The old saying goes, “Women; you can’t live with em and you can’t live without em.” In the National Football League that saying goes doubly true for quarterbacks. Unless your franchise is led by names like Rodgers, Brady and Luck, you probably have a question mark at the most important position arguably in sports.
Which brings us to Russell Wilson of the Seattle Seahawks, who was drafted 75th overall in 2012. If you’ve been under a rock for the past three years let me give you the CliffsNotes version of his career to this point: Wilson came form nowhere to snatch the starting gig from prized free agent Matt Flynn, finished third in Offensive Rookie of the Year voting, was selected to two Pro Bowls and started as many Super Bowls, and came within one the worst play calls ever from raising the Lombardi trophy twice. He’s gotten more accolades in his three seasons than most of the players in the NFL could imagine.
Russell WIlson is quite possibly the epitome of what is the modern day quarterback: accurate, efficient, mobile and a leader of men. We’ve discussed on the HHSR podcast how Wilson may already be one of the top at his position and he’s just getting started— at a mere 26-years-old, he’s just entering his prime, much to the chagrin of the rest of the league…
Entering his prime and soon a much higher tax bracket.
The Seahawks are the favorites to win Super Bowl 50 and their franchise quarterback is in line for a huge payday. Wilson is in the last year of his rookie deal, which currently will earn him less than Josh Freeman, every quarterback on the Jets and Wilson’s own backup in Tarvaris Jackson.
Coming out of Wisconsin, Wilson signed a 4-year deal worth $2.9 million dollars— an exceptional value for the Seahawks and allowed GM John Schneider. A disciple of Packers architect Ted Thompson. Wilson’s contract has enabled Schneider to keep most of the great homegrown talent including; Richard Sherman, Earl Thomas, Kam Chancellor (three of the principal members of the Legion of Boom) and Bobby Wagner; make shrewd free agent signings like Cliff Avril and Michael Bennett; and make trades for impact players like Jimmy Graham and Marshawn “Beast Quake” Lynch.
That would be Russell Wilson at the bottom.
Sportrac.com details how the Seahawks have allotted their cap space, and with defense being their calling card, it’s no shock that more than 43% of their salary is spent on DBs and D-linemen alone. What’s surprising is that they rank dead last on cap expenditure on the quarterback position in the NFL, spending barely over 1% of the cap to the most important position in the sport! For comparison, the other primary contenders for the Super Bowl (Green Bay, New England, Indianapolis and Denver) spend 10.51% on the quarterback position. Getting elite production and leadership from your signal caller for pennies on the dollar is a key reason the Seahawks have been able to build arguably the strongest roster in recent NFL history.
That last paragraph alone should’ve earned John Schneider at least one NFL Exec Of The Year award, but his job is about to get immensely more challenging. Like all great teams before them, the Seahawks are about to find out what it’s like to live with the implications of having one of the few people on the planet capable of playing quarterback at the highest level. I’m no sports agent or capologist, but Russell Wilson will be well within his rights to ask for more than the $19 million that quarterback Colin Kaepernick is going to average in his newly signed deal with NFC West rival San Francisco…and he’s going to get it.
I have no doubt that within the next couple of weeks we’ll get an announcement of an agreement between the two parties (especially with Cam Newton inking a new deal), and then the real work begins for the Seattle. The tried and true “draft and develop” strategy has worked wonders in Washington and the Seahawks are about to find out what happens after you finally find that diamond in the rough.