Seahawks’ Russell Wilson: ‘My plan is to win Super Bowls. And my plan is to win them here’
This week in As The Russell Wilson Turns: The leading man in what’s become a national drama — if not soap opera — speaks succinctly on his future with the Seahawks.
“My plan is to win Super Bowls. And my plan is to win them here. It’s that simple,” Wilson said Thursday.
“There’s nothing, really, else, other than that.”
Wilson spoke four days after the latest national report, from ESPN, that Seattle’s franchise quarterback “could potentially” be playing his last games with the only NFL team he’s known.
Then again, with all he’s done to improve the lives of children and many others beyond the field, Wilson “could potentially” become secretary-general of the United Nations tomorrow.
What he will do, for certain, is play in the Seahawks’ season finale Sunday at Arizona. After that, Wilson has two more years remaining on his record $140 million contract.
Since last offseason when he stated very publicly “I’m frustrated with getting hit too much,” and his agent Mark Rodgers listed four teams Wilson would waive his no-trade clause to get traded to if Seattle wanted to deal (which it did not and does not), the league’s rumor mill has kept churning.
A spin-off of this Seahawks’ 6-10 season, their first losing one since 2011, the year before coach Pete Carroll and general manager John Schneider drafted Wilson, is the rumor either Carroll or Wilson must go this coming offseason.
“There is a leaguewide feeling, according to sources, that Carroll and Wilson will not be together again next season, which would represent the end of one of the most successful head coach/quarterback duos in NFL history,” ESPN’s Adam Schefter wrote Sunday.
Seahawks chair Jody Allen gave Carroll, 70, another extension last year to run the franchise through the 2025 season. Carroll’s deal is believed to be among the richest for a coach in the NFL, at a salary above $12 milion annually.
Monday, Carroll said on KIRO-AM radio in response to ESPN’s report Sunday: “I know what’s going on.”
Later Monday, Carroll was asked in his regular online Zoom call with Seattle reporters: “Is part of your ability to do that stuff and not care about it because the conversations you have with Russ behind the scenes are different than what the rumors and reports are outside the building?”
Carroll gave a direct answer.
“The kind of conversations we have behind the scenes are not in line with the rumors,” Carroll said.
The coach nodded his head affirmatively and chuckled.
“OK? They’re not at all,” Carroll said. “We’ve been talking, we’ve been together and connected throughout this whole, this whole season. And that’s why it’s easy to dismiss those at this time.”
Carroll also was asked on the radio Monday: When these rumors about Wilson potentially leaving Seattle “reach his desk, how do you react to that?”
The coach laughed, then told 710 ESPN Seattle: “They don’t reach my desk. And I don’t mess with them. I don’t have to, you know.”
“I know what’s going on and I don’t need to follow what the agenda that somebody has out there to try and create and stir stuff up and all that.
“We’ll go about our offseason when the time comes. But that stuff, really, that doesn’t affect me.”
If Wilson could separate all the noise and any other factor outside of his relationship with Carroll, is what he believes about his only NFL coach enough to convince Wilson he’s staying with the Seahawks for as long as he, Wilson, can see?
“Yeah,” Wilson said. “We’ve always thought that I’d always be here.
“That’s been always my goal, to win, like I said to you guys, to win multiple Super Bowls and my plan’s to be here, and to do that.
“You know, you take every day, and you just enjoy the moment, man. I’ve learned that along the way. That’s probably been one of the greatest gifts to myself, is to know that everyday I’m going to give everything I have that day. That’s it, and I’ve learned that, too, watching Coach Carroll and just his process everyday, the consistency of his approach.
“So I’m grateful for the moments, every day. That’s what I know.”
This story was originally published January 6, 2022 at 1:55 PM.
