Seattle Seahawks have zero motivation to trade Russell Wilson

Yes 12s, we’re well into the annual “Where will the Seahawks send Russell Wilson?” frenzy. There are a *lot* of reasons the Hawks won’t do this. We’ll start with the numbers 31, 1, and 5. Don’t worry, it will make sense soon enough.

Before we dive into the latest conjecture, confabulation, and consternation of a possible trade of Russell Wilson, allow me a brief mea culpa, 12s. Yes, I too have written articles in the past about possible trade partners the Seahawks might seek out for their star quarterback. Overall, we’ve probably run a dozen articles here on 12thManRising on the topic. People want to read them, so we’ll write them. Plus, a trade is a possibility, so it makes sense to discuss exactly what shape such a trade might take.

It also makes sense to discuss exactly why the Seahawks trading Russell Wilson away to the team du jour isn’t likely to happen at all. The latest media favorite seems to be the Commanders. Maybe it’s that freshly minted name, complete with the inaccurate championship years on their new logo that makes them so attractive. I mean, you can’t expect much from an organization that rolled with the brilliant and innovative designation of “Football Team” for two seasons.

Seahawks trading Russell Wilson would doom the franchise

The Seahawks would commit the franchise to a decade of mediocrity or worse by trading Wilson away. Despite the protestations of Ryan Clark that DangeRuss isn’t an all-time great, Number 3 is indeed a great QB. We all saw what happened to the offense when Wilson was out of the lineup. We also saw what happened when he rushed back far too soon from his finger injury. The blame for those poor performances certainly doesn’t rest solely on the shoulders – or arm –  of Russell Wilson, though.

But when Russ is right, he’s very right indeed. If he truly is such a terrible quarterback, or mediocre, average, over-the-hill, whatever his detractors are saying, then why exactly are there so many supposed suitors clamoring for his services? You don’t see dozens of articles every day speculating where the Titans will send Ryan Tannehill, or where Cam Newton’s going to wind up, do you? It’s laughable, the dual buzz that Wilson is done, yet half the league wants him under center.

So, about those numbers, 31, 1, and 5. Yeah, you thought I forgot all about them, didn’t you? Well, the latter numbers are easy enough. I already alluded to it, as in the record of the Hawks with Wilson either out of the lineup or needed to be. Seattle was, of course, 1-5 in those games, with a sole win over the inept Jaguars to show for their efforts. The offense, such as it was, put up the grand total of 89 points in those six games.

That’s a pathetic average of just under 15 points per game. Without the anomaly of the win over Jacksonville, Seattle “rolled” to just 58 points in those five losses. That’s 11.6 points per game, and that isn’t winning anything in today’s NFL. Without a healthy Russell Wilson, or without him at all, we’d see an awful lot of those offensive “outbursts”.

The final two games of the season certainly showed that Wilson was at least mostly back on track. So we don’t need to worry about a repeat of 1 and 5. As for the 31, that’s the cap hit the Seahawks would take if they do trade Wilson away. As in $31 million dollars. Seattle would take a cap hit of $26 million in a trade of their star quarterback. Add in the $5 million roster bonus they just paid Friday, and that’s a *lot* of money to pay to guarantee a lot of losing seasons. For me, that all adds up to zero motivation to send Russell Wilson on his way.