Pete Carroll at NFL combine: Seahawks are ‘not shopping’ Russell Wilson. Thanks for asking
The Seahawks are not shopping Russell Wilson.
Pete Carroll made that point clear for the league at the NFL combine in Indianapolis Wednesday.
Speaking off the podium along a back wall of the Indiana Convention Center moments after his more-formal press conference at the league’s annual scouting extravaganza, Seattle’s coach was asked what the Seahawks and general manager John Schneider say to the other teams that have been calling in hopes there is any fire to the 13 months of national smoke about Wilson and a possible trade.
“What John says is, ‘We’re not shopping the quarterback.’ That’s what he tells them,” Carroll said. “He has talked to other teams. He’s had teams that have asked, just because of all of the media. They think that something is going on, so he’s fielded a lot of calls.
“But he’s fielded a lot of calls on everybody.
“But that in particular, he’s got a standard response.”
Wilson, 33, has two years remaining on his then-record $140 million contract he signed in 2019. He missed games last season for the first time in his 10-year career because of injury.
Seattle went 1-2 in those games he missed with a broken finger, then 0-3 in the first three games after he returned in October. He later acknowledged he rushed back too soon.
Now, 13 months after Wilson said “I’m frustrated with getting hit too much” and a year after Wilson’s agent told ESPN four teams Wilson would waive his no-trade clause and go to if the Seahawks wanted to trade him, the team and its franchise quarterback remain in the same place.
Wilson isn’t getting traded, because the Seahawks don’t want to trade him.
Wilson has said multiple times since the end of the 2021 season his “hope” is to remain with the Seahawks and that his goal remains to win three more Super Bowls with the team.
“My plan is to win Super Bowls. And my plan is to win them here. It’s that simple,” Wilson said Jan. 6, before Seattle’s season-finale win at Arizona. “There’s nothing, really, else, other than that.”
He quarterbacked Seattle to its only NFL championship, winning Super Bowl 48 at the end of the 2013 season.
That was one year after Carroll and Schneider drafted Wilson in the third round and made him the Seahawks’ starter from the third preseason game of his rookie summer.
“Russ was clear,” Carroll said Wednesday. “I think Russ was pretty clear of his intentions, you know, that he plans on playing here, being with us.”
Of course, fans want unequivocal answers from the team. They want Carroll or Schneider, or both, to just come out and state Wilson is not going anywhere, that he’s under contract for two more seasons and he’s our franchise cornerstone. And that’s the end of it.
But NFL business — Seattle’s business under Carroll and Schneider since they arrived to run the Seahawks in 2010 — doesn’t run that way.
Carroll and Schneider take huge pride and gain league-wide access by proclaiming they are always “in on everything,” always competing, to use Carroll’s pet phrase, to explore any and all potential ways to improve and win.
That includes listening to any team that might offer the Moon, Jupiter, Saturn and the entire galaxy for the one player Carroll and Schneider haven’t fathomed being without since the team’s most successful run began with Wilson in 2012.
“That’s right. It doesn’t run that way. I’m glad you brought that up,” Carroll said.
“The facts are, that if you are competing you’ve got to listen to what’s going on. So that’s ...and we have been in — how many years it’s been, 12, 13 or something, whatever it is? — I think we’ve been saying it exactly the same way. Because we believe this. We cannot to miss the opportunity to compete.
“So that’s what we are tasked to do. And that’s what we’ve been doing.
“Yeah, we will still listen. We listen to everything. Like we’ve always said, any phase in acquiring talent, we always try to be at the front end of it and know everything that is going on — and, what is the possibility? What is the opportunity? We don’t just go the other way; ‘Nah, we’ll pay attention next year.’ No. We don’t do that.”
Carroll chuckled.
On the podium, minutes earlier, the Seahawks coach said in front of cameras when asked about Wilson and the trade rumors: “At this time of year there are conversations about everybody. We have no intention of making any move there.”
In talking to Wilson recently, Carroll said he sees no difference in how his 33-year-old quarterback feels about the future of the franchise now compared to this time last year.
“No,” Carroll said, “he’s determined. He’s disappointed that we didn’t do better. We’ve been together too long to not, kind of, share that. He’s ready to get back at it.
“He can’t wait to get playing again.”
This story was originally published March 2, 2022 at 11:03 AM.
