‘Go Hawks’: Russell Wilson back trumpeting his Seahawks after their flurry of signings
The Seahawks have upgraded their offensive line.
They have re-signed lead running back Chris Carson for at least the next two years.
They have signed 49ers 8-1/2-sack man Kerry Hyder. They’ve brought back Benson Mayowa to join him on a remade-again pass rush.
And they have made Russell Wilson happy.
In January, the franchise quarterback said he was “frustrated with getting hit too much.” But in the last several days Wilson has emerged from social-media silence about team matters to type his noticeable—and for many, relieving—approval at Seattle’s latest free-agent signings.
Heck, he’s even ending his online self-videos with “Go Hawks” again.
Wilson’s latest online celebration of what his team is doing came Tuesday. He reacted to the Seahawks signing Hyder plus re-signing Mayowa, who had six sacks last year for the team.
“Let’s go!!! @Benny_b0y10 back!!! @KerryhyderJR too” Wilson posted on Twitter. He added three strength, flexing-biceps emojis.
Friday, Carson’s agents confirmed to The News Tribune the team’s leading rusher would be back on a new, two-year contract after he shopped in free agency for the first time. For that, Wilson wrote on Twitter: “Big time! Let’s go 32!!!” for Carson’s Seahawks jersey number.
Many fans noticed that a day earlier last week, at the end of a video promoting the NFL’s flag-football league for youth, Wilson ended it with “Go Hawks, baby.”
That is his signature end of interviews and other public comments. And those had been missing for most of the previous two months.
During that time, Wilson stated his frustration with his pass protection. He noted he’s been sacked an NFL-high 394 times in the first nine seasons of his career.
His agent, Mark Rodgers, gave ESPN four teams he said Wilson would prefer to be traded to—the Cowboys, Raiders, Saints and Bears—but added that he wasn’t asking the Seahawks for a trade and that Seattle had not told him they wanted to trade him.
They never did.
While rumors so wild they should have been aired by Animal Planet roared throughout January, February and March, the Seahawks set about addressing Wilson’s frustrations. They involved him heavily before coach Pete Carroll’s decision to hire former Los Angeles Rams passing-game coordinator Shane Waldron as a first-time NFL play caller. That move is designed to install more of the Rams’ run-based, quicker, short-route passing game: a strategic step to improving Wilson’s pass protection.
This month the Seahawks waited through the first, expensive days of free agency—as Carroll and general manager John Schneider always have in 11 years running the franchise. They bid on but missed out signing veteran center Alex Mack, who signed with San Francisco. They missed out on signing Raiders center Rodney Hudson because Las Vegas traded him to Arizona before they could cut him and put him on the free-agent market for bidding.
But then they got Wilson a big upgrade for the offensive line. They traded a fifth-round choice in next month’s draft to the Raiders for veteran guard Gabe Jackson. They re-signed center and previous backup guard and tackle Ethan Pocic for one year and $3 million, a deal that seems to be a fall-back plan in case they can’t upgrade more at center, too.
They signed tight end Gerald Everett for one year and $6 million. He excelled for years in Waldron’s quicker passing game with the Rams. It’s a scheme quicker than Wilson and Seattle had last season chucking it down the field to DK Metcalf and Tyler Lockett even when defenses took that away.
They kept Carson in Wilson’s backfield when it appeared their leading rusher was leaving for free-agency riches. The running-back market fell back to the Seahawks, and Carson is back in Seattle.
Wilson’s tone has changed along with what initially looked like frustrating offseason.
Within an hour of agent David Canter saying Tuesday client Mayowa is bringing his six sacks from last year back to Seattle for 2021, the Seahawks signed Hyder from the rival San Francisco 49ers.
Agent Erik Burkhardt confirmed Hyder, 29, is signing a three-year deal with Seattle worth $16.5 million, with a chance to earn another $1 million with incentive bonuses.
That third year is a voidable year for salary-cap purposes, per NBC Sports. That makes it truly a two-year deal worth $6.5 million, with bonuses that could push it to $7.5 million.
Voidable years are the Seahawks’ vogue trend right now. It allows the team to spread bonus-money accounting across an additional year beyond the practical length of the contract for salary-cap purposes.
Essentially, Hyder’s two-year, $6.5 million deal becomes a three-year, $6.5 million deal—with the third year including a phantom $10 million salary Hyder won’t see and Seattle won’t pay.
That’s a Seattle kind of deal.
Adding voidable years is a new tack for Carroll and general manager John Schneider. They are using it in a most unusual offseason. The NFL salary cap has dropped from $198 million to $182.5 million per team after lost game-day revenues in 2020 because of the coronavirus pandemic. But the league last week signed new television and streaming-right deals that will net the NFL $10 billion per year for 10 years beginning in 2023.
That’s when each team is expecting to realize a spike in the cap, into the range of $220 million-plus per team.
So if there was ever a time for the Seahawks to depart from their norm and defer 2021 player costs into 2023 and beyond, it’s right now. They’ve done it with Carson’s and Pocic’s new contracts.
And now they’ve done it to retain Mayowa and add Hyder to the pass rush.
Hyder had 8-1/2 sacks last year playing right defensive end for the 49ers. He had eight sacks in 2016 with Detroit.
With Mayowa re-signing and Carlos Dunlap, the two-time Pro Bowl defensive end who revitalized the Seahawks’ pass rush last season, still unsigned and available, Hyder can become the bookend, strong-side edge rusher for Seattle. That is opposite the “Leo” end Mayowa and Dunlap have played in Carroll’s 4-3 defense.
The Seahawks released Dunlap this month to clear $14 million in space under the salary cap for the start of free agency. The team wants to bring him back, at a more cap-friendly price for 2021.
That possibility—a shorter-term, lower-cost deal—has increased as Dunlap has stayed unsigned into the secondary waves of the market.
Wilson wouldn’t hate that, either.
This story was originally published March 24, 2021 at 7:31 AM.
