The “dynamics” of Russell Wilson going from $660,000 to $61M guaranteed

Say you were earning $60,000 annually per year. Then you get a raise … to more than $5.5 million, guaranteed.

Might that change you a bit?

That is the real-world equivalent to what’s happened to Russell Wilson over the last 10 months.

At the end of the 2014 season, the Seahawks’ trigger man was sports’ biggest bargain: A two-time Super Bowl quarterback and 2013 NFL champion making $662,000 in base salary on his rookie contract as a third-round draft choice.

Then hours before Seattle’s training camp began July 31, Wilson signed an $87.6 million extension that includes $61 million guaranteed. That guarantee is 92 times more than his base pay was last year.

His coach thinks that, um, raise has inevitably changed the dynamics between Seattle’s leader and his teammates.

“I think when guys sign their contracts, and it’s their time, it’s recognized by the players around them as well that they just got paid,” Carroll said this week, obviously interested in the issue. “And how they handle that and how they deal with it, the players are going to watch them and they see them. Not that they’re trying to find out something wrong, but the dynamics shift.

“So there’s a responsibility on both ends of that: For the player who just got paid to understand, OK, you’ve done something that a lot of other guys wish they could do, too; and then for the players that haven’t had their opportunity, to respect the guy and his good opportunity and good fortune that came his way. So there’s a lot to that.

“And you don’t always know how that’s going to work out.”

Wilson’s eventful last year has included more than his contract. It’s included his high-profile relationship with the singer Ciara — she’s been with him after practices and games, on his weekly Tuesday visits to Seattle Children’s hospital, plus in social-media postings of photos with them as Batman and Catwoman at Halloween, then on a beach in Mexico during the Seahawks’ recent bye week. The past year has also included Wilson at the White House multiple times as a guest of President Barack Obama. Wilson has the highest national profile for a Seattle athlete since at least Ken Griffey Jr. in the 1990s.

Wilson’s 2015 has thus had more scrutiny. It started with the interception he threw at the goal line at the end of Super Bowl 49 that cost Seattle its second consecutive title. It intensified this month when offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell said Wilson needed to “give guys a chance” on some throws. That was after Wilson’s 14-for-32 passing night in the loss to Arizona that essentially ended the Seahawks’ chance for a third straight NFC West championship.

Wilson responded last weekend with the most accurate passing performance of his career: 24 for 29 with three touchdowns as Seattle’s offense rolled up 500 total yards for just the third time under Carroll in the 29-13 win over San Francisco. The victory lifted the Seahawks to a 5-5 record and one game out of a wild-card playoff spot entering Sunday’s test at home against Pittsburgh (6-4).

“I ignore the noise,” Wilson said.

He must. He says nothing’s different this year.

“I don’t think it’s changed at all,” Wilson said. “I think that, ultimately, it comes down to how you prepare. Like I always say, the separation is in the preparation. It comes down to getting here early, loving your teammates in terms of getting ready and having fun getting prepared.”

Carroll speaks from his and general manager John Schneider’s recent experiences of giving huge raises to the Seahawks’ core players such as Kam Chancellor, Earl Thomas, Richard Sherman, Cliff Avril, Bobby Wagner and Michael Bennett.

“There’s a lot of guys — I know in baseball — that get paid hitting .320 and then they never see .300 again. It happens. So hopefully our guys can make it through it,” Carroll said. “I think it does take a lot of support, and direction, and counseling to deal with that well. Because the last thing we want to do is have a guy get a big contract and then he can’t play very well anymore.”

Wilson, a former minor-league second baseman, isn’t exactly hitting below .200 in a football sense since he signed his extension. Despite being sacked more than any other NFL quarterback, he has a completion rate of 67.5 percent this season, the highest of his career. He’s coming off his first game with three touchdown passes since last January’s divisional-playoff win over Carolina.

Carroll said that how Sherman responded last year in the months after he went from $555,000 in 2013 to signing a four-year, $56 million extension with $40 million guaranteed is exactly how a coach hopes a star handles such a windfall. Sherman became an All-Pro cornerback for the third consecutive season.

“When Richard did his deal and then came back and had an incredible year that same year, I recognized his focus and his attention to detail,” Carroll said, meaning the coach recognized it in front of the entire team. “I used to talk about how he was practicing. He’d created habits in that year that surpassed the habits that had gotten him to that point. And he continues to do that now.

“I think that’s a great mark of a guy recognizing the good things that have happened and then capitalizing on that opportunity by really going for it and applying himself in the best way. As opposed to, ‘OK, I made it,’ and sitting back and going otherwise.

“We’ve had very good response from our guys. If you do a good job of choosing the players that you reward, and I think that’s very important. How are they going to handle it? Will they do well with it? Then you can have some good fortune with it.”

Wilson said Carroll talked to him “a little bit” — after the quarterback signed his contract — about the need to do more in front of his teammates.

“But we didn’t really focus on it,” Wilson said.

“You’ve worked so hard your whole life, sometimes we forget that. You work your whole life to get an opportunity, to seize that opportunity, to make it in the National Football League or whatever profession it may be. If you’re trying to be the CEO of a business or a doctor or a teacher, or whatever it may be, to accomplish that point, there’s still more to go.

“I know my focus is I want to do the best that I can, continue to study, continue to learn as much as I can, and just grasp that sense of knowledge as much as I can.”

So, no, Wilson doesn’t feel any additional responsibility since signing one of the largest contracts in the NFL.

“I don’t think any more than what it’s been in the past,” Wilson said. “I think that ultimately, I always look at it, even since my rookie year, I’ve always looked at it as an amazing opportunity to step up and lead and encourage and win games. … I try to lead in the same way, try to be clutch when I need to be and just try to put us in a great position to win every week.”

Really? Getting guaranteed 92 times more money hasn’t changed Russell Wilson in any way?

“No,” he said flatly and with a straight face.

“Nothing changed.”

EXTRA POINTS

As the Seahawks awaited word from a specialist in Philadelphia after Marshawn Lynch’s visited there Tuesday for an examination of his abdominal injury, they added running-back depth. They re-signed Bryce Brown. Seattle had released the former Eagle and Bill last weekend after he’d been inactive for two games since joining the team in midseason. … The Seahawks also re-signed often-shuttled WR B.J. Daniels. … Special-teams LB Nick Moody went on injured reserve after getting hurt on a punt during last weekend’s game. … The Seahawks released DT one week after signing the part-time Uber driver off waivers from Miami. … Seattle put OT Terry Poole on its practice squad/injured-reserve list and signed RB DuJuan Harris and WR Tyler Slavin to the practice squad.

This story was originally published November 24, 2015 at 9:20 PM with the headline "The “dynamics” of Russell Wilson going from $660,000 to $61M guaranteed."