Sometime this off-season, Russell Wilson is going to have to answer some questions about why he contemplated leaving the Seahawks, yet now is happy enough to return. His responses will be intriguing, particularly in view of the continuing drama with Aaron Rodgers in Green Bay. Who knows? Rodgers may be clearing a figurative runway that may be around for Wilson’s flight in a year.
Before Wilson steps to the Zoom podium, the campaign to rehabilitate his image appears underway. Rodgers may be a help there too — he has gone from medium maintenance to high maintenance, at least in the eyes of Packers management. Wilson, meanwhile, can be seen as having gone from low to medium maintenance, so that reputational damage can be minimized by a favorable contrast.
Pete Carroll is a willing participant in the rehab, because he needs Wilson committed mind and body for an NFC West that has armored up at quarterback (Matthew Stafford in Los Angeles, Trey Lance in San Francisco) precisely because Wilson has been a decade-long pain in the ass.
Describing Wilson’s public airing of grievances in February, a violation of the Seahawks coach’s prime directive to protect the team, as “really old news,” Carroll went on Rich Eisen’s NFL Network show Friday to off-load some responsibility for the tumult onto everyone’s easy target, the click-bait-drunk media.
“You had certain guys that just decided to keep the story going, and they just wanted to keep beating it,” he said. “It really was much bigger than that it was for us internally. I thought we handled it really well.”
When in doubt, blame the media. Especially when talking to the league’s propaganda arm that assures no hard questions about one of its premier players.
As he did in a previous conference with local reporters, Carroll claimed he had steady, positive, private conversations with Wilson as the media storm rose and fell, while none of the parties offered apologies, retractions or counter-attacks. Thus everything now is cool.
“What it amounted to was I think a refocusing,” he said, “making sure that we were on the same page, making sure that we were clear so that we could withstand any of the scrutiny that would come towards us, and we did that.”
He said Wilson was now “fired up about his team, he’s fired up about his coaching staff, he’s fired up about the season.”
That was liturgy right from the Book of First Carrollians: “Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamor, and evil speaking, be put away from you.”
Then came this dandy, from, as we sports journos like to write, the Wilson camp.
A post by NFL writer Tyler Dunne on a Substack platform Go Long (h/t Bob Condotta, Seattle Times), citing anonymous sources, claimed that Wilson’s top reason for leaving was to be an NFL owner one day.
What?
One source told Dunne that Wilson wants to “maximize the amount of billionaires in his rolodex,” because “Russell’s end game is Russell wants to be an owner for a team one day. He wants to own a team. He set that as a goal years ago.”
What in the name of nano-water does that have to do with potentially wanting to be traded from Seattle?
I understand, and agree with, Wilson’s earlier complaint that he’s spent way too much of his career in the armpit of Rams DT Aaron Donald. I also get that Wilson likes to plant the relay baton in the hand of an Olympic-level sprinter 20 meters from the finish line. And once in a while, Carroll should offer to trust him instead of punter Michael Dickson on fourth-and-two.
But getting traded away from one of the NFL’s most consistently successful teams because, 10 or so years from now, when he retires, he thinks it will help him buy an NFL team?
If true, Mr. Unlimited is getting a little too close to being Mr. Unhinged.
Again, this preposterous claim didn’t come directly from Wilson. But somewhere in his camp is a fourth-grader who giggles too much at flatulence.
Indeed, it’s true Wilson aspires to sports ownership. He already has a piece of the Seattle Sounders. He joined with hedge-fund billionaire Chris Hansen in a futile plan to bring the Sonics back to a new arena in Sodo. He has action in Portland’s decades-long pursuit of an MLB team.
The ambition is a fine hobby. But it has nothing to do with playing, or not playing, with the Seahawks. Jody Allen may or may not own the Seahawks by the time he retires, but I’m guessing someone from Seattle will, and might like as a partner the greatest QB in club history and an NFL Hall of Famer.
But the story implied that Wilson wanted to be traded to one of four specific teams because he wants to chop it up with their owners.
Really? Jerry Jones? Mark Davis? The Addams Family would have nothing to do with such bizarre people.
Maybe Wilson wants to take a meeting with Robert Kraft at his favorite day spa.
If Wilson wants to get a sense for an NFL owners meeting, I suggest streaming Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome.
But if that’s his future, more power to him. Someday. Not now.
Before he considers running a franchise, he needs to consider who in his circle thought pushing the ruse of future ownership was a good cover for acting out in his age-33 season. He might want to look at the circle again and make sure it’s not a zero.
19 Comments
The storyline that won’t go away. Wilson is in the best possible situation and I wonder how much of this is his agent running wild.
I have to agree, if Wilson ever met Jerry Jones or Mark Davis he’d run from those franchises not toward them. From long time personal experience I know the Bears are not an ideal landing spot either. Going back to the days of Ditka there’s only one play they run on third and long, and Russ doesn’t execute the draw very well.
Wilson and agent Mark Rodgers have done well by each other. I don’t know if they have serious differences.
As far as schmoozing billionaires, Wilson needs to go outside football for that network,then come back in with friends.
BTW, Trey Lance in SF, not Justin Fields.
Fixed. Thanks.
First of all, I think Carroll is right about the media. Wilson’s camp did get the ball rolling to get leverage, but guys like Schefter are basically league organs who exist to keep the NFL in the limelight all year round. ESPN and others are more than happy to oblige for clicks. If there had been a proper rookie combine, I doubt the Wilson story would have lasted through it. Also, not to go fully tinfoil hat, but the day after Wilson/Carroll put this to rest, the Rogers story broke.
Regarding the point of this story, yeah… leaving the Seahawks because you want to be an owner seems like something the intern who got the job because he’s someone’s cousin would leak.
Wilson and his agent organized the media tour, the complaints, and the trade idea. Those are facts designed to create media pressure on the Seahawks. The controversy was NOT media generated. Carroll and you are wrong.
Enjoy Russ in 2021, his final season as a Seahawk. Draft QB Kedon Slovis of USC. Oh, wait….do the Seahawks have any picks in 2022? They’ll have to acquire some in the Wilson trade.
Fashionable bitterness, but not ready to go there yet. Way too many things will happen, making his fate unpredictable.
Great article, Art! Unraveling a lot. I was initially a little defensive for Russ and thought the media had indeed perhaps made too much of his obvious statements about wanting better protection. But I can’t defend this nonsense from Pete (and I love Pete!) about how the Hawks just “kept it cool” while the media ran wild. Nothing was stopping Pete and Russ from clarifying the situation with a joint statement. If Pete really thought that by staying mum the media would naturally just calm down, he’s not as savvy as I know he is. That “blame the media” line is weak. Pete could show some character by walking it back.
You’re also dead-on about the nutty idea that Russ (and I love Russ!) wanted to be traded so he could meet more billionaires and become an owner some day. There’s about 17 ways that that makes no sense.
Can we just chalk all this up to pandemic fatigue brain fog? Maybe none of us are at our sharpest right now, but this is some lame PR from Pete and Russ.
Since I had Lance instead of Fields, I’m all in on brain fog.
Regarding Carroll, his priority is having Wilson right. If he takes a few arrows to his cred with the public, he’ll say it’s a small price to pay.
Let’s all smile and be happy … for 2021.
We all had our swerve on for bitterness in 2020. Now you want to change.
When all else fails. Blame the media. If that fails, blame Hollywood. And, if that fails, blame public schools and teachers. And, finally, if THAT fails….blame the Clintons.
Of all people, you left out rock music. Look how it’s damaged you.
As much as I want to like RW ( and loath Coach Wonka), if the reports are to believed then this type of manipulation by RW is beyond despicable – not to mention a thought process belies some sort of brain damage. You want to be an NFL owner, and you think that hob-knobbing with Mark Davis will help get you there? There’s a fine line between ambition and delusion and methinks that RW hasn’t figured that out yet. And the more he tries to reconcile his greater ambitions with necessity of first being a great quarterback in the here-and-now, the greater the likelihood that he fails at both. At which point your rancid, pukifying goody-two-shoes “sincerity” will put you right up there with ARod – quite possibly the most despised and reviled sports figure ever. Here’s my advice to RW: You’re not Aaron Rodgers, you’re not Tom Brady, you’re not Patrick Mahomes. You’re NOT a brand name and you’re not even a “franchise quarterback” (whatever the hell that is). Thus far you’re just a good QB with delusions of grandeur. Want to change that? STFU, win a Super Bowl in spite of Coach Wonka then we’ll talk. And if you can’t do that even Mark Davis won’t be taking your phone calls….
Don’t feel it’s the same situation, that GM in Green Bay is trying to ditch salary, and how better to do it that piss off your expensive quarterback, in such a way that the rhetoric increases until Rogers basically forces a trade. Then the GM can point at him to avoid the stadium being burned down when they go 6-11. That GM is exactly who Rogers said he is. Stealth tanking. Wilson may have panicked a bit based on how much he’s been sacked with the prospect of a healthy Bosa, Watt, Donald in the division, with Ramsey basically taking half the field away. Wilson is probably going to get destroyed yet again this year. You have to admit they have such poor control of the LOS that it factors even into all the RB injuries. They should just bring a doorman in to welcome their blitzing guests. Being crippled impacts future earnings. Just like Green Bay, the QB give the illusion of a good team. Neither of them are good teams.