The Seattle Seahawks released Bobby Wagner last week. There is little chance he comes back to Seattle but where might he end up in free agency? I mean, OK…I guess there is a very minute chance Wagner returns to the Seahawks but with every passing day, this seems more and more unlikely.
The legal tampering period for NFL teams to contact free agents about signing with them begins Monday. Deals cannot be finalized until Wednesday but for many players, they will already know who they will be signing with by then.
Bobby Wagner chose to be his own free agent in 2019 and it may have cost him some money. Sure, free agents have to give their agents some money, of course, but Wagner signed a deal that would let the Seahawks do exactly what they did this offseason. That is, instead of paying Wagner $20-plus million in 2022, the team released Wagner and saved $16 million.
3 potential landing spots for now-former Seahawks linebacker Bobby Wagner
Unless Wagner was ridiculously good in 2021, the likelihood of his still being in Seattle for a ton of money in 2022 wasn’t going to be high. And Wagner, while making a ton of tackles this past year, wasn’t making the impact plays he had throughout his career and he became expendable.
Last week, Wagner tweeted that he didn’t learn of his release from the team, however. This makes any chance of his return to Seattle very improbable as he likely feels slighted. And probably he should if the way he found out he was released is true by his words.
So where will Wagner end up? Maybe one of the three teams that follow.
Los Angeles Chargers
You may read elsewhere that the Chargers have the most cap space in the NFL this offseason. This is completely false. In fact, Los Angeles isn’t in the top-ten teams with cap room this offseason. That doesn’t mean that Los Angeles doesn’t have the money to spend on Bobby Wagner because they do.
Wagner is not going to get paid $20 million by anyone next year. When a player of his age (he will be 32 years old in Week 1 of 2022) is let go by a team that doesn’t make another team overpay for his services. Wagner will probably make somewhere around $12 million (just a guess!) for next season.
All that said, Wagner is still a very good player and one who will add to the Chargers talent pool, and Los Angeles, with correct coaching and direction, is pretty close to making a long run in the playoffs. They have a good young quarterback on a rookie deal so the Chargers Super Bowl window is now.
Oddly, adding Wagner to the Chargers would mean that both future Hall of Famers (Russell Wilson and Wagner) that Seattle let go last week would be in the same division – AFC West – in 2022. But if Wagner wants to join a team with a decent chance of getting to the playoffs and making noise once there, Los Angeles could be the team.
Dallas Cowboys
Wagner to Dallas simply might make too much sense. What he does best at this stage of his career is stop the run sideline-to-sideline and that is exactly what Dallas needs. Plus, the Cowboys somehow found a way to keep defensive coordinator Dan Quinn in town and Quinn and Wagner know each other well. Quinn was DC of the Seahawks from 2013 through 2014 when Wagner was just becoming the great player he was in Seattle.
Plus, Dallas struck gold in the 2021 NFL draft with linebacker Micah Parsons who had 13 sacks this past year. Adding Wagner to Dallas allows Quinn to use Parsons in even more creative ways of pressuring opposing quarterbacks. In fact, with Wagner next to Parsons, Parson might get 20 sacks in 2022.
Dallas doesn’t have much cap room this offseason but if they are determined to add Wagner they won’t be afraid to make cap space. This is a team, after all, that has already said Amari Cooper wouldn’t return and actually just went ahead and traded him to the Browns for next-to-nothing.
I don’t want to see Wagner as a Cowboy but Dallas should own its division for the next couple of seasons so Wagner should know he’s going to make the postseason. That might be enough for an aging player wanting to make one last Super Bowl run to sign with the Cowboys.
New England Patriots
Bill Belichick’s true genius might be with how he deals with cap space. For thousands of years (hey, it feels like it anyway!) he had Tom Brady in New England and yet the team still had cap space to keep the team Super Bowl-worthy for almost two decades. The Patriots are the same team that had Chandler Jones for four years and when he wanted a ton of money to stay, Bill and company let him go. Then the Patriots won two more Super Bowls.
New England made the playoffs last season but wasn’t anywhere good enough to win a Super Bowl but adding a player like Wagner gets them a lot closer. If Belichick had his dream team, it would likely be a roster filled with defensive players who limited opposing teams to 3 points a game. If the Patriots scored 4 points, great. As long as New England won.
And why wouldn’t Wagner – who would be a perfect fit in New England’s defense by the way – not want to go to New England. The Patriots play in the AFC East where the only real competition they likely will have is the Bills. New England is making the postseason in 2022.
Actually, Bobby Wagner going to New England probably gives him a better chance of winning the Super Bowl for the 2022 season than Russell Wilson has by going to Denver. And Wagner was a better leader on the Seahawks roster than Wilson was anyway, so good luck to Wagner wherever he ends up.