Wilson, as the Twitter accounts and Instagrams of many Seahawks made clear over the last day or so, is leading a week of drills in Hawaii.
Well, you knew this was not a week when the Seahawks would suddenly call a press conference and announce that Russell Wilson had been signed to a contract extension.
Wilson, as the Twitter accounts and Instagrams of many Seahawks made clear over the last day or so, is leading a week of drills in Hawaii (getting the most attention so far is the “mock fight” of Bruce Irvin and Jimmy Graham, an apparent mending of all old wounds for the new teammates).
As for Wilson, Pro Football Talk is reporting Tuesday morning that while talks between his representatives and the Seahawks on a new contract have intensified that “no progress” has been made. That comes a couple of days after PFT reported that Wilson could be willing to play on a series of yearly franchise tags, assuring raises each season through 2018.
As the latter story indicates, there isn’t necessarily a huge urgency here to get something done since the Seahawks can keep Wilson via franchise tags, and Wilson knows he has options that aren’t really available to most players so he doesn’t have to necessarily rush to take the first offer.
Seattle’s success getting extensions done with its key players — Earl Thomas, Richard Sherman, Kam Chancellor, etc. — make it easy to assume they’ll get one done similarly quickly with Wilson. But as PFT and others have noted, this deal will be different than any of those, with Wilson potentially in line for the richest contract in NFL history. That alone makes this a more delicate situation than the others.
For fans who don’t care much about the negotiating back-and-forth, all you really need to know is that he is assured of being under contract through at least 2016 (the exclusive rights tag would assure that no other team could make a bid for him). And the safe bet is probably still that something gets done before it gets to that. It just may not be as quick and easy as some of the other extensions Seattle has signed the last few years.