over the latter half of the 2020 season.
Jordan Simmons is a cheaper, in-house alternative to replace Iupati as the left guard. He’s impressed coaches for years as an injury fill-in guard.
The Seahawks’ silent stance to the latest Wilson drama: We hear you. We are working on it, in various ways.
And we aren’t trading you.
This story was originally published February 26, 2021 at 8:42 AM.
