It just wouldn't have been Super Bowl Sunday without a seemingly juicy rumor about Russell Wilson's future.
So it was that ESPN's Adam Schefter reported Sunday morning that the Seahawks and Wilson have still not talked about an extension of his contract.
The "still" was the key part of that phrase, appearing to indicate that there's something amiss that the two sides haven't talked yet.
But assuming the Seahawks are going to handle Wilson's negotiations the way they have virtually every other extension during the Pete Carroll/John Schneider era, then there was no reason to expect that the team would have yet made an offer.
Wilson's contract runs through the 2019 season and Seattle's general offseason modus operandi has been to deal first with the business of the immediate offseason _ meaning, in this case, taking care of players who are free agents now (such as Frank Clark), as well as navigating the March free agency period _ before moving on to extensions for later seasons.
That's the timeline the Seahawks used last time with Wilson, who signed his current deal on the week training camp opened in 2015 as he was entering the final year of his rookie contract, and has been the timeline for virtually every significant extension Seattle has awarded for a player entering the final season of his deal (such as Tyler Lockett and Duane Brown last year, each done early in training camp).
Of course, Wilson is not just any player. Maybe one would assume a franchise quarterback wouldn't be dealt with the same way as a receiver _ or as Wilson himself was four years ago at a time when the team couldn't begin negotiating with him until after his third season had ended, per the league's Collective Bargaining Agreement.
But indications all along have been that the timeline didn't figure to be different this time around _ one source told the Times earlier this year to not expect the two sides to engage in any substantive talks until mid-spring, or after free agency, and probably the 2019 NFL draft, which is April 27-29.
True, maybe Seattle could just end this by blowing Wilson out of the water with an offer he couldn't turn down _ five years at $35 million per or something?
But each side has some motivation and/or ability to play the waiting game here a little bit.
For Wilson, there's zero reason to rush into anything that isn't an "offer he can't refuse," given the way the market for NFL quarterbacks continues to rise. As former NFL agent and salary cap expert Joel Corry recently noted "the top of the quarterback market increased by almost 25 percent during 2018, with multiple quarterbacks taking turns as the NFL's highest-paid player." (And by the way, forget about Wilson taking "a hometown discount." A, it's not going to happen. And B, there shouldn't be any expectation that he should agree to less than market value. But even if you wish B could happen, go back to A _ it's not going to happen. Wilson and agent Mark Rodgers have every right to ask for what is Wilson's market value, and every expectation is that is what they are going to fight to get it).
As for the Seahawks, they know that they can use the Franchise Tag to keep Wilson through the 2022 season if they really want. Sure, that would be really expensive _ as Corry wrote last month, the tag number for 2020 "currently projects to $30.86 million. A second franchise tag in 2021 at a 20 percent increase over Wilson's 2020 franchise number would be $37.032 million. A third franchise tag in 2022 with a 44 percent increase over the 2021 figure would be exorbitant. It would be slightly over $53.25 million."
That's a ton, and it's hard to see how the 2022 tag would ever come into play.
But while the tag was considered something each side really wanted to avoid last time when Wilson signed a four-year, $87.5 million deal, it's regarded as much more of a possibility now.
Wilson last time wanted to sign a longer-term deal so he could assure getting life-changing money, which he now has. The Seahawks at the time also wanted to keep Wilson through his prime years at a time when the team's Super Bowl window was wide open (he signed just a few months after the Super Bowl loss to the Patriots).
But the Seahawks may be more amenable to a tag this time with Wilson now getting a little older _ he turned 30 in November _ and the franchise in a little different mode overall. Coach Pete Carroll signed a new contract in December that runs through the 2021 season when he will turn 70 _ and conveniently the year that a second franchise tag would keep Wilson in Seattle for.
There's also the specter of a possible work stoppage in 2021 that could complicate things _ in one of the few real pieces of news this week, the players union told players to prepare for the chance it could happen.
In a way, the biggest takeaway here is the mere existence of a report. The end of the 2018 season kicks into higher gear the offseason, and Wilson's future is going to be one of the bigger NFL stories. Seahawks fans should prepare themselves that there could be _ and likely will be _ any number of reports until the day a deal is done or a tag is applied. What any of the reports really mean won't be known until the story itself comes to an end.
