Russell Wilson Contract (speculation)

[Hawks46]

Kobe was right!

The owners (NBA and NFL) are billionaires for a reason --they are quite intelligent, much more so than players. They have created a system where fans side with billionaire owners more than millionaire players who actually play. Russell Wilson is getting a few hundre K per year to play right now. He is without doubt worth 50-75 million PER YEAR to this franchise. The person who writes his check is Paul Allen, one of the richest men on the planet and with more billions than most of this board has hundreds of thousands. Yet the fans want Russell Wilson to take less money "for the team," lol. I wonder why the billionaire owners agreed to this system? Probably because they are billionaires and very intelligent.

Just as a comparison, in a small country like Spain, Real MAdrid PAID almost 150 million dollars just to have the RIGHT to pay 50m per year for a football/soccer player who MAY be in the top 10-15 in the world. 100m Euros they paid Tottenham for Bale --this is just for the right to purchase the player. They also pay him roughly 17m Euros per year AFTER TAXES, so it maybe closer to 35m Euros or around 40-50m dollars per year. The numbers are rough estimates from memory, the exchange rate is .73 Euro to 1.00 Dollar.

I'd say American football is on the same level as World Football or Soccer. Without a salary cap, Russell Wilson would most likely be worth 50-75m per year. Yet fans want him to take 10-15m because the Billionaire owners have lined their own well being with the well being of the team due to the salary cap. I'm not saying fans are wrong, I'm just admiring the billionares.

None of that makes any difference, and it has no actual context to what we're talking about. Sure Paul Allen could afford to pay Wilson whatever the hell he wanted to. The problem is, we get no cap relief for the amount of money Allen makes.

Every team has the same cap. If you spend too much on one player, it hurts you, no matter how good the player is. It's being proven now. We've reached the line where there is proven diminishing returns. Everyone is overpaying QBs because they are the most valuable position, and there's a fear factor that other teams will pay your QB if you don't. Looking at the last few contracts, it's becoming evident that Flacco, Ryan and Eli Manning's contracts are hurting their teams.

Brady saw it. He took a value contract to let the team get more talent.

 

[A London Hawk]

Brady's actually making more for the 2013 and 2014 seasons with the new contract than he was on the old one. He moved some cap space and had 3 sub <10m years tacked on. If he plays out those years at those rates, then yes, it's a value contract. Right now, not so much.

 

[docj78]

I love Russell Wilson just as much as anyone, but some of us may be putting him on too high of a pedestal. Teams make way more money than they pay in salaries. Ever wonder why that salary cap is there? Is it really so that teams can't get an unfair advantage by paying more for players than other teams? Or was it an awesomely slick way for owners to decide what the maximum they want to cut into their burgeoning profits would be? I'm guessing the latter. The salary cap figure is a drop in the bucket for most team owners. I would think young Mr. Wilson extremely foolish to play like a top QB, and refuse the money of a top QB. And the whole "team" bit? As I've always said, there is no "I" in team, but there is a "me"......... Let's just all hope he makes the money that he deserves with this next contract, because right now he's the bargain player of the league. Talk about a discount!!

 

[docj78]

Kobe was right!

The owners (NBA and NFL) are billionaires for a reason --they are quite intelligent, much more so than players. They have created a system where fans side with billionaire owners more than millionaire players who actually play. Russell Wilson is getting a few hundre K per year to play right now. He is without doubt worth 50-75 million PER YEAR to this franchise. The person who writes his check is Paul Allen, one of the richest men on the planet and with more billions than most of this board has hundreds of thousands. Yet the fans want Russell Wilson to take less money "for the team," lol. I wonder why the billionaire owners agreed to this system? Probably because they are billionaires and very intelligent.

Just as a comparison, in a small country like Spain, Real MAdrid PAID almost 150 million dollars just to have the RIGHT to pay 50m per year for a football/soccer player who MAY be in the top 10-15 in the world. 100m Euros they paid Tottenham for Bale --this is just for the right to purchase the player. They also pay him roughly 17m Euros per year AFTER TAXES, so it maybe closer to 35m Euros or around 40-50m dollars per year. The numbers are rough estimates from memory, the exchange rate is .73 Euro to 1.00 Dollar.

I'd say American football is on the same level as World Football or Soccer. Without a salary cap, Russell Wilson would most likely be worth 50-75m per year. Yet fans want him to take 10-15m because the Billionaire owners have lined their own well being with the well being of the team due to the salary cap. I'm not saying fans are wrong, I'm just admiring the billionares.

None of that makes any difference, and it has no actual context to what we're talking about. Sure Paul Allen could afford to pay Wilson whatever the hell he wanted to. The problem is, we get no cap relief for the amount of money Allen makes.

Every team has the same cap. If you spend too much on one player, it hurts you, no matter how good the player is. It's being proven now. We've reached the line where there is proven diminishing returns. Everyone is overpaying QBs because they are the most valuable position, and there's a fear factor that other teams will pay your QB if you don't. Looking at the last few contracts, it's becoming evident that Flacco, Ryan and Eli Manning's contracts are hurting their teams.

Brady saw it. He took a value contract to let the team get more talent.

So if what your saying is true, that the cap is hurting teams.............. Then Team Owners need to decide to raise the cap so they have more wriggle room. The owners run the NFL, not the players, and not Goodell

 

[seahawksTopGear]

owners of good teams want to expand the cap, owners of bad teams want it lowered.

Russels contract, and this applies to Sherman too, will not be as bad as you think. Why? for two reasons. 1) it will be made when there is still 1 year at 900k left in his current contract and 2)they have the franchise tag which is currently going for 16mil.

So Russel has to decide whether he wants to get paid 1 year at 1mil, 1 year at 16mil and then five years at 20 mil = 37 mil for 3 years or 117mil for 7 years OR
5 years at 16 mil with a 20mil a year contract following = 48mil for 3 years or 120mil for 7 years.

Frankly at 16mil a year RW is a steal, so that should work out.

 

[Mr.Hawkbrah]

Kobe was right!

The owners (NBA and NFL) are billionaires for a reason --they are quite intelligent, much more so than players. They have created a system where fans side with billionaire owners more than millionaire players who actually play. Russell Wilson is getting a few hundre K per year to play right now. He is without doubt worth 50-75 million PER YEAR to this franchise. The person who writes his check is Paul Allen, one of the richest men on the planet and with more billions than most of this board has hundreds of thousands. Yet the fans want Russell Wilson to take less money "for the team," lol. I wonder why the billionaire owners agreed to this system? Probably because they are billionaires and very intelligent.

Just as a comparison, in a small country like Spain, Real MAdrid PAID almost 150 million dollars just to have the RIGHT to pay 50m per year for a football/soccer player who MAY be in the top 10-15 in the world. 100m Euros they paid Tottenham for Bale --this is just for the right to purchase the player. They also pay him roughly 17m Euros per year AFTER TAXES, so it maybe closer to 35m Euros or around 40-50m dollars per year. The numbers are rough estimates from memory, the exchange rate is .73 Euro to 1.00 Dollar.

I'd say American football is on the same level as World Football or Soccer. Without a salary cap, Russell Wilson would most likely be worth 50-75m per year. Yet fans want him to take 10-15m because the Billionaire owners have lined their own well being with the well being of the team due to the salary cap. I'm not saying fans are wrong, I'm just admiring the billionares.

what....
dude i dont think anyone gives a rats behind about siding with the owners, its just about cap space flat out. Without cap space I would be more than happy to go on a full blown New York Yankee spending spree every off season, I wouldnt think twice about spending every last penny of Pauly boys money. Im not saying you think this, but you make it sound like the players are making the owners rich which is not the case, all these owners were filthy rich beforehand, and professional athletes are way over paid in the first place considering what they do for a living, collectively pro athletes are probably the most stupid group of professionals in the entire planet. If you really want to get self righteous about where the moneys going, why not pay the league/owners/players less and put a huge chunk of money into improving our economy or other things outside of sports...not trying to get into that but just saying. Overall, I agree with having a cap, not for the owners sake but just to encourage competitiveness and the "any given sunday" mentality the nfl has across the league for the most part. Russel will get more than enough money, i wont lose sleep over it. Players like sherm are more who im worried about.

 

[Reaneypark]

Pay the man. It's wrong to ask him to sacrifice to keep the team competitive when he has been royally hosed by the rookie salary restrictions. It'll work itself out. I just want to see him a happy and healthy Seahawk for the next dozen years or so.

 

[joeseahawks]

A player should not compromise their value to accommodate the team. That's simply not fair to them and their family. If someone were to calculate the value of Wilson to the Seahawks franchise, it can't even be expressed within the salary cap.
The NBA has tried to level the playing field by using a hard cap. It has definitely saved stupid owners from paying too much money to average players, but it has also forced a team like the Heat to pay Lebron the same money as Chris Bosh.
Because players in the NFL can be cut at anytime, I think players don't have much leverage, except the true superstars.

 

[telerion]

Doesn't make sense from a standpoint of self-interest either. The value of the money in a contract is quantifiable. The benefit to Russell of taking less money is speculative. The front office could piss the money away, or the front office personnel could change, Pete could leave for Texas tomorrow, etc. Not that folks don't make business decisions sometimes based on speculation, but based on speculation of future team performance in today's NFL?

It's not speculative. It's risky; and risk is justifiable if the expected return is sufficiently high. Yes, a front office could piss the savings away. It could just raise the salary of another player that would have been willing to sign for less. It could go to buying better players, but many of them get injured and hardly play. There are a lot of risks. Personally, I would get as much as I can now (especially since most NFL careers are short).

As far as studying some sort of correlation, what a waste of time and money that would be. Firstly you couldn't do it because you couldn't isolate hardly any of the infinite variables. Secondly if you could do it, its predictive value would be nil because it would basically say "if you don't have an awesome front office it doesn't matter one bit if you take a few less bucks, and even if you do have a great front office your team may suck, this is the NFL." That'd really help QBs make future decisions wouldn't it.

1) With sufficient data, you can approximate such a return. Scientists and mathematicians do so with harder problems everyday. Very unlikely that you could put tight errors on any estimate, but interesting exercise nonetheless. You might think it's a waste of time, but you know that's just like your opinion man.

2) Again it would have some predictive value because you could use it to calculate an expected return. Could you send a man to the moon with the accuracy? No. But the concerns you raise can (at least theoretically) be quantified in a model.

Finally even if a QB's agent never used such a calculation in practice it would still be an interesting research question. Basically, it's high stakes decision making in the face of uncertainty. Maybe not your favorite hobby (and that's okay), but hardly worthless. People get paid very good money to study problems like that.

 

[BeerHawker]

RW has won at least 10 games over the last two years when we have been obliged to field arguably the worst offensive line in the NFL, and from time to time an iffy receiving corp. The cap money actually in uniforms on the field on the offensive side of the ball in those games was very low when Okung, Giacomini, Unger, Rice, Miller and Harvin couldn't play. He still won.

Assuming he got the total of what a below-mediocre QB cost us last year (Flynn at $5 million), plus what 1 mid-priced veteran O-lineman makes ($3 or $4 million), plus what one expensive receiver makes ($8 or 9 million), we will still see no real difference in what we have had as the starting offensive payroll actually on the field in most games the past two years. If we throw Miller's TE salary onto the pile, we could actually pay RW more than Manning and still have the same cap on the offensive side of the ball as has actually played many of the games he won for us even as a rookie.

 

[plyka]

Kobe was right!

The owners (NBA and NFL) are billionaires for a reason --they are quite intelligent, much more so than players. They have created a system where fans side with billionaire owners more than millionaire players who actually play. Russell Wilson is getting a few hundre K per year to play right now. He is without doubt worth 50-75 million PER YEAR to this franchise. The person who writes his check is Paul Allen, one of the richest men on the planet and with more billions than most of this board has hundreds of thousands. Yet the fans want Russell Wilson to take less money "for the team," lol. I wonder why the billionaire owners agreed to this system? Probably because they are billionaires and very intelligent.

Just as a comparison, in a small country like Spain, Real MAdrid PAID almost 150 million dollars just to have the RIGHT to pay 50m per year for a football/soccer player who MAY be in the top 10-15 in the world. 100m Euros they paid Tottenham for Bale --this is just for the right to purchase the player. They also pay him roughly 17m Euros per year AFTER TAXES, so it maybe closer to 35m Euros or around 40-50m dollars per year. The numbers are rough estimates from memory, the exchange rate is .73 Euro to 1.00 Dollar.

I'd say American football is on the same level as World Football or Soccer. Without a salary cap, Russell Wilson would most likely be worth 50-75m per year. Yet fans want him to take 10-15m because the Billionaire owners have lined their own well being with the well being of the team due to the salary cap. I'm not saying fans are wrong, I'm just admiring the billionares.

None of that makes any difference, and it has no actual context to what we're talking about. Sure Paul Allen could afford to pay Wilson whatever the hell he wanted to. The problem is, we get no cap relief for the amount of money Allen makes.

Every team has the same cap. If you spend too much on one player, it hurts you, no matter how good the player is. It's being proven now. We've reached the line where there is proven diminishing returns. Everyone is overpaying QBs because they are the most valuable position, and there's a fear factor that other teams will pay your QB if you don't. Looking at the last few contracts, it's becoming evident that Flacco, Ryan and Eli Manning's contracts are hurting their teams.

Brady saw it. He took a value contract to let the team get more talent.

You're missing my point. I thought i recapped it well at the end, and even made it bold: I'm not saying fans are wrong, I'm just admiring the billionares. [/quote]

I'm just admiring how smart the billionaire owners in this league are, that's all. Somehow due to the agreement they made, we have fans claiming that Russell Wilson, the first true franchise QB the Seahawks have ever had, should make far less money than he deserves. Due to the agreement they made, the billionaires have fans ON THEIR SIDE, arguing for their talent to take less money than they deserve to play on their team. You have to hand it to them, they are incredible.

 

[plyka]

Kobe was right!

The owners (NBA and NFL) are billionaires for a reason --they are quite intelligent, much more so than players. They have created a system where fans side with billionaire owners more than millionaire players who actually play. Russell Wilson is getting a few hundre K per year to play right now. He is without doubt worth 50-75 million PER YEAR to this franchise. The person who writes his check is Paul Allen, one of the richest men on the planet and with more billions than most of this board has hundreds of thousands. Yet the fans want Russell Wilson to take less money "for the team," lol. I wonder why the billionaire owners agreed to this system? Probably because they are billionaires and very intelligent.

Just as a comparison, in a small country like Spain, Real MAdrid PAID almost 150 million dollars just to have the RIGHT to pay 50m per year for a football/soccer player who MAY be in the top 10-15 in the world. 100m Euros they paid Tottenham for Bale --this is just for the right to purchase the player. They also pay him roughly 17m Euros per year AFTER TAXES, so it maybe closer to 35m Euros or around 40-50m dollars per year. The numbers are rough estimates from memory, the exchange rate is .73 Euro to 1.00 Dollar.

I'd say American football is on the same level as World Football or Soccer. Without a salary cap, Russell Wilson would most likely be worth 50-75m per year. Yet fans want him to take 10-15m because the Billionaire owners have lined their own well being with the well being of the team due to the salary cap. I'm not saying fans are wrong, I'm just admiring the billionares.

what....
dude i dont think anyone gives a rats behind about siding with the owners, its just about cap space flat out. Without cap space I would be more than happy to go on a full blown New York Yankee spending spree every off season, I wouldnt think twice about spending every last penny of Pauly boys money. Im not saying you think this, but you make it sound like the players are making the owners rich which is not the case, all these owners were filthy rich beforehand, and professional athletes are way over paid in the first place considering what they do for a living, collectively pro athletes are probably the most stupid group of professionals in the entire planet. If you really want to get self righteous about where the moneys going, why not pay the league/owners/players less and put a huge chunk of money into improving our economy or other things outside of sports...not trying to get into that but just saying. Overall, I agree with having a cap, not for the owners sake but just to encourage competitiveness and the "any given sunday" mentality the nfl has across the league for the most part. Russel will get more than enough money, i wont lose sleep over it. Players like sherm are more who im worried about.

Almost everything you just said was wrong. Not only wrong as in my opinion, but factually wrong, as in, can be proven without doubt to be wrong.

1)Professional athletes are not making more money than they are worth (NBA/NFL not, soccer and MLB they are making what they are worth). The salary cap itself is proof. The owners got together, and since they have a government sponsored monopoly, were able to put in a LIMIT on their wages. Without the cap, the wages/salary of these players would move HIGHER. This is the very definition of not getting what they are worth. In a free market without monopoly power by the owners, the players would be making much more money. But isn't it nice that in YOUR OPINION they are making too much money, lol. Your opinion is quite worthless. The facts on the other hand are not.

2) It doesn't matter whether you care about the owners or not, you're siding with them. Your intent is irrelevant.

3) Of course you would be willing to go on a spending spree with Paul Allen's money if the cap was not there. Since of course it's not your money. But you're missing the genius of the owners: THE CAP IS THERE. The cap itself is the genius. Now billionaire owners have fans telling Russell Wilson he should take far less money than he is truly worth.

4) These owners may have been rich before, but that is immaterial on whether they are making money now. I don't think there is anything wrong with the owners making money, I approve of the fact that they are making money, I support it. I'm just admiring the fact that they are making money.

5) The rest of your post just shows your inability to grasp economics. You say: "why not pay the league/owners/players less and put a huge chunk of money into improving our economy or other things outside of sports." Because this isn't North Korea and you're not Kim Jong Il or his tyrannical son that now controls that country with its people eating rats for dinner. It's not YOUR PROPERTY. You have done NOTHING TO EARN IT. Why in the world do you believe yourself to be some dictator that can take other people's property and do what you want with it? But that's not even the worst part of your idea. The worst part of your idea is that you actually think you being a dictator would be healthy for the economy. That you deciding what other people should do with the money they earned, would somehow benefit society, lol.

 

[RolandDeschain]

Elite quarterbacks...17% of their team's salary cap, and 34% of why their teams win. If not more.

It's still a bargain.

 

[OkieHawk]

I'm curious if owners couldn't put in a clause for top tier talent guaranteeing a "consultant" gig similar to what Favre was offered. Maybe something not included in their NFL contract, but a separate one that pays them x amount for x years. If they got something like $2M over 10 years to just be on the payroll for taking less for playing, I think they would probably consider it. I just don't know if that is legal or not, but it is something interesting to think about.

 

[AgentDib]

Option A: 1 year at 1mil, 1 year at 16mil and then five years at 20 mil = 37 mil for 3 years or 117mil for 7 years
Option B: 5 years at 16 mil with a 20mil a year contract following = 48mil for 3 years or 120mil for 7 years.

I like your logic here. If we factor in two more components; a discount rate to represent time value of money and a risk factor to represent the likelihood of an injury it helps your argument further. For example, if you assume a 7% discount rate then both options you present would be equal if the initial deal in Option B was $14.8 million/year.

Option A: 1 year at $1m, 1 year at $16m and then five years at $20m = $86.5m NPV in 2015
Option B: 5 years at $14.8m with a 20m a year contract following = $86.5m NPV in 2015

 

[KitsapHawk]

He is without doubt worth 50-75 million PER YEAR to this franchise. [/b]

No salary cap= Baseball/Buying championships

No thanks

 

[RolandDeschain]

No salary cap= Baseball/Buying championships

No thanks

Same here, screw that noise. Even though our owner is richer than the next two richest owners combined and could buy us championships like Steinbrenner did for the Yankees, I don't want that crap in football.

KEEP THE CAP! (No, 49ers fans; not keep the Kaep.)

 

[Anthony!]

Option A: 1 year at 1mil, 1 year at 16mil and then five years at 20 mil = 37 mil for 3 years or 117mil for 7 years
Option B: 5 years at 16 mil with a 20mil a year contract following = 48mil for 3 years or 120mil for 7 years.

I like your logic here. If we factor in two more components; a discount rate to represent time value of money and a risk factor to represent the likelihood of an injury it helps your argument further. For example, if you assume a 7% discount rate then both options you present would be equal if the initial deal in Option B was $14.8 million/year.

Option A: 1 year at $1m, 1 year at $16m and then five years at $20m = $86.5m NPV in 2015
Option B: 5 years at $14.8m with a 20m a year contract following = $86.5m NPV in 2015

Except you are factoring the injury risk form the team perspective not the layer perspective. So you could argue that 7% should be added not subtracted due to risk of injury and the fact NFL contracts are not guaranteed.

In the END RW is going to get what he feels is a fair contract, if not form us then somebody and we will either be very happy or all those who think he should take less then he deserves will be crying and denying ever saying it. My guess is those of us that get it will be very happy and we will have our franchise QB and face of the franchise for some time.

 

[HawkMeat]

I can't help but think about how much Percy Harvin makes this year sitting on the bench rehabbing while Russell Wilson is paid less playing every single game. makes me sad

 

[AbsolutNET]

Option A: 1 year at 1mil, 1 year at 16mil and then five years at 20 mil = 37 mil for 3 years or 117mil for 7 years
Option B: 5 years at 16 mil with a 20mil a year contract following = 48mil for 3 years or 120mil for 7 years.

I like your logic here. If we factor in two more components; a discount rate to represent time value of money and a risk factor to represent the likelihood of an injury it helps your argument further. For example, if you assume a 7% discount rate then both options you present would be equal if the initial deal in Option B was $14.8 million/year.

Option A: 1 year at $1m, 1 year at $16m and then five years at $20m = $86.5m NPV in 2015
Option B: 5 years at $14.8m with a 20m a year contract following = $86.5m NPV in 2015

I was thinking about that last night. That 4th year on the rookie pay scale is a huge bargaining chip for the teams. A player could either stay at the small salary for another year and roll the dice that their production and health will maintain - and still be looking at even or less money in a few years OR they could take a bit of a lower per-year now and actually come out ahead after a few years. Get your bonus and a huge pay increase now and you'll have more at the end of the road.