Wilson Traded to Broncos (Reported)

This organization is just insufferable. Get rid of the top 5 QB, but keep the 70 year old fossil to rebuild. The FO will screw up any decent draft picks so get used to being cellar dwellers for the next 10 years.

The 90's all over again.

Things started to change in 2017.

Wilson threw a league-high 34 touchdown passes, led the team in rushing and accounted for all but three of the Seahawks’ offensive TDs. But for the first time in Wilson’s career, Seattle missed the playoffs.

Running back Marshawn Lynch, the heart and soul of the Seattle teams early in Wilson’s career, was gone. Veteran defensive players Cliff Avril, Kam Chancellor and Richard Sherman suffered injuries that ended their Seahawks careers. Multiple sources said Wilson saw the moment as an opportunity for the team to make him its new focal point.

Carroll instead replaced offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell with Brian Schottenheimer as part of a move to re-establish the Seahawks’ run-first identity. The result: a 2018 offense as statistically run-heavy as any in the NFL since the Tim Tebow-led Denver Broncos of the early 2010s.

That style of play became a flashpoint during Seattle’s wild-card loss against Dallas that season. Criticism of Seattle’s run-heavy game plan was so strong that Carroll felt compelled to defend Schottenheimer during his end-of-season news conference.

“Hold it against me,” Carroll said. “I’m the guy that’s in charge of this thing.”

For Wilson, that was the problem. The guy in charge hadn’t put the ball in Wilson’s hands until it was too late.

“That should have been the moment of truth for everybody,” a source close to Wilson said.

As Wilson’s career progressed, he pushed for more involvement in roster decisions. From lobbying for acquiring Duane Brown — and adjusting his own contract to make room under the salary cap for the left tackle — to openly pushing for signing receiving weapons Josh Gordon, Antonio Brown and Greg Olsen, Wilson made clear his desire to be more involved.

“That’s the No. 1 thing he gets frustrated with: how much his input is valued or used inside the four walls of the (team facility),” one former Seahawks coach said. “Do they listen?”

Following the 2019 season, Wilson said the team needed to add more superstars in free agency and find young stars in the draft. It was a new level of public criticism from a player who had gone out of his way to avoid controversy. Wilson also again pushed for the Seahawks to run a more up-tempo offense and design a scheme similar to the one used by the eventual Super Bowl-champion Kansas City Chiefs.

Wilson got his wish to start the 2020 season as Schottenheimer unveiled a pass-first offense and Seattle raced to a 5-0 record. The quarterback dominated the MVP conversation during the season’s first half and even trademarked the phrase “Let Russ Cook.”

It was short-lived. As turnovers and losses piled up in the middle of the season, Carroll pulled back the reins. The Seahawks still won the division with a 12-4 record, but their offense went from one of the NFL’s best to mediocre. Carroll cited “philosophical differences” when firing Schottenheimer a few days after a wild-card loss to the Rams, a move the quarterback publicly lamented.

Wilson’s frustration was growing.


(Joe Nicholson / USA Today)
Sitting next to NFL commissioner Roger Goodell at the Super Bowl a few weeks later, Wilson watched Tampa Bay quarterback Tom Brady enhance his legacy with his seventh Super Bowl victory. Something seemed to trigger Wilson. He was finally willing to break Carroll’s No. 1 rule — “protect the team” — to make his discontent known.

“I’m frustrated with getting hit too much,” Wilson told reporters the morning after the game. He cited the number of times he had been sacked in his career and suggested he should have more control over personnel.

Carroll didn’t mind Wilson feeling frustrated about the way the season ended. After all, he was upset, too. The issue was making it public. “The conversation is out there that we wish we didn’t have to be sharing with the world,” Carroll said then.

Coach and quarterback had a lengthy “heart to heart” and the quarterback publicly said afterward his relationship with Carroll was “stronger than ever.” Carroll described the meeting as revisiting their background, foundation and vision for the future. “We regrouped,” he said.

But when Carroll later said that his relationship with Wilson was the best it’s ever been, a source close to the quarterback described the coach as “blowing smoke.” The sentiment on Wilson’s end was that Carroll in these discussions did nothing more than tell Wilson what he wanted to hear.

Wilson’s finger injury five weeks into the 2021 season, his rush back to the field and his poor play upon returning made this a complicated season to evaluate. But it didn’t change Wilson’s thinking that the Seahawks, as currently constructed, no longer provided Wilson the best opportunity to win Super Bowls and grow his legacy.

“I don’t think there’s any trust,” one source in Wilson’s camp said.

Without trust, the two sides couldn’t find a way to co-exist behind the scenes, which rendered their public comments meaningless. It didn’t matter that Carroll publicly dismissed trade rumors because they didn’t align with the private conversations he and Wilson were having. It didn’t matter that, ahead of the team’s home finale, Wilson said he hoped this wasn’t his final game in a Seattle uniform.

What mattered was that both sides knew the partnership was ending — so much so that after a Week 12 loss at Washington dropped Seattle to 3-8, a source close to Wilson delivered a prophetic message to a reporter covering the team:

“End of an era.”