In the last three years, Russell Wilson has taken the Seahawks to highs they never dreamt of reaching before his arrival.
From August of 2012 to February of 2015, Wilson has played for pennies on the dollar in terms of what he has accomplished as compared to what he has been compensated for. A third round selection expected to compete for playing time with Tarvaris Jackson behind Matt Flynn, Wilson outplayed both veterans in the preseason and earned the starting job. He led the Seahawks to an 11-5 record, a road playoff victory over the “other” Washington and RG3, and narrowly lost to the Atlanta Falcons in the divisional round. He earned $544,868 in his rookie year.
In year two, he led the Seahawks on a terror, going 13-3 and securing the division title and the number one seed in the NFC with homefield advantage throughout the playoffs. He outplayed Drew Brees and Colin Kaepernick en route to the team’s first Super Bowl appearance in eight seasons, and once there outplayed Peyton Manning for the franchise’s first Super Bowl victory, although Malcolm Smith was awarded the MVP. Wilson earned $681,085 in his second season.
In year three, Wilson took on a bigger role on offense and led the team on a 9-1 streak after the mid-season mark to help Seattle overcome heavy odds to overtake Arizona for the division title, and again secured the number one seed in the NFC with homefield advantage throughout the playoffs. In the postseason, Wilson outdueled Cam Newton in the divisional round, and led Seattle to one of the most memorable comebacks in postseason history the following week. While trailing Green Bay and league MVP Aaron Rodgers 19-7 with just under four minutes remaining in the NFC Championship Game, Wilson, who threw four interceptions in the game, channeled his inner-Brett Favre and led Seattle on an unlikely comeback over the Packers and helped Seattle earn their second consecutive Super Bowl appearance. Seattle would lose in heartbreaking fashion as Wilson was intercepted in the end zone after attempting a slant pass from New England’s one yard line while trailing by four points with 26 seconds remaining. Wilson earned $817,302 in his third season.
Wilson has requested a new deal, and has self-imposed a deadline to reach that deal by the time the team opens training camp. So far, neither side has expressed optimism that an agreement can be reached or that Wilson will take less than the average salary and guaranteed amounts he has requested.
Perhap not all, but some of Wilson’s bitterness is easy to understand and relate to. On his current contract he will be set to make $1.7M in his fourth season including base salary and bonuses, and stands as the 45th highest paid QB in the NFL. Wilson is the lowest paid starting QB out of all 32 teams, and is paid less than 13 backup quarterbacks, including former Seattle QB Charlie Whitehurst who will earn $2.5M this season as the 3rd string QB in Tennessee.
Obviously Wilson is worth more than that to a franchise working with a team salary cap of $143M and a $226M check from the league’s revenue sharing program alone, which does not include any local revenue the team may have earned from ticket sales or gift shop purchases.
Often credited for the team’s successes and failures but without the mega-contract to go with that level of stress and responsibility, Wilson earns just 1.14% of the team’s salary cap, while Richard Sherman is currently the Seahawks’ highest paid player, with an 8.2% hold of the salary cap at $12.2M this season. Marshawn Lynch is worth 5.7% at $8.5M, and Wilson’s new red-zone target Jimmy Graham is worth 5.4% at $8M.
Another thing to keep in mind is that division rival Colin Kaepernick is making $19M this season, and has a contract with $61M guaranteed. Conference rival Cam Newton is earning $13M this season, and his contract is worth $60M guaranteed. Even Ryan Tannehill, thought by many to be a reach in the realm of “true” franchise QB’s, has a new deal with $45M guaranteed.
It’s fair to say that Wilson has far and away outplayed his rookie deal. So what is he worth?
Wilson is working with agent Mark Rodgers (who deals primarily with MLB players on fully guaranteed deals) on a deal that will get Wilson the most guaranteed money of any NFL player, a title currently held by none other than Kaepernick. Wilson is also rumored to be asking for $25M for his average annual salary, which would eclipse the top bread winner in the NFL, a title held by Aaron Rodgers at $22M. The Seahawks want to make a deal that is fair to them and to Wilson, but there’s a lot of info floating around that could be making both sides hesitant to get a deal done today, as Wilson has politely demanded.
Number one is that Wilson has publicly put this deadline on the Seahawks, which would lead one to guess that he doesn’t trust his front office to remember to pay him while they are paying everyone else. So far, 1-0 Russ.
Number two is that he knows that no matter how good that scary-good Seattle defense is or how tough Marshawn Lynch makes it on opposing defenses, this team goes nowhere with a guy like Tarvaris Jackson at the helm. Wilson knows it, Seattle knows it, T-Jax knows it. In a league short on starting QB’s, the simple truth is that the Seahawks need Wilson a hell of a lot more than Wilson needs them, a fact I’m certain that both sides are aware of. 2-0 Russ.
Number three is that Wilson is the only QB taken in the 2012 draft to start in two Super Bowls, and win one. That’s a trick statement, he’s the only QB taken since 2001 to start in the last two Super Bowls. If this deal stands, he joins Nick Foles as the only starting QB’s from the class of 2012 to earn less than $2M this season. He’s insulted by how little he is making and is not going out of his way (so far) to publicly criticize the team for continuing to offer him a laughable amount of money. 3-0 Russ.
The ludicrous part is that Seattle should want to get this deal done, they should be desperate, in fact. The longer this goes on, the more it becomes assumed that Seattle isn’t super interested in paying the league’s most underrated QB. And if they make that point clear to not just Wilson but the rest of the league as well, it could make signing him long term not just difficult, but it could be an afterthought since there will be a host of teams looking for veteran QB’s in the next couple of years, and they will be willing to pay a silly amount of money to get them.
If Wilson plays out his rookie deal, he will make $1.5M in base salary this year, another $200,000 in bonuses, and be an unrestricted free agent in 2016. Seattle can keep Wilson from signing elsewhere by placing the exclusive rights franchise tag on him, and pay him the average of the current top-5 QB salaries in the NFL, which would have been an $18.5M one-year payday based on 2014 pay. So if Seattle’s plan is to keep him around through the 2016-17 season and then let him play the open market, they’ll get him for an average of $10M per season, just a bit more than Tom Brady earns. But that just can’t be their plan.
For those looking at Wilson as a glorified “game manager”, first off, Alex Smith is a game manager. Kyle Orton is a game manager. Matt Flynn is a game manager. Russell Wilson may not stand seven feet tall or be able to see passing lanes over Mount Everest, but he does so much more than just follow the rules and limit his mistakes like those guys you see listed above who spend so much time focusing on not doing anything wrong, they forget to do what really counts – win the big games, and every once in a while, do it in style.
Tom Brady could have been called a game manager his first three years, so could Ben Roethlisberger. And something Wilson shares with those two guys is that all three won their first title in their second season, they were asked to limit their mistakes in schemes driven by the defense and running game, and over time they proved that they were much more than a game manager. The only difference between Wilson and those two future HOF QB’s now is that he hasn’t won multiple titles, but it would be hard to argue that he won’t get more chances to do so. Now you may look at Big Ben and say that he was a first round pick, and that negates the contract dispute, well fine, but what about Tom Brady, who was taken in the 6th round? Brady won his first Super Bowl in February of 2002, and was rewarded with a $32M extension that summer. Russell won his first title 18 months ago, so where is his extension?
Let’s say that Roethisberger and Brady are at opposite ends of the spectrum, so take a look at Drew Brees, who fits Wilson’s situation with a little more ease. Brees stands 6’ tall, and he isn’t going to strike fear in linebackers or be mistaken for a freight train or a marble statue any time soon. Brees was taken by San Diego in the 2nd round in 2001, and took a couple of years to develop into the superstar QB he is today. By the time he figured the league out and started his ascent to greatness, San Diego had concerns about Brees’ durability (after a freak injury to his rotator cuff) and wanted to take a chance on a young Philip Rivers instead, rather than carrying two QB’s with mega-deals and didn’t want to ship off Rivers only for Brees to come back as a shell of himself. So far, 2-0 to Brees on that count, as he’s been healthy and been more successful than Rivers, if only by a hair. Brees played one final season as a Charger under the franchise tag, then got his big payday with New Orleans in 2006, and led them to their first ever Super Bowl win in 2009, also over Peyton Manning.
While Wilson doesn’t face the same injury concerns or have to look over his shoulder at the next guy in line, he does have to worry about where the money is going and how he will be paid if he gets hurt.
And in comes the guaranteed money aspect. Wilson is not a fool, he wants to protect his greatest asset, and in the NFL that’s his body. Wilson has gone so far as to insure his potential future earnings, so that if a new deal isn’t in place and he gets hurt, he would still have a way to get compensated. Not a bad move, but it again hints that Wilson doesn’t trust his front office to pay him anytime soon.
Perhaps GM John Schneider expects Wilson to take a “home-town” discount. Perhaps Wilson expects to be paid like a guy who influences every single play on offense, something Sherman, Lynch, and Graham can’t claim. Perhaps Wilson thinks he should be paid better than Kaepernick and Newton and Rodgers, as none of those guys have won a Super Bowl while he has been in the league, but all of them have signed mega deals.
Wilson also has to watch the team pay Percy Harvin $7.2M this season as part of a deferred bonus still owed when they traded him to New York (Jets) last season, and they will also pay $2M to Max Unger, who is now with New Orleans as part of the Jimmy Graham trade. Cary Williams signed a 3yr/$18M deal in March, and in the last year Seattle has extended Michael Bennett, Richard Sherman, and Earl Thomas on big deals in order to keep their core together.
All of that money going in, and barely half going back out. It’s not a secret that you pay your top guys first, and Wilson has to be wondering if the team views him as a top or “must-have” kind of player. With Bobby Wagner working on a new deal and Kam Chancellor demanding a raise, you must wonder if Wilson will get lost in the shuffle yet again, or if the team will honor his wish to leave the contract talks out of the season and wait until next year, when a new deal could be extremely difficult for either side, especially if Wagner or Chancellor get new deals in the mean time and even more money is off the table.
Its a game of tug-of-war we’ve seen too many times before, but maybe not to this level where a guy is so grossly underpaid. I believe Wilson and that he will play his heart out for Seattle this season with or without the money, and no matter what money he is paid, he will earn it and get the job done under any circumstances and with limited resources.
This isn’t rocket science, John Schneider. Don’t let this become a media circus or a season-long distraction. You bring in guys with the intention to win titles, and that’s exactly what Wilson has dedicated himself to doing.
Take some advice from the immortal Teddy KGB and “pay that man his money.”
Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!
