Even during these few weeks of relative inaction in the NFL calendar, the Russell Wilson contract situation continues to dominate headlines. Here are Thursday’s updates and links on a possible extension for the Seahawks quarterback:
- Wilson’s agent, Mark Rodgers, typically negotiates baseball contracts, and as he tells Jon Santucci of TCPalm.com, there aren’t as many stats and metrics to measure a player’s true value in the NFL. “It’s so different in football,” Rodgers said. “In baseball, you can dive into analytics. In baseball, there are so many numbers that really define the player to the minutest detail. In football, it’s a little simpler. I don’t have to argue statistics with the Seattle Seahawks on the value of Russell Wilson. In football, the most important stat to me has always been ‘Does he win?’ It’s hard to argue that Russell Wilson doesn’t win.”
- As Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk notes, no one can argue that Wilson has been a winner so far in his NFL career, but it’s unclear whether he’ll continue to pile up victories if and when he accounts for a much larger chunk of the Seahawks’ salary cap. In that scenario, the team will have less cap room to use on the other players who have contributed to making Seattle a winning franchise in recent years, according to Florio, who suggests that Wilson will probably have to leave the Seahawks if he wants to truly maximize his earning potential.
- After informally polling NFL contract negotiators and agents this week, Kevin Seifert of ESPN.com writes that Wilson could probably earn annual salaries of around $30MM if there was no salary cap in the NFL.
I believe the Seahawks’ win total will go down as Wilson’s salary goes up.