This time, the Seahawks traded away the elite quarterback they developed, one who ought to have loads of life left in his arm. They made a sort of blockbuster deal you usually see in basketball or baseball, swapping the most coveted asset in skilled group sports activities for a bundle of draft picks from the Denver Broncos and gamers who could or could not assist them rebuild.
In a sport through which franchise QBs are requested to cowl many sins (and paid nicely for it), Wilson has spent most of the previous seven years carrying the post-Super Bowl Seahawks alongside the outskirts of competition and ready for the likelihood to steer a dominant group once more. For his work, he earned two top-market contract extensions and acclaim as one in every of soccer’s transcendent abilities. But he wished extra. He wished to step exterior the philosophies of the defensive-minded Carroll and introduce his coach to the league’s go revolution.
But whereas Carroll is a grasp motivator and a visionary gifted at amplifying atypical expertise, he prefers conventional technique on the area. The quarterback, coach and group had been perfect enhances throughout the Legion of Boom period, when a legendarily fierce protection guided Seattle. However, that model of the Seahawks peaked in early 2015, after a potential game-winning drive in Super Bowl XLIX ended with Wilson throwing a devastating goal-line interception that value Seattle a second straight championship and ruined the chemistry of a mercurial locker room. Since then, Seattle has remained aggressive however slipped to the second tier because it struggled to show over an growing older roster, made questionable draft selections and relied too closely on dangerous and expensive acquisitions through trades and free company.
Yet by all the mishaps, the Seahawks had a nice quarterback who saved discovering methods to assist them win. Wilson didn’t expertise a shedding 12 months till this previous season, when he missed the first three video games of his profession with a damaged finger and watched Seattle end 7-10.
And now, it’s over. At 33, Wilson nonetheless has stardom in him; he posted a stellar 103.1 passer ranking in 2021. But to those that pay shut consideration, he hasn’t been the identical participant since halfway by the 2020 season. He missed extra alternatives than traditional. He declined to make easy throws and held onto the soccer for too lengthy, grasping for large performs. He stopped scrambling. He went from talking in cliches throughout interviews to expressing frustration and making headlines now and again.
Wilson continued to dream aloud about profitable a number of Super Bowls with the Seahawks and staying in Seattle for his total profession. Still, the whispers of discontent by no means subsided.
So for a second time with Wilson, the Seahawks determined to do what most groups wouldn’t dare strive.
Ten years in the past, they reset a few NFL team-building philosophies when Schneider selected to draft Wilson regardless of his measurement and Carroll opted to start out him as a rookie over veterans Matt Flynn and Tarvaris Jackson. All of a sudden, that they had a star quarterback on a particularly low-cost rookie deal, which allowed them to construct the league’s deepest roster. It turned a blueprint for franchises with shrewd expertise evaluators and fast-rising aspirations.
Ten years later, the Seahawks have determined to forgo stability, acquiesce to Wilson’s want for one thing new and play the worth recreation with a seemingly invaluable commodity. They’re formally rebuilding. On Tuesday night time, additionally they launched center linebacker Bobby Wagner, one other future Hall of Famer they drafted in the identical 2012 class as Wilson. Just like that, the remnants of a superb previous are gone. The group both will likely be fools for letting go of Wilson too quickly and venturing again into a quarterback unknown that looks as if an abyss for greater than half the league. Or by getting all bizarre once more, it is going to rediscover its outdated team-building magic and maybe pave the manner for extra organizations to leverage their standout quarterbacks for rebuilding functions.
We’re at the starting of one thing new in the NFL. It’s laborious to know whether or not it is going to final. But for the second straight offseason, a big-time QB expertise has been traded. A 12 months in the past, the Los Angeles Rams exchanged Jared Goff for the massive arm of Matthew Stafford. The transfer, which was the first swap of former No. 1 picks in trendy NFL historical past, propelled the Rams to a Super Bowl triumph. On the different facet, the Detroit Lions are tolerating Goff and hoping they will make good use of all the draft capital.
Wilson is a larger star, however not like Stafford, he’s not going to a sure championship-caliber squad. The Broncos have had 5 straight shedding seasons. They haven’t been to the playoffs since profitable the Super Bowl six years in the past in Peyton Manning’s remaining season. Since Manning retired, they’ve been in stopgap quarterback hell: Trevor Siemian, Case Keenum, Joe Flacco, Drew Lock and Teddy Bridgewater all failed to supply perfect stability. After a lengthy search, Wilson is price the funding, and the Broncos additionally assume they’ve the proper offensive thoughts to interact him: new head coach Nathaniel Hackett. Denver can help Wilson with a prime 10 protection, two efficient operating backs and a stable receiving corps.
If Wilson returns to type, it could be a promising state of affairs. In the AFC, the place the majority of the NFL’s excellent younger quarterbacks dwell, he must be at his finest.
The Seahawks have the most to lose, nevertheless. In the current interval of star quarterback displeasure, you saved questioning which group would have the guts to say goodbye to the face of its franchise. It’s laborious to stop a nice quarterback, and for the most half, it’s laborious for a nice quarterback to stop the group he represents. Even Aaron Rodgers, in spite of everything that drama, is staying in Green Bay. The Seahawks and Wilson, as soon as excellent for one another, turned out to be the ones who couldn’t keep collectively.
For Carroll and Schneider, this transfer will make clear their Seattle legacies. They led the franchise to its first championship eight years in the past and managed the roster nicely sufficient to additionally create the longest run of success in group historical past. But there’s nonetheless a sense they left some success on the desk and by no means recovered from that Super Bowl loss.
All that pleasure and ache is instantly behind them. What’s forward seems hazy. Wilson, an unconventional gem, was once the one who sustained the Seahawks. They’ll should be totally different with out him now.