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By The Athletic NFL Staff 352
By Michael-Shawn Dugar, Mike Sando and Jayson Jenks
Days before a critical home game against the Cardinals, Russell Wilson met with members of the Seahawks’ coaching staff. It was a time of high tension. In Seattle’s previous two games, Wilson had turned the ball over seven times, and the Seahawks had lost both, first to the Bills, then to the Rams. The offense needed to get on track, and Wilson had ideas on how to make that happen.
Instead, the meeting would come to symbolize the divide between Wilson and the organization.
Pete Carroll has built Hall of Fame credentials on what he sees as simple truths about how the game is best played: Run the ball, avoid turnovers, explode in the passing game. “It is not because we just want to knock our head against a wall,” Carroll once explained. “It is because the game is played well when you don’t give the other team the football. The game is played well when you can convert and make first downs. The game is played well when you can explode on offense.”
Carroll believes that formula in his bones, and over and over again he has won while implementing it. In contrast, Wilson believes that Carroll’s conservative philosophy is limiting his production and, by extension, his ambitions to be one of the game’s all-time greats.
But in the first half of the 2020 season — and in a stark break from years past — Seattle unleashed an all-out aerial attack. Throwing the ball early and often, Wilson put together the best statistical stretch of his career and emerged as the clear front-runner for MVP, an award he covets for the implications it would have on his legacy.
“I’m trying to break away, you know what I mean?” Wilson said at one point early in the season, then named the shadows he was chasing: Brady, Brees, Manning, Montana.
The wheels to Wilson’s MVP campaign rattled loose in a 44-34 loss to the Bills on Nov. 8. Wilson turned the ball over four times, the defense cratered, and Carroll sounded shell-shocked at what he had just watched. “I don’t recognize that game,” he said. “It’s a game that I don’t have any place in my brain for.” It was an uncharacteristic performance from Wilson — and an unacceptable one for Carroll, who dedicates a whole day of practice (Thursday) to turnovers.
In response, he pulled back the reins on Wilson and the offense. Statistically, it wasn’t a seismic shift. Through the first eight games, Seattle led the league on the Cook Index — which measures how frequently teams pass on early downs in the first 28 minutes, before time and score influence play-calling — and ranked seventh thereafter. But it was effectively a rebuke of Wilson, and sources close to the quarterback said it upset him.
A week later, Wilson had his worst game of the season, turning the ball over three more times in an ugly 23-16 loss to the Rams. Wilson appeared almost rattled, and longtime NFL writers Charean Williams and Mike Jones both wrote that the game scuttled Wilson’s MVP hopes. In the locker room afterward, Carroll delivered a harsher-than-usual message about accountability to the entire team and coaching staff. “We got to get our act together,” he told the media while restating the importance of a balanced offense that takes care of the ball. Meanwhile, Wilson reaffirmed his self-belief. “I know that I’m a great football player,” he said. “I know I’ve been great, I know I will be great, and I know I’ll continue to be great.”
Carroll wanted to be more careful with the offense; Wilson wanted to stay the course, trusting in himself.
Before the Thursday night game against Arizona, Wilson met with his coaches. For some time, Wilson has sought — even pushed — for influence within the organization regarding scheme and personnel. In the meeting, he outlined his own ideas for how to fix the offense. His suggestions were dismissed, multiple sources told The Athletic — another reminder to Wilson that the Seahawks did not see him the same way he saw himself, as a player who had earned greater control over his situation, his future, his legacy.
He stormed out of the room.
The Super Bowl this year was a trigger. Wilson flew to Tampa to pick up his Walter Payton Man of the Year award. He and his wife, Ciara, watched the game in a suite next to NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, and as Tom Brady battled Patrick Mahomes on the field below, Wilson seethed. During the game, he texted Jake Heaps, his former teammate and private quarterback coach, to vent about watching the game instead of playing in it.
Wilson later spoke with Carroll, according to a source, to talk about the way the Seahawks addressed the offensive line, an issue that had bothered Wilson for years. He wanted to know the team’s plan, but it wasn’t relayed to him, at least not to Wilson’s satisfaction, the source said. Carroll implored him to have faith.
But after the Super Bowl, Wilson took his message public.
That Monday, CBS’ Jason La Canfora tweeted that “Russell Wilson’s camp” was frustrated with his pass protection and called it “a situation worth monitoring.” The next day, Wilson went on “The Dan Patrick Show” and said he wanted to be more involved with the organization. He was asked about the almost 400 times he has been sacked over his nine-year career: “That’s a big thing that we gotta fix, that’s gotta be fixed.” He brought up Brady, a player whose status he craves, and the play of Tampa Bay’s offensive line in the Super Bowl: “He wasn’t touched really.” Several times he mentioned his “legacy,” as well as his goal to play 10 to 15 more years, just like Brady.
On a Zoom call with Seattle reporters that same day, Wilson was asked if he was frustrated with the Seahawks. “I’m frustrated with getting hit too much,” he said. Ex-Seahawk Brandon Marshall said Wilson was “beyond frustrated” with the team and added that Wilson “is trying to figure out how to move on in a classy way.” Patrick echoed the QB’s desire for urgency and, citing a source, said the “current situation is unsustainable.” By then, La Canfora had even listed possible trade destinations for Wilson: the Raiders, Dolphins, Saints and Jets among them.
Growing up, Wilson’s idols were Derek Jeter and Drew Brees, an interesting contrast. Brees won only one Super Bowl in 20 seasons — and never won an MVP — but he overcame physical limitations to put up record-breaking stats. Jeter racked up World Series titles and clutch plays, his legacy defined by winning. A decade into his career, Wilson hasn’t won like Jeter, and he hasn’t put up numbers like Brees. Wilson and the people around him believe the Seahawks are partly responsible.
“The reason that we’re here is because he’s on pace to be the most sacked quarterback in the history of the NFL,” said Robert Turbin, Wilson’s former teammate and a groomsman at his wedding.
Others see the situation differently after Wilson had the worst stretch of his career in the season’s final eight games, ranking 28th in yards per attempt, one spot below the Cincinnati Bengals’ Brandon Allen.
“He’s finally catching heat,” one person told The Athletic. “That’s the main reason for all of this. … People are talking and holding him accountable because he’s one of the highest-paid quarterbacks, he says he wants to be the greatest, so now people are holding him to that standard.”
“It’s a PR game,” that person added. “He’s trying to protect himself.”
Another source agreed: “What he’s trying to do is save face.”
Wilson and Carroll have won at least nine games in each of nine seasons together. They have made the playoffs every season but one, won a Super Bowl and lost another. But the Seahawks haven’t reached the NFC Championship game since 2014, and Wilson’s frustration has escalated to the point that his camp has broached potential trade destinations with the Seahawks. According to sources, those teams include ones mentioned in La Canfora’s column the day of the Super Bowl: the Dolphins, Jets, Saints and Raiders. (On Thursday, Wilson’s agent told ESPN’s Adam Schefter the quarterback would only consider going to the Saints, Raiders, Bears or Cowboys in a potential trade.) Some people around the league think a trade could happen, if not this offseason then sometime in the near future.
“It’s a great story,” a coach from another team said. “There is a lot there — money, greed, power and control.”
In March 2018, much of the NFL world gathered at the University of Wyoming for Josh Allen’s pro day. Reps from teams without established quarterbacks filled the indoor fieldhouse to watch Allen, a potential top-10 pick. The Giants sent coach Pat Shurmur. The Broncos sent personnel analyst Gary Kubiak. The Browns sent general manager John Dorsey and seven others from the organization.
And then there was Seahawks general manager John Schneider, whose team held the 18th pick and already had Wilson, a two-time Super Bowl quarterback who had just led the league in touchdown passes. For Schneider, it was simply due diligence, no different from Packers coach Mike McCarthy attending Sam Bradford’s pro day while Aaron Rodgers was entering his prime. Schneider had been with the Packers front office when Brett Favre was still their starter and Rodgers had unexpectedly fell in the first round, a lesson that stuck with him.
“The most important people in the building,” Schneider told reporters after the Wyoming visit, “are the head coach and the quarterback.”
From day one, Carroll and Schneider said they would have no sacred cows. They would be involved in every deal, scout every player. They signed free-agent quarterback Matt Flynn to a $26 million deal in the 2012 offseason and then, 40 days later, drafted Wilson in the third round and started him Week 1.
A year before the Allen draft, the Seahawks had fallen in love with Patrick Mahomes and, according to sources at the time, were prepared to select him late in the first round if the future league MVP was still on the board. Schneider felt the same way about Mahomes coming out of college as he’d felt about Wilson, sources said, and there was no way he could pass him up.
Wilson’s camp saw the Seahawks’ interest in Allen as an unwelcome surprise. Amid significant roster turnover — veterans Richard Sherman, Jimmy Graham, Michael Bennett, Cliff Avril and Kam Chancellor were either gone or on their way out — reports surfaced that Mark Rodgers, Wilson’s agent, called Schneider for clarification on the quarterback’s status. Jim Trotter of the NFL Network wondered if Wilson might “push the button to move on” if the 2018 season didn’t go well. Around the same time, La Canfora wondered if Wilson might be “contemplating his football mortality with the offensive line still a significant concern.”
The offensive line had become Wilson’s biggest grievance, but from a Seahawks perspective, funneling resources toward re-signing Chancellor, Sherman, Bennett, Earl Thomas, Bobby Wagner, K.J. Wright and Marshawn Lynch had made more sense than prioritizing offensive linemen Russell Okung, James Carpenter, J.R. Sweezy, Breno Giacomini and others who signed multiyear deals elsewhere.
Wilson’s own contract played a role in the tradeoff. The Seahawks spent heavily on the offensive line during Wilson’s first three years, when the quarterback was on his rookie contract. But that changed after Wilson signed a massive extension before the 2015 season. With his new contract consuming more than 15 percent of the cap, up from less than 1 percent previously, the Seahawks dropped from the top 10 in cap spending for the offensive line to the bottom five.
From Wilson’s standpoint, the offensive line wasn’t good enough, period.
In 2015, he threw for a then-career-high 34 touchdowns against eight interceptions while playing behind a bottom-five offensive line. The 2016 season — when Wilson suffered leg injuries early in the year but started every game behind Pro Football Focus’ last-ranked pass-blocking line — was much of the same. Wilson hired a nutritionist after the season to trim weight and re-tool his body. He figured if he was going to take a beating, he needed to be prepared.
Lacking a consistent run game in 2017, Wilson accounted for 37 of Seattle’s 38 touchdowns, led the team in the rushing, led the league in passing TDs and returned to the Pro Bowl — all while again playing behind one of the league’s lowest-graded offensive lines. But the Seahawks thought Wilson was also part of the problem. At halftime of the final game, with a playoff berth on the line and the Seahawks down 20-7, Carroll sat at Wilson’s locker. The offense was struggling, Wilson was scrambling all over the place, and he missed reads because of how he handled the pressure. A major criticism from Seahawks players over the years is that Carroll has been too gentle with Wilson. But in the locker room Carroll said he spoke to Wilson critically and urgently “in a way that he hasn’t heard me talk to him.”
“Fix it,” Carroll told him.
Wilson did, but Seattle still lost, finishing the year 9-7 and missing the playoffs for the only time in Wilson’s nine seasons.
Carroll said Wilson had a “fantastic” year but added “he can be better.” The coach then jumped in front of any judgments about his willingness to speak harsh truths about his quarterback. “Russ wants to be criticized,” Carroll said. “Russ needs to be criticized. He wants to be great.”
One week later, Carroll fired his offensive coordinator of seven seasons, Darrell Bevell, and reassigned Carl Smith, the team’s longtime quarterback coach. When Carroll hired Brian Schottenheimer to replace Bevell, he emphasized that the staff changes were made in hopes of “challenging” Wilson “like he’s never been challenged before.”
Meanwhile, word reached those around Wilson that the Seahawks and Browns had discussed a possible trade involving Wilson and Cleveland’s No. 1 overall pick in the 2018 draft — another surprise that led Wilson to secure a no-trade clause in his next contract.
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 f*** 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.
This current situation with Wilson, several sources believe, is the inevitable consequence of that special treatment.
The 2020 season ended with another early playoff loss, this time to the Rams in the wild-card round. Wilson threw a pick-six in the first half, and his offensive line had one of its worst performances of the year. The game was a Rorschach test: Was Carroll to blame? Was Wilson?
After the loss, Carroll fired Schottenheimer, the offensive coordinator he had brought in to challenge Wilson. Wilson wanted to be involved in the process to hire Schottenheimer’s replacement, and he was, meeting with candidates, including Rams’ passing game coordinator Shane Waldron, whom the Seahawks hired with Wilson’s endorsement.
But then Wilson watched Brady and Mahomes advance to the Super Bowl. Brady had hand-picked his new team and brought in players he wanted, including receiver Antonio Brown, whom Wilson had privately worked out with and publicly lobbied for the Seahawks to sign. Mahomes was in his second consecutive Super Bowl, playing for a coach whose wide-open offensive system had turned him loose.
Seven years ago, it was Carroll and Wilson on that stage, the beginning of something special. The Seahawks crushed Peyton Manning and the Broncos that night, and in the game’s final minutes, Wilson snuck up the sideline and dumped Gatorade over Carroll’s head. Wilson’s marriage with the Seahawks has been a success by any measure: one Super Bowl win, two Super Bowl appearances, more wins than any team other than the Patriots. But their future together seems less certain than it should given those results.
Asked if Wilson will be the Seahawks’ quarterback in 2021, a source close to the quarterback answered with just two words.
“Good question …”
