SAD NEWS: Seattle Seahawks QB Russell Wilson has just been fired due to his……
Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson has not demanded a trade, his agent Mark Rodgers told ESPN’s Adam Schefter on Thursday.
Rodgers said Wilson has told the Seahawks that he wants to play in Seattle, but if a trade were considered, the only teams he would go to are the Dallas Cowboys, New Orleans Saints, Las Vegas Raiders and Chicago Bears.
Wilson, 32, expressed frustration after the season over all the hits he has taken and stated his desire for more say in the team’s personnel decisions. Those frank comments were out of the norm for Wilson, who had never publicly aired any grievances over his first nine seasons in the NFL.
Sources involved have maintained to ESPN that Seattle has not approached Wilson with a potential deal in place and a trade is unlikely. But other teams are noticing tension that has brewed for years, which The Athletic outlined in a report on Thursday. Multiple league execs believe Wilson will be made available at the right price either this offseason or next due to that tension.
Wilson’s contract has a no-trade clause that he would have to waive in order to be dealt.
The Seahawks, sources told ESPN, made it clear to suitors earlier this month that Wilson would not be dealt. Trading him before June 1 of this year would trigger $39 million in dead-money charges against Seattle’s 2021 salary cap. Wilson has three years left on the four-year, $140 million extension he signed in April 2019. That includes base salaries of $19 million, $19 million and $21 million.
Multiple sources confirmed to ESPN that Wilson stormed out of a meeting with Seahawks coaches last season out of frustration that his suggestions for fixing the team’s sputtering offense were dismissed, as reported in The Athletic. A source told ESPN that was a “dark day,” with frustrations riding high after an ugly 44-34 loss to the Buffalo Bills, but the issue was resolved quickly.
The incident occurred the week of Seattle’s Thursday night game against the Arizona Cardinals in November. The Seahawks had lost two straight games and three of four, coinciding with the worst turnover stretch of Wilson’s career.
Wilson had privately lobbied before the season for the Seahawks to throw earlier and more often and had publicly endorsed the “Let Russ Cook” movement that encouraged more of Seattle’s offense to go through its $35 million-per-year quarterback. For the first 10 weeks of the season, the Seahawks dropped back to pass more than any team in the NFL at 69.2%, according to ESPN charting.
