When Russell first came to Seattle, he seemed like a hungry player who had a chip on his shoulder like the rest of the team. He may have always been a me guy but it felt like it was in a good way that worked well with the rest of the team. I thought he was fine all the way until we lost the second super bowl. After that, it felt like he became a completely different person. He got a huge payday, divorced his first wife, started dating Ciara, doing all sorts of commercials and starting businesses. It's like he stopped caring about becoming a better football player.
I don't think Wilson was ever that guy. We heard rumblings from about him early on in his career -- there are also stories surrounding Wilson that paint him in a poor light all the way back to college.
Something about Wilson just always seemed off to me. It's also telling how many of his teammates viewed him on those super bowl teams. Baldwin hated Wilson's guts, Golden Tate went out of his way to praise Stafford but was silent about Wilson for the most part.
Sherman even was talking about how Carroll went through great lengths to shield/protect Wilson and how he thought it was funny how now he's taking shots at him.
Wilson always seemed like a guy that just viewed football as a stepping stone. Even very early on he was involved in baseball during the offseason and all sorts of other time consuming things. Not that a player shouldn't have a life or other side gigs, but it just felt that football was never his main priority on his list of many things.
Wilson was always all about the optics. Every time he visited the children's hospital he made a huge, grandiose display. What many people don't know is that Peyton Manning did the same thing, only he never brought a camera crew with him or made a big deal of it.
Wilson has never be a consummate professional, instead he came off as a marketing division or perhaps a salesman.
At the end of the day, I think Carroll and perhaps his mentor that died protected Wilson from himself. Now that those two are out of the picture, his ego is left to its own devices. I don't think he's honest about his shortcomings as a player and I don't think he has been his whole career.
Schottenheimer and Carroll I think had a good thing going on. Schottenheimer is known for running an extremely tight ship and being a more old school type of coach. I suspect that Carroll and Schotty had a good cop, bad cop sort of relationship going on. It worked for awhile, until Wilson started making absurd demands. He started wanting to be involved in personnel decisions because... LOOK AT BRADY! He started throwing fits and acting like a toddler. Ultimately, I think this is why Schottenheimer was canned. Carroll cites "difference in philosophy"
but... the thing here is that Schottenheimer was always a guy that followed his coaches instructions. His head coach would say jump? Schottenheimer would jump. This is the same guy that called 40 runs in a game because Rex Ryan wanted to establish a run game. Schottenheimer didn't even bring his own playbook with him and stuck with established terminology. Carroll stated when he was hired that most of the playbook would be Carroll's. Why? Probably because Wilson was unable to run any other type of offense.
I suspect that Waldron was also something that Wilson tried advocating for. Shanahan and McVay were obviously the hottest names in football at the time. Everyone was talking about the Shanahan system, it was all the rage and.. in many ways it still is. Of course Wilson would think he's capable of running the dominant offensive meta.
I suspect that Waldron was the last ditch effort to get Wilson under control. I noticed he was given a lot more freedom at the LOS in 2021, initially. Wilson never looked comfortable in this offense -- as a result Carroll intervened and went to a paired back offense that was predicated off of the play action pass and run, using extremely simple route concepts.
Wilson never took the initiative to understand the game. There was a reason we spent more time than any other team on the scramble drill. It was a necessity with Wilson under center. Wilson had extremely good instincts and was a natural at playing without any sort of structure around him. Wilson was always a QB that needed special types of support to succeed. I'm not sure he would have been more than a flash in the pan without someone like Carroll managing him and protecting him from his own ego.
Wilson has always been who he is. Ciera didn't change him, money didn't change him, this has always been Wilson. Now, Hackett has found himself over his head. They gave Wilson terms which included phrases such as "partnership" and they're allowing "team 3" to come and go as they please in the facility. It's absurd and what Wilson needs more than anything else right now is a good, hard, strong reality check.
