By Gregg Bell / The News Tribune
Bobby Wagner says he could have gone elsewhere.
He could have accepted the offers he had for more money to play the 2023 season other than for and in Seattle.
But ultimately, after a year away, the six-time All-Pro, Seahawks Super Bowl champion almost 10 years ago, the best Seattle’s ever had at linebacker, wanted to come home.
“I never really wanted to leave in the first place,” Wagner said Wednesday, on an online Zoom call 11 days after he signed a one-year, $5.5 million contract to return to the Seahawks’ defense. “I wanted to come back in the city I matured in. I wanted to be home. This was another home of mine.
“I wanted to be back.”
Wagner is back.
He said he could have gotten more elsewhere than his Seattle deal. It has $3.23 million in base salary, a $1.25 million signing bonus and a roster bonus of $1.02 million — a total of $5.5 million all guaranteed. That’s less than the $7.25 million with $10 million guaranteed he earned in what became his lone season with his native Los Angeles Rams in 2022.
His good friend Richard Sherman said he’d been in constant touch with Wagner this offseason. The now-retired Sherman, Wagner’s teammate on the Seahawks’ back-to-back Super Bowl teams in 2013 and 2014, said Wednesday on Seattle’s KJR radio Seahawks general manager John Schneider’s initial contract offers to Wagner were so low they were borderline insulting to what most consider a future Hall-of-Fame middle linebacker.
“I was just hoping John didn’t mess it up. And he didn’t,” Sherman told 93.3 KJR. “He tried. He tried, multiple times…just low-balling the guy. They got borderline disrespectful.”
Wagner, who turns 33 this summer, said only that it was “a step process” that took some time. That was because the Rams owed him guaranteed money and could not officially release him until the start of the new NFL year. That was March 15, two days past the start of when teams could begin reaching deals with unrestricted free agents.
Seahawks, Wagner sought this early on
Wagner represented himself without an agent as he has in the past several years, including when he signed his three-year, $54 million extension with Seattle in 2019. This time, he signed back with the Seahawks 12 days after the league’s negotiating market for free agency began.
“I had some teams that were interested in me,” Wagner said.
“Obviously, (I) didn’t want to go too far, unless I just knew it was going to be a championship opportunity. And (I) kind of just let it play out that way.
“But as soon as I started talking to Seattle, things kind of started moving a little bit.”
Multiple league sources told The News Tribune at the league’s annual scouting combine in Indianapolis the first week of March that the Seahawks knew the Rams were going to release Wagner and Seattle had keen interest in re-signing him.
Schneider and coach Pete Carroll wanted Wagner wanted him back to steady a defensive front seven that was the weakness of the team last season. Seattle also lost Cody Barton to Washington in free agency last month. Fellow 2022 starting inside linebacker Jordyn Brooks to a torn anterior cruciate ligament in January and surgery.
Without Wagner and in a new 3-4 scheme, the Seahawks were one of the league’s worst teams stopping the run last season. They spent much of 2022 allowing the most rushing yards per game in team history, above 170 yards on average.
Poor tackling, bad run fits, bad scheme and bad players resulted in opponents’ long scoring drives and poor field position for Seattle’s offense. The defense without Wagner in 2022 subverted much of what Geno Smith was doing on offense as a first-time Pro Bowl quarterback breaking three of Russell Wilson’s season records for passing.
“They kind of seemed lost out there at times,” Sherman said of Seattle on defense last season without Wagner. “He gives them stability. He gives them relevance.”
Seattle’s ‘best fans in the world’
Wagner said the Seahawks culture is ultimately why he wanted to be back in Seattle this year.
“It starts with Pete,” he said of the coach who drafted him 2012, a supposedly too-short middle linebacker from Utah State. “I think it starts with him, his leadership, the way he brings the best out of people. I think that’s it.
“And then, just the community, not only inside the building but outside the building. The fans are THE best fans in the world. They are behind you, 100%.”
Wagner made it clear he wants this return to be his last NFL stop. He’s not sure if this coming 12th NFL season will be his last one. But he wants to retire as a Seahawk.
“If I had my way, yes,” Wagner said. “No, I hope to play longer than this (one year). But I think we are at that point where you take it one year at a time.”
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