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The Seahawks wanted to trade Russell Wilson in part because they knew they wouldn’t want to pay him again in 2023. Wilson knew this, too, from the moment his agent Mark Rogers negotiated Wilson’s latest deal, a $35 million a year contract that set the bar for all NFL players at the time.
The Seahawks never played Wilson as a quarterback, but paid him as a quarterback. At some point they won’t.
It happened now, a year before Wilson and Rogers would start asking for a new deal. Seahawks CEO John Schneider’s admission that they did not believe Wilson would sign another contract with the team represented Schneider’s admission that they did not want to make him the highest paid player in league history again.
That honor/privilege/burden now falls on the Broncos. They will have to make a new market deal with Wilson, and then they will have to adjust the contract to fit the cap. They learn about the realities of negotiating with an agent with a single client who doesn’t have broader concerns that potentially dampen his zeal, such as whether an angry GM will take his anger out on the agent’s other clients.
“We’re open,” Broncos CEO George Paton told reporters Friday regarding the possibility of a new deal with Wilson. “Obviously, we have long wanted him to be here, but nothing is foreseen. I’m sure we’ll talk soon. We didn’t make a deal to keep him away for a very long time.”
Someone will say that Paton should not be so outspoken, that this will only make it difficult to fulfill the contract. But it will be hard.
Or maybe it will be easy, because the Broncos have no reason to go into a protracted back and forth. They set their sights on Wilson, they praised him relentlessly, they gave up two picks in the first round, two picks in the second round and three players to get him. When it comes to whether they will give him a contract slightly (or much) better than the best contract in the books, why not?
However, Aaron Rodgers’ new contract complicates matters. Considering the average new money is $61.9 million, forget about the $46 million a year deal that Deshawn Watson signed in Cleveland. Mark Rogers may end up looking for Aaron Rogers’ money.
The sooner the Broncos do it, the cheaper it will be. With capitalization rising and a potential market explosion, it will cost more to make Wilson the highest paid player as more deals are made. Of course, the sooner Wilson gets a new four-year extension (which is something he’s already signed twice before), the sooner the Broncos are ready for the next extension.
There is another reason to do it now. Over time, the team will have a new owner. In case the new owner may not want to make a huge financial commitment to Wilson, it’s best to make a huge financial commitment before an owner comes along to veto it.