Everyone is welcome to believe what they want of course. It seems odd that those who don't believe this are responding with such vitriol towards the media reporting this and towards the fans who believe that the trade talks occurred. Is this response the result of hurt feelings, belief that being outraged somehow makes you a good fan, confusion that the entire world does not see everything exactly as you do, what is it?
I realize that for many the initial emotion felt at this sort of news is a vulnerable emotion, and I understand that many lack the emotional strength necessary to accept the vulnerable emotion and therefore hide the vulnerable emotion behind a masking emotion, most often anger in these situations. Moreover, many lack temperance and are thus incapable of handling the masking emotion and react accordingly. Thus, we get a collection of hurt, anxious, helpless fans (vulnerable emotions) reacting with outrage and anger (masking emotions).
To me, those who don't believe this are incredibly naive.
We have Russ at the time: he and his agent talked about a league altering contract, he was keeping the baseball door open, there were rumors that he and Ciara would welcome a move to NY, and the next contract was looming.
We have the Seahawks: difficult cap decisions ahead, a franchise quarterback who would require top dollar to re-sign, uncertainty regarding the intentions of the franchise quarterback, a window that appeared to be closing or to have already closed, a quarterback rich draft upcoming, a potential trade partner desperate to become relevant and loaded with draft picks.
With all this, I think it would be irresponsible not to at least kick the tires and see what was possible. I don't think it was a case of JS/PC not believing in Russ; I think it came down to a decision between rebuild or reload. Seattle passed on the trade and elected to reload.
We have the rumors: JS was scouting Josh Allen, PC and/or JS were rumored to be high on at least three of the quarterbacks taken in the first round, the Seahawks scouted players who appeared to be outside of their draft position, the explanations given by the Seahawks were a mix of looking at backup QBs, looking at developmental QBs, scouting future free agents, and/or scouting future opponents. Wilson's camp is rumored to have contacted JS/PC to ask if there was something they should know.
The only articles I have seen that have put this rumor down come from Seattle sports "journalists" pandering to their local audience. To my knowledge, no credible football insider has said anything to dispel the rumor.
From Tim Hasselbeck:
“They were definitely talking about Russell Wilson being traded back then, yeah. I don’t know if it was just the Browns or where else that went, but yeah.”