At some point, Russell Wilson is going to get paid a lot of money, and for a while everyone has assumed that will happen this offseason, which is the first time Wilson and the Seahawks can negotiate a new contract.
On Thursday, however, CBS Sports’ Jason La Canfora brought up the idea of Wilson playing out his rookie deal, which would give the Seahawks some extra money to work with in 2015, and potentially give Wilson maximum leverage a year from now when the Seahawks would have to meet his demands, franchise him, or let him test free agency.
But while there is always a chance the two sides can’t agree on a deal and Wilson plays out his rookie deal, I just don’t see it happening. Both sides have incentive to get a deal done now rather than wait until next year, and if anything, what we’re hearing now is likely just part of the negotiation process. It benefits Wilson’s camp to make it known that their player won’t take anything less than top dollar, even if it means waiting a year, and it benefits the Seahawks in 2015 negotiations to remind Wilson’s representatives that he is under contract for a bargain price for one more season.
As La Canfora notes in his article, Baltimore quarterback Joe Flacco played the 2012 season under his rookie contract rather than sign before his final year, a gamble that paid off big after he helped the Ravens to a Super Bowl victory, but that comparison doesn’t really work with Wilson for a couple of reasons. Most notably, Flacco wasn’t going to be paid like one of the league’s top quarterbacks before that 2012 season; he still had more to prove. Wilson, on the other hand, has already won a Super Bowl and been to two, and the expectation is that if he does a deal now, he’ll become one of the league’s top-paid quarterbacks. Wilson’s value could perhaps go up a little bit if the Seahawks win another Super Bowl and he has a big season, but what is Marshawn Lynch retires and the offense falls off, or what if Wilson, who has been remarkably durable through three seasons, suffers a significant injury? There are more scenarios in which Wilson and the offense could struggle in 2015, costing him money, than there are ways Wilson could significantly increase his already very high value. Also, Flacco was a first-round pick who signed his rookie deal under the old collective bargaining agreement, meaning he was making $6.76 million in 2012, so it made more financial sense to bet on himself, so to speak. The extra millions he earned on his next deal more than made up for what he gave up in 2012. Wilson, on the other hand, is due less than $800,000 in base salary in 2015, so the difference between what he could earn under a new deal and what he stands to make under his current one is massive, making it unlikely he could recoup the difference with a slightly bigger contract a year later. While quarterbacks can play longer than most in the NFL, Wilson and his people still now his earning window is finite, and passing up a year of making an eight-figure salary likely won’t pay off on the back end.
And no matter how team-first Wilson might be, no matter how much you think he values winning over money, the money does matter here. If Wilson didn’t care about money, you wouldn’t see him pitching the Microsoft Surface or American Family Insurance or Braun every time you turn on the TV. Wilson might decide winning is more important than squeezing every possible dollar out of the Seahawks, but he isn’t going to take a huge discount either. This is a young man who has stated his desire to someday own a franchise, and he just spent time in New York meeting with tycoons of Wall Street (his words), learning how they do things—this is not a man who doesn’t care about making the most of his time in the NFL, both in terms of on field accomplishments, and yes, career earnings. And that’s not meant to be a criticism; Wilson should get what he can when he can get it— every NFL career is one bad hit from ending—rather it’s just a reminder that it is a bit naive to assume Wilson being a good human being equates to Wilson being willing play for less than he’s worth.
And from a Seahawks standpoint, getting Wilson done now not only saves them the headaches and questions that come with a lame-duck season, it also stays consistent with their way of operating under John Schneider and Pete Carroll. Over and over again, the Seahawks have rewarded their top players with a year left on their deal, from Kam Chancellor to Earl Thomas to Richard Sherman, so why would they break from that trend when it comes to their most important player? So when Schneider answered La Canfora’s question about Wilson playing out his deal by saying, “He’s under contract for another year and we’re not going to change our approach in terms of acquisition since he got here,” there are many ways to interpret that, but one of them is that “not going to change our approach” means the Seahawks will do what they’ve consistently done with their top young talent—pay him a year before his deal expires. Rewarding players a year early not only keeps a team from the risk of losing them in free agency, it also sends a message in the locker room that the team will reward players when they have earned it.
So if we’re assuming Wilson and the Seahawks do eventually get a deal done, the question then shifts to what it might look like. Schneider used the phrase “outside-the-box” in a recent radio interview when discussion Wilson’s contract, something many interpreted to mean Wilson might take a discount to help the Seahawks stay competitive.
What that could mean, however, is not that Wilson will give the Seahawks a discount because it’s good for the team, but rather that he might take less money per year if the Seahawks are willing to guarantee more of it. The way many recent quarterback deals are structured, the first few years are either guaranteed, or at least set up in a way that it would create a salary cap mess for the team to get out of it sooner than three years. But what if the Seahawks were willing to guarantee most or even all of the deal? Then a case could be made for Wilson to take less per year knowing he’ll see every penny of the deal. Instead of Wilson getting something like $22 million per year with only half of that guaranteed, might he take something like $110 million over six years if all of it is guaranteed?
According to Ian Rapoport of the NFL Network, a fully guaranteed contract, something that just doesn’t happen in the NFL, might be an option for Wilson.
“According to the people I’ve spoken to, it is not out of the realm of possibility that Russell Wilson will receive the first fully guaranteed contract extension for a quarterback — something that is a rarity in the NFL — not a rarity, it does not happen,” Rapoport said on NFL Total Access. “It simply does not happen, but in this case it really might happen and (Seahawks general manager) John Schneider has talked about it in the past, an unconventional type of contract.”
Considering we’re hearing everything from “fully guaranteed” deal to “It’s possible that Wilson actually plays out his rookie contract. It’s plausible. Might even be probable,” it’s clear that a deal isn’t close to done yet. Even so, my money is on Wilson getting a new contract at some point this offseason.
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