Seattle Seahawks, Russell Wilson Agree To Extension

At 10:35am today, the Seattle Seahawks will take the field for their first practice of the season. When they do that, it’ll mark the passing of an important deadline – that’s when Russell Wilson said he’d cut off contract talks for the rest of the season. We’ve all been dreading that date and time for months now. We don’t have to anymore.

With just under four hours to go before the quarterback’s self-imposed deadline, both sides were able to reach agreement on a new deal. It’s a shorter deal than we’re used to seeing for star quarterbacks, but that doesn’t mean Russ didn’t get paid. Average annual value still rules the contract world, and Wilson came out pretty great on that front:

Wilson’s now up there with the best of the best, who also happen to be the richest of the rich. It’s where he wanted to be all along, and now that’s where he’ll be for the next four years. Oh, and he did pretty good for himself as far as guaranteed money is concerned, too, as about $60 million of this deal is said to be in the bank, including a $31 million signing bonus.

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The team is okay with it, the player is okay with it, and the money sounds… reasonable. All of which begs the question: why did this take so long? Why bother dragging negotiations out until the last possible second if the deal they were going to agree on is the kind of deal everyone figured made sense for both sides? Yeah, yeah, maximizing leverage and all that, but come on. Couldn’t this have gotten done a long time ago?

Russell Wilson’s reputation has taken quite a hit over the last few months, and his perfectly alright new contract probably won’t do much to make him look better. If he’d signed a bigger deal people would have criticized him for “selfishness,” sure. But now he’s signed the deal you and I and everyone was expecting, making the last few months’ worth of back-and-forth seem like idiot theater.

No matter the case, this is still a joyous day. Russell Wilson won’t be going anywhere anytime soon, and it’ll be another four years before we have to deal with another contract circus surrounding Seattle’s star QB. He was one of the last members of the Seahawks’ core who wasn’t signed through 2017 or beyond, and with his signing the team’s long-term outlook just gets rosier.

The big question now is whether or not the ‘Hawks can be a deal done with Bobby Wagner. Without really diving into the numbers, it looks like there’s room to get this done – if Wilson isn’t going to hold out for unreasonable money, then why should Wagner? – but then again, you never know. The smart money is on a Wagner extension. That’s the biggest upside here – it doesn’t kill the team’s flexibility. Not right away, anyways.

As for a Kam Chancellor re-negotiation… the hope was always that Seattle would just flat-out tell him to get over it and get to camp, since it’s not really the team’s job to arbitrarily reward their loudest whiners with new money. I could imagine the ‘Hawks still having a little extra cash to throw at Chancellor if they’re desperate to shut him, but that doesn’t mean they should. Like I said, Wilson’s new deal doesn’t fully stifle, but it sure as hell isn’t the same as his rookie contract. Chancellor shouldn’t get his deal re-worked, especially at the cost of a Wagner extension.

So go celebrate. Run wild in the streets. Russell Wilson is a Seattle Seahawk, and for the next four years he’ll be a Seattle Seahawk. He beat Ben Rothlisberger’s money, and that’s just kind of heartwarming in a bizarre, which-millionaire-do-you-like-more kind of way. Long live Russell Wilson, Seattle Seahawk. Rich Seattle Seahawk.

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