Seattle Seahawks Extend Bobby Wagner

Maybe you saw this, maybe you didn’t: in the wake of Russell Wilson signing his four-year extension with the Seattle Seahawks, linebacker Bobby Wagner sent out a rather ominous tweet. Not a vicious or vilifying tweet, but a tweet that made waves throughout the Seattle area:

It’s a simple truth: there’s not enough money in the salary-capped NFL for teams to keep all of their stars. The Seahawks, just like any other team, would have to pick and choose which of their star players were the right ones to hang on to. Wagner recognized as much, though at the time his contract situation was much less settled than it is today. Today’s different, though, because Wagner just signed a four-year deal of his own.

So Wagner may have been right, but it turns out that the Seahawks’ new Wilson-stuffed budget had room for Wagner after all. The news was broken on Twitter by – who else? – Michael Robinson. It’s a four year contract worth $43 million. For that sum the Seahawks get to hold onto a guy who’s turned himself into one of the game’s very best linebackers.

It’s obvious why this deal happened when it did – Wagner’s contract couldn’t be finalized until Wilson’s deal was done, and once the latter happened the former fell seamlessly into place. For all the worry this team caused us over the last few months, they sure didn’t seem to have much trouble banging out two extremely important contracts when it came time to do so. Which is nice to know.

Wagner, a second-round pick in the much-maligned and now-clearly-amazing 2012 draft class, was a Pro Bowler in 2014 and managed to rack up 135 tackles despite missing four games. He’s easily one of the best inside linebackers in the sport, and is critical to Seattle’s pass rush. It was always assumed a deal would get done, and now the money’s been spent and Wagner’s staying put. Happy day.

It’s amazing what the ‘Hawks have done to keep their squad together. Seattle has the following stars locked up through 2017 (or beyond): Wilson, Wagner, Jimmy Graham, Marshawn Lynch, Richard Sherman, Cliff Avril, K.J. Wright, Michael Bennett, Kam Chancellor, and Earl Thomas. That’s one hell of a core, and they could theoretically keep adding to that list. This team is putting itself in a great position to be a powerhouse for the long run. Back-to-back Super Bowl appearances clearly aren’t enough for these guys.

For now we have four more years of Bobby Wagner. Maybe the team will now turn it’s attention to Chancellor’s holdout, or maybe they just start planning new deals for Russell Okung and Bruce Irvin. There’s no limit to what this team can do. Except win the Super Bowl, I guess. That’s the awesomeness threshhold, and hey, wait, they already passed it! Cool. The Seahawks are so cool.

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