Russell Wilson Contract (speculation)

[Scottemojo]

Amaze balls. We are a year from a new deal for Russell, and fans are already trying to get the third QB ever to get 50 TDs in his first two years to take less money.

Russell and his agent will get what they can, and that is exactly what he should do.

The implication he might hurt the team by taking too big a piece of the pie is both presumptive and petty.

 

[Throwdown]

I'd give him the Sun, Moon, and Stars and my favorite hoodie to keep him here.

 

[jblaze]

The interesting dichotomy here is that we've been waiting for a "franchise" QB forever and now that we have one, we're scared he's going to get paid like one.

You don't win in the NFL without a very good QB and they get paid as such. It's a good problem to have and a first world problem at that.

Last year, this year and next are very unusual in that we're paying our elite QB chump change. This is a luxury and one we are and will continue to take advantage of but it's extremely rare.

 

[Scottemojo]

All these presumptive money threads are about one thing: Fans are desperately afraid they will lose some of their favorite players when it comes time to pay them, so they try to figure out ways they get to both be champs and keep all their stars.

It ain't gonna happen, cupcakes. We are going to lose star players to free agency. Big names will be gone. It's a good problem to have.

Russell is going to get PAID. 3 years near league minny, he deserves every cent he gets.

 

[ImTheScientist]

Give him whatever he wants. Period.

:13:

 

[Missing_Clink]

By the time Wilson signs his second contract, he will have spent 3 full seasons as the most underpaid player in the NFL. As fans, thinking about hometown discounts for our star players is nice and all but its totally unrealistic, ESPECIALLY in the case of Wilson. Typically, the second contract is the biggest most players will sign in their careers. Wilson is earning the right to be paid top QB money and should sign for everything he can get. The Seahawks will probably happily give him whatever he wants. Plenty of other teams would be willing to do so. Having a young, star QB is the most important thing you need in the NFL.

Will his second contract probably mean we will lose some other valuable players, and not be able to sign star players in FA like we did this year? Probably. But that's the price you pay for having a superstar QB in the NFL. If I were you, I would start bracing myself for the inevitable, rather than holding out unrealistic hope that the hugely underpaid, 3rd-round-pick-turned-MVP-Candidate Wilson will take a hometown discount contract.

You are throwing out exactly the reasoning that was used for giving Romo Stafford Ryan and Flacco giant contracts. We have a good or great quarterback, so let's give them the world at the expense of the team. The whole point I'm making is that this is completely flawed thinking. Until they realize that they're HURTING their team by taking these deals, hamstringing the ability of the TEAM, quarterbacks will continue to sink their proverbial ships.

I think Russell is smart enough to know this. I'm not saying pay him 5 mil a year so we can sign a bunch of other people. I'm saying he won't ask to be the highest paid QB in the league when he sits down to negotiate his deal. I think he'll leave 4 or 5 mil a year (therefore 15 mil/year rather than 20) to mean we can sign a player like Bennett for a year or sign a Maxwell or a KJ to an extension when the time comes.

Again, nice to think about, but probably not realistic. I completely agree that a giant QB contract can hamstring a team. But in spite of this fact, teams keep giving them out and star QBs keep signing them. Why? Because its money. People (including quarterbacks) like money.

If you want to put faith in Wilson eschewing the conventional belief that an NFL player will take as much money as they can get, whether its because he knows it will hamstring the team or because he just loves being a Seahawk so much or whatever reason, that's up to you. But I believe the reason that star QBs make so much money is because they are hard to find. So hard to find that if one team won't pay them top dollar, another will. QBs and teams both know this, and that is why the teams end up paying so much for them. I don't think it will be any different for Russell (and his family).

 

[gubernaculum]

I don't think that Wilson takes a hometown discount, either. Think about things from his perspective. He's been making peanuts since he came into the league. He will be about 27 years old when we can talk about a new contract. He is in a huge position of power, in that he plays a position of the greatest premium in the NFL. Injuries are a huge variable, and its conceivable that this is the last big contract that he gets. But most importantly, if he walks, what is the likelihood that we can obtain a player of similar replacement value? That question, to me, is one of the most important in determining value. Maybe we can be creative by giving him more guaranteed money to keep the yearly salary down a bit. My prediction is that he sets a new bar with regard to quarterback compensation. I don't see any way that he takes anything less than 21 million per year. Projecting the next 7 years, how many quarterbacks in the league are more valuable than Wilson? Additionally, I think his presence further increases the desirability of Seattle as a FA destination. Pay the Man.

 

[brimsalabim]

Doesn’t the NFLPA mandate that his salary be with in a certain percentage of the players at his position that he is compared with?

 

[drrew]

I think the best they can hope for is to gamble and go huge on the guaranteed dollars in exchange for a lower per year average.

Something like $100m over 8 years with $80m guaranteed. Make $40m of that $80m an upfront signing bonus.

That would provide a $5m a year savings on the cap, and remove any worry from Wilson about injuries harming future earnings.

 

[jblaze]

Or put some big incentives in his contract. I'm a fan of incentive based contracts and I know RW thinks he'll achieve them and he probably will with this team. That way you pay for production.

 

[ivotuk]

I've spent a lot of time lately thinking about how many NFL teams have been hamstrung by their Quarterbacks wanting 15% of the cap space (20 mil/year). Here's a chart showing some of the QB's in 2013 and their cap hit:

1) Eli Manning $20.8 16.9 %
2) Matt Stafford $20.8 16.9 %
3) Peyton Manning $20 16.2 %
4) Drew Brees $17.4 14.1 %
5) Philip Rivers $17.1 13.9 %

I just wonder if Russell Wilson is smart enough to know that trying to get similar numbers when he gets his first big contract is going to hinder his team more than it will help them.

He seems like the type of guy who would take a lesser deal for the sake of putting the best TEAM together. I know that with money, people can be different, but everything that he has shown points towards him being wise in all areas of his life, not just a great football player.

Consider that from the chart above, Eli, Rivers, and Stafford are all on teams that very well might not make the playoffs. Throw in Flacco and Matt Ryan as QB's who put their teams in rough position after going far into the playoffs last year, and the stats back it up.

Here's to hoping we can work something decent out with Russell that both rewards him for the amazing things he has done and will continue to do, and also allows Pete and John to continue building a championship caliber roster year in and year out.

By the time RW's contract comes up, he will be busy trying to re-sign Pete Carroll and John Schneider to his team because Paul Allen loves him that much

 

[gubernaculum]

I think the best they can hope for is to gamble and go huge on the guaranteed dollars in exchange for a lower per year average.

Something like $100m over 8 years with $80m guaranteed. Make $40m of that $80m an upfront signing bonus.

That would provide a $5m a year savings on the cap, and remove any worry from Wilson about injuries harming future earnings.

$100 million over 8 years would be $12.5 million per year. I'm not sure that is high enough.

 

[Laloosh]

3 years near league minny, he deserves every cent he gets.

This.

 

[rightbench]

Amaze balls. We are a year from a new deal for Russell, and fans are already trying to get the third QB ever to get 50 TDs in his first two years to take less money.

Russell and his agent will get what they can, and that is exactly what he should do.

The implication he might hurt the team by taking too big a piece of the pie is both presumptive and petty.

No one's trying to get him to take less money. What I'm saying is that I don't think he'll demand to be the highest paid QB in the league, even if he deserves it. My statements have nothing to do with us as fans. I speculated that Russell Wilson probably is smart enough to look at other teams and see what their monster QB deals are doing to their team and it's future.

And please provide something other than repeating what I said and ending it with presumptive and petty to be passive aggressive. I provided my reasoning and I'd appreciate hearing yours, not veiled insults because you don't agree with me.

 

[dradee]

NFL salary cap is too low for so many players on a team. They should have 2 players be exempt from the cap hit per team.

 

[CANHawk]

Russell Wilson is going to make however much money he wants. That's a given. The seahawks will pay Russell Wilson however much money he wants. That's also a given.

Where the real work is going to be done is in the actual mechanics of the contract; how many yers, when the money gets paid, when the bonuses kick in, when the big money seasons happen. The real magic of it all in regards to keeping the team competitive through it all will have to do with how those big money years for Wilson will correlate to the big money years of the other superstars the team has to pay (ET, Sherm). I guarantee those guys are all going to get paid and get paid very well, but the money will be staggered around, front loaded/back loaded/paid as bonuses or whatever they need to do to make it all fit under the cap long term. Our guys know who the pillars of this team are and will do whatever's necessary to keep them.

Unfortunately though, we're not going to be able to pay everyone who deserves it. That's the very nature of the salary cap era. The rich just don't get to keep getting richer while the poor continue to suffer. Whatever the "rich" can't afford to keep, get to go to the less fortunate teams to make them better (theoretically). That's why there's such awesome parity in the NFL. Unfortunately for the homer though, it means favorites are inevetably going to move on for bigger money than we'll be able to pay them. We're eventually going to potentially have to say goodbye to guys like Michael Bennett or Doug Baldwin or Clint McDonald, etc because they're going to become too expensive. It's just life. However, since we've seen this FO build a winner on a budget before, I'm positive we'll always be able to fill out the roster around those superstars we choose to pay with cheap young alternatives. Hell, we already HAVE cheap young alternatives on deck waiting to step up (Tharold Simon, Greg Scruggs, Jesse Williams, etc) and you know JS is going to dump more cheap young guys into the grinder on top of them to see who comes out on top. We'll be okay.

The hand wringing over Russell and his contract need not occur. That man will retire a Seahawk (barring some weird Peyton Manning/Andrew Luck type scenario I guess). Sherman and Thomas will be here until they start to fall off. We have all the pieces in place to dominate for a LONG time. This is an awesome time to be a Hawk's fan...

 

[rightbench]

completely agree CanHawk. I didn't intend this thread to head to the hand wringing/sobbing that has occurred. My purpose was for it to be a conversation about what other people thought about how RW might deal with his contract.

 

[mjwhitay]

Listen, if he wins one or two Super Bowls and finishes in top five in MVP two years in a row and maybe wins one or two Super Bowl mvps, before the end of his THIRD season, he should receive the highest contract in NFL history as an elite 26 year old QB. If Seattle didn't pay it, I wouldn't blame him ONE bit for walking away. I don't think anyone is gonna let that happen and we will have over 15% of our cap tied up in one player. He just might be the best in the entire league, though

 

[telerion]

Another way to think about it:

For the sake of argument, let's assume right now that Wilson remains the Hawks QB for 10 more years. Now the question is should RW consider taking a sub market price wage over that time so that the Seahawks can afford a high talent roster to accompany him.

From a purely self-interested stand point, this would make sense for RW if doing so reasonable raised his chances of getting bigger endorsement deals than he would otherwise. Maybe this is the case or maybe they'll be about the same either way. If they are substantially bigger then RW's may not make any less money. Just the extra money will come from another source (sponsors). This is a gamble since none of this is guaranteed. Would be a really cool study to try to measure the elasticity of (present value) endorsement dollars with respect to official salary. In expectation, when does it payoff (if ever) to reduce salary to get a better shot at legacy (and endosements)? Would be damn hard to measure I since it depends on a lot of subjective factors and the fact that players who get big salary increases also tend to get a lot of endorsements (because they're great players), but interesting nonetheless.

From an altruistic standpoint RW does not expect to make up the difference in additional sponsors, but instead does it because "he values other things besides money," and wants to make sure Seattle has a great team. Well, that's his choice, but it seems silly to expect that of him. Basically it's a tax on his earnings to make Seahawks fans happier. Why should he pay millions of dollars a year for our sake? How many of us would be willing to part with 10-20% of our salary to pay for Seattle's roster (if such a thing were even legal)?

 

[12thManNorth]

I don't know enough about how the cap works, but considering Paul Allen is so rich, is there a way to help things by giving RW a huge amount of guaranteed $ and a smaller contract so as to help with the cap hit ? I'm not saying to pay him on the side or anything, but just trade more guaranteed dollars for a lesser annual salary. Considering how smart RW is, I don't see the chances he gets hurt being higher than any other typical QB, and I definitely don't see any future regression, so I wouldn't be too scared about giving him a really high guaranteed amount