While there was a lot of talk about the bridges the two sides needed to cross for Russell Wilson to sign an extension with the Seahawks, Wilson's agent Mark Rodgers said the biggest might have been agreeing on just a 4-year contract.
While there was a lot of talk about the bridges the two sides needed to cross for Russell Wilson to sign an extension with the Seahawks, Wilson’s agent Mark Rodgers said that ultimately, the biggest might have been agreeing on just a four-year contract.
“When we decided that’s what it was going to be, it was going to be four years, we were really able to dig in and get the deal done,” he said. “It puts him in here at 30 years old he is going into the last year of his contract. So it puts you in a situation where he is still a young man and he gets an opportunity maybe to talk about another contract down the road. You don’t do a contract necessarily thinking about the next contract. But I think there is a big difference between doing a four-year extension and a five-year extension — that’s a long year. That’s a big of a goal and we got there, so we were pleased with that.”
Rodgers said the general parameters of the contract were agreed to last night about 11 p.m., which is when he called Wilson to tell him the good news.
Ultimately, they agreed on a four-year extension that runs through the 2019 season for a total of 87.6 million that includes a $31 million signing bonus and $61.3 million guaranteed overall.
Wilson will get $20 million of the bonus within 10 days or so and the rest on April 1, which will help spread out the cap hit some.
The rest of the guarantee comes in base salary numbers,
Wilson’s base salaries are: $700,000 in 2015, $12.34 million in 2016, $12.6 million in 2017, $15.5 million in 2018, $17 million in 2019.
The contract consists of solely the bonuses and salary with no other incentives.
The cap hits are $7,054,868 in 2015, with the base reduced to help the immediate cap hit; $18.5 million in 2016, $18.8 million in 2017, $21.7 million in 2018 and $23.2 million in 2019.
Rodgers said the term was the key because it would give Wilson the chance to be a free agent when he is 30 years old, a time when may of the current top quarterbacks such as Aaron Rodgers, Drew Brees, Eli Manning and Ben Roethlisberger will be nearing the end of their careers.
“The term was key,” he said. “You do a four-year extension so you can look at your client and say ‘look, you are going into the final year of this deal at 30 years old, you are a young man.’ You look at the other quarterbacks we are talking about today, they are all over 30 years old except for Andrew (Luck). So there is some promise in that.”