Russell Wilson on Monday night telecast with Peyton, Eli Manning signs off with ‘Go Hawks’
Russell Wilson feels ill watching the playoffs go on without him and his Seahawks.
That’s about all that came out of his appearance on ESPN’s “Manningcast” version of the Rams-Cardinals NFC wild-card postseason game Monday night.
Oh, and Wilson ended his appearance by saying, “Go Hawks.”
Wilson came on with former NFL Super Bowl-winning quarterbacks Peyton and Eli Manning during the fourth quarter of the Rams’ blowout win. Seattle’s QB was the last of the Mannings’ three guests Monday, after former Cardinals legend receiver Larry Fitzgerald and actor Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson.
Wilson talked of having beaten the Cardinals 38-30 the previous week in Seattle’s finale to a 7-10 season, Wilson’s first losing season of his 10-year career leading the Seahawks. Eli Manning jokingly asked Wilson if he called Rams coach Sean McVay and gave Los Angeles the scoop on how to score 30-plus points on Arizona.
Wilson joked McVay was dumpster diving to retrieve the Seahawks’ discarded game plan after beating the Cardinals Jan. 9.
When asked how he feels watching this postseason, only the second of his 10-year career not involving his Seahawks, Wilson said: “I watch the games sick to my stomach.”
At one point, Wilson teased Peyton Manning about having audio difficulties on their connection.
Wilson talked strategies of playing All-World lineman Aaron Donald and the Rams’ lethal defensive front during the fourth quarter of the blowout game. Always media savvy, Wilson tried to keep viewers tuned in when he said, “This game is not over” with the Cardinals down by 20 points with 10 minutes left, though it was. Wilson talked of trying to throw against two-high safety “shell” and cloud coverage.
He again displayed his congeniality, insight and ease of conversation that made him the only return, two-time guest on the Mannings’ Monday night ESPN2 telecasts this season. Peyton Manning pointed out that fact while saying goodbye to Wilson with about a minute left in the game.
“Go Hawks,” were Wilson’s final words.
That’s been his standard end to interviews and press conferences throughout his career.
Most noticeable, particularly to Seahawks fans watching: The Mannings did not address the obvious questions Wilson himself has helped create about his future with Seattle.
One day after an unsubstantiated and misleading NFL Network report citing “league sources” saying Wilson wants to “explore his options” this offseason, the Mannings didn’t address the elephant in the virtual Zoom-call room during the final dozen game minutes Wilson was on with them.
Wilson does not have options beyond Seattle. He is not a free agent. This is not a situation akin to Tom Brady, to whom Wilson most compares himself in striving to be “the best to ever do it,” leaving New England for Tampa Bay a couple offseasons ago. Brady and the Patriots let his contract with them expire in early 2020 and then he became a free agent that signed with Tampa Bay.
Wilson has two more seasons remaining on the then-NFL record $140 million contract he signed to stay with the Seahawks in April 2019.
This is the same as last offseason. The 33-year-old Wilson cannot solicit offers from other teams he might feel have better offensive systems to win the three more Super Bowls he said this month he wants to win. Other NFL teams cannot contact him about new situations or deals. The league has tampering rules that apply to players under contract with other teams. Those rules exist through the last game of a player’s contract up to the first day of the following league year, in mid-March following the final game of his contract.
Short of publicly demanding a trade, there is next to nothing Wilson can do to change the fact the Seahawks continue to hold the options in his future. If they don’t want to trade him, and they still don’t, Wilson doesn’t get traded.
Same as it ever was.
On Jan. 6, three days before Seattle’s season finale, Wilson said when asked about his future: “My plan is to win Super Bowls. And my plan is to win them here. It’s that simple.
“There’s nothing, really, else, other than that.”
Seahawks coach Pete Carroll was asked this month in one of his regular online Zoom calls 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 Jan. 3.
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 earlier that same Monday on Seattle’s KIRO-AM radio: 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.”
This story was originally published January 18, 2022 at 12:08 PM.
