If the 2018 offseason was when Wilson felt the Seahawks cast doubt on his future in Seattle, the quarterback and his camp turned the tables in the spring of the following year. Ahead of Wilson’s second tense contract negotiation with the Seahawks, another round of rumors popped up about his future and whether he wanted to be in Seattle at all.
Roughly two weeks after Seattle’s frustrating 24-22 loss to Dallas in the 2019 wild-card round, Wilson and Ciara signed with talent-management monolith Creative Artist Agency (CAA) to help the couple with their interests in the entertainment industry. CAA represents hundreds of athletes and entertainers, so the messaging could have been coincidental, but not long after Wilson signed on with the agency, word suggesting he could possibly leave Seattle for the New York Giants filtered through CAA clients. Fox Sports’ Colin Cowherd cited a rumor from the “entertainment agent world” that Ciara would prefer to live in New York to further her music career. Cowherd implied such a move would benefit Wilson’s status as well. NFL safety Tyrann Mathieu tweeted, “Russ wants New York. But you ain’t heard that from T.” Asked about the rumor on “The Tonight Show” — hosted by Jimmy Fallon, who along with Cowherd and Mathieu are CAA clients — Wilson laughed it off.
“I’m not sure if the Seahawks are going to let me get away,” Wilson said. “I love Seattle. Seattle is a special place.”
A few weeks after his appearance on “The Tonight Show,” Wilson gave the team a hard deadline: The two sides had until midnight on April 15 to agree to an extension, or else Wilson would play out his deal and test the market. On the day of the deadline, after reports suggested a deal would not get done, Wilson and the Seahawks agreed to a four-year, $140 million extension, the richest contract in league history. Wilson wore a Sonics jacket to his news conference and made clear what sealed the deal for him: a no-trade clause requiring the Seahawks to secure his blessing before sending him anywhere else. Wilson held as much power as at any point of his career — and he wanted Carroll to open up the offense.
In 2018, the Seahawks had run the ball more frequently than any team since Tim Tebow’s Broncos. That changed some in 2019, but Carroll’s reluctance to turn his quarterback loose early in games remained a lingering frustration for Wilson.
It wasn’t personal from Carroll’s standpoint. Carroll took special pride in the Seahawks at one point going 95 consecutive games without losing by 10 or more points, the longest streak in league history by 21 games. That cannot happen, Carroll believes, without risk avoidance.
Wilson believes otherwise. If the Seahawks were more aggressive, they could score more points early, freeing him up from having to play Superman so frequently in the fourth quarter. It happened again in the divisional round of the 2019 playoffs, when Seattle fell behind, 21-3, in Green Bay. Wilson rallied the team in the fourth quarter, but the Seahawks still lost to the Packers, 28-23.
The defeat seemed to harden Wilson’s stance. He spent part of last offseason lobbying for a more aggressive approach, according to a person familiar with the situation. Carroll pushed back. Wilson kept pleading his case, going so far as to offer his input on personnel decisions, and sources said Wilson and other team leaders have indeed been consulted before the team made high-profile acquisitions such as Jamal Adams, Jadeveon Clowney, Duane Brown, Jimmy Graham, Quandre Diggs, Greg Olsen and Josh Gordon.
At last year’s Pro Bowl, Wilson was asked if Seattle had enough talent to contend for championships. It was a question he once might have brushed off; this time, he said no. Wilson
said he wanted superstars on defense, more pieces on offense and young stars in the draft. In a
separate interview at the Super Bowl that year, he went on the offensive again, saying Seattle needed more of an up-tempo, attacking offense. He lobbied for the “freedom” to go out and score as many points as possible.
“That’s kind of what the Chiefs do,” Wilson said, before adding: “We’re going to try and figure that out and see if we can get back here. Quickly.”
The 2020 season was the turning point — or, maybe, the breaking point. The offense started on a historic pace, putting Wilson in the Hall of Fame company he so badly wants to keep.
Seattle averaged a league-leading 4.5 offensive touchdowns per game through the season’s first half, a pace exceeded since 2000 by only three teams: Peyton Manning’s 2013 Denver Broncos, Tom Brady’s 2007 New England Patriots and Kurt Warner’s 2000 St. Louis Rams — historically great offenses led by quarterbacks who won MVPs in each of those seasons.
The best stretch of Wilson’s career had come after Carroll agreed to “Let Russ Cook.” Wilson welcomed the shift so much he filed a trademark application for the phrase — a fan slogan that had implored the Seahawks to turn the offense over to their $35 million-a-year quarterback — with the intention of selling cookware and utensils to benefit charity. But the offense never quite felt like that of a Carroll-coached team, and it didn’t go unnoticed by those close to Wilson that the coach only rarely mentioned “Seahawk football,” as he tends to do when the formula is pounding the ball and playing elite defense.
Facing better defenses in the second half of the schedule, Wilson and the offense bogged down. Seattle averaged only 2.4 offensive touchdowns per game, 18th in the league and six spots below the Mitch Trubisky-led Chicago Bears. It wasn’t only because Carroll passed less frequently on early downs. Something wasn’t right. Wilson wasn’t right.
During a 17-12 loss to the Colt McCoy-led Giants in early December, a game in which the offense scored only 10 points, Wilson dropped back and set up in a clean pocket. He held the ball longer than four seconds and had plenty of space around him, only to take a sack, a play indicative of Wilson’s struggles down the stretch.
“What the fuck is wrong with Russell Wilson?” a veteran coach who watched the game said at the time. “He is seeing ghosts. They act like they are not protecting him, but he kills the protection. There are times they got a clean pocket, he runs up in there, he just panics. He is not playing very good at all.”
“People say their protection is not that good,” the coach went on. “That whole ‘Let Russ Cook’ thing, he is better when they can run the ball and they play off that, there is no question. No one likes that because they want him to be Dan Marino. Well, he is not Dan Marino. You are who you are. But he looks bad right now.”
There were other issues this season, too. Those close to Wilson feel as though the pillars upon which Carroll has built his program — namely competition and accountability — are applied only selectively, especially as it pertains to the coach and his sons. This past season, receivers coach Nate Carroll, who has worked under his father since 2010, briefly stepped away from the job in frustration over his role before returning to the team, sources told
The Athletic. Nate made his unhappiness known to players, sources said. For Wilson and those around him, the disruption validated a long-held complaint: Carroll, and by extension his sons, answer to no one.
When asked last month who in the building can tell him harsh and uncomfortable truths, Carroll named former assistant Carl (Tater) Smith, John Schneider and his two sons, Brennan and Nate. Smith left the Seahawks before the 2019 season, and Brennan Carroll left after the 2020 season to coach in college. Only Nate Carroll remains.
“Over the years I have lost a couple guys,” Carroll said. “Tater would tell me anything. He was awesome. I demanded it of him because he knew the truth and he needed to speak to me. I have lost a few guys like that. It is something I’m looking at.”
As Wilson seeks to hold Carroll and the organization accountable, others question whether anyone can do the same for the quarterback himself. That has been a sensitive subject ever since
Sports Illustrated and
ESPN published stories years ago suggesting Carroll coddled Wilson to the detriment of the team. After Richard Sherman picked off Wilson in a June 2014 practice, then yelled at the young quarterback and threw the ball at him, Carroll met with team leaders and told them to take it easier on Wilson. Carroll, multiple sources said, protected and enabled Wilson, undermining the two words he had built his whole program on: Always compete.