I promise, it's all going to be OK

Can we agree not to freak out on Monday when NFL teams can begin negotiating with free agents?

I say this because there’s some low-level panic already bubbling up on the Twitter aka the Web site I’m about to quit.

So if cornerback Riq Woolen signs with, say, the Tennessee Titans and running back Kenneth Walker goes to New York to play for the Giants and receiver Rashid Shaheed goes to wherever it seems he’s already eyeing …

Can we all agree to take that in stride?

Not just because last month’s Super Bowl victory gives GM John Schneider some equity (though it most certainly should). 

Not just because free-agent departures are part of the tax every Super Bowl winner winds up paying.

We should all take in stride because over the past 16 years, the Seahawks have shown an ability to retain the guys who are most important. That was true last year when they re-signed linebacker Ernest Jones. It was true the year before when they re-signed Leonard Williams.

And while I’m not going to say the Seahawks have never missed in this regard, but they haven’t missed much.

It hurt when Seattle lost Golden Tate in 2014.

I still wonder why – exactly – the Seahawks weren’t more aggressive in trying to extend or then re-sign guard Damien Lewis, who left in 2024.

But in the 16 years that Schneider has been in charge of the front office, I’m hard-pressed to find other players who left Seattle as free agents and got better with their new teams.

Not Byron Maxwell. Not Russell Okung. I love Bruce Irvin, and I think he had a tremendous career, but I don’t think that Seattle would have been better off paying him the money he got from the Raiders in 2016.

So I’m urging you — no matter what happens next week — to keep calm.

I mentioned the Web site I’m about to quit using.

That would be Twitter, which was a topic of discussion in my weekly visit with Mitch Levy over at “Unfiltered.”

If you’re interested in someone making an impassioned case against the Web site, here is a link to John Oliver's segment on how Twitter has changed..

My own rationale is not all that political. I’m not leaving because of a bias toward conservative perspectives.

I am concerned about the what appears to be an increase in the amount of disinformation – posts that distort actual events or in some cases are outright fiction.

But mostly, I’m leaving because Twitter—as it currently functions—encourages my worst tendencies.

I am snarkier, more dismissive and just plain old meaner on that Web site.

While I won’t blame Twitter for making me combative, I do believe that combative behavior is what gets rewarded with attention on that Web site. I also believe that I am increasingly being shown content that will trigger my most combative tendencies.

I’m not even joking. I think it knows the kind of stuff that makes me mad, and feeds to me.

As an example, this Tweet that popped up in my feed:

I did not seek this out. I do not follow this account.

I saw this Tweet in my main feed and I immediately began looking for words to express how entitled and short-sighted I thought it was.

I considered RT’ing it with the caption: They. Just. Won. The. Super. Bowl.

Now that does reflect how I feel about the opinion expressed in the Tweet.

However, if I was talking to a person who expressed this sentiment using those exact words in a conversation, there’s no way I would have responded in that matter or in that tone, clapping my hands between each word to emphasize the point I was making.

At most, I would have smiled, chuckled a bit and said, “I don’t know man. They did just win the Super Bowl, right?”

Less confrontational. Less aggressive. Less mean.

There is a fairly straight forward solution to this problem. I could be more considerate online.

I have tried that. It has not worked.

Some of that is because I lack the discipline. Some of that is because I have a combative, ornery streak. Some of that is also because of the type of content that is rewarded with engagement on that Web site.

This is a part of myself I don’t want to encourage.

Russell Wilson is so close to getting it.

I mean he’s right there.

He has almost wrapped his head around the fact that he may have got a little too big for his britches here in Seattle, but just when he tip toes up toward acknowledging this, it seems he tries to downplay the idea that he ever wanted a bigger role or more influence than he was given in Seattle.

This is frustrating for me not because it’s surprising, but because I know how much more people in Seattle would celebrate him if he could bring himself to say that he probably didn’t realize how good he had it with the Seahawks.

Herer’s what I mean:

In the week leading up to the Super Bowl, Wilson recorded an hour-long interview with Will Compton and Taylor Lewan for their podcast “Bussin’ With the Boys.” That conversation was published part of their episode this week.

There were a couple of interesting notes especially given that Wilson will become a free agent.

1. He said he wants to play a couple of more seasons. He turned 37 last season and said the idea of playing until he’s 40 has always been a goal of sorts.

2. He quite understandably does not care for his former coach, Sean Payton, and discussed his pointed response to what he saw as an insult from his former coach last season. Mike Sando, who works for the Athletic and is a Hall of Fame voter, said it was refreshing to hear Wilson’s unvarnished thoughts, and authenticity like that would help his legacy.

The most interesting part of the interview for me was when Wilson wound his way to answering Lewan’s question of whether—in retrospect—there might have been something he would have done differently.

This is 100-percent true. If you win, no one is going to pay attention to criticisms regarding the way you did. If you don’t win, there will be a comprehensive search to identify the personality traits that explain the lack of success.

If Wilson had taken the Broncos to the Super Bowl, he would have been praised for many of the very things he wound up being criticized for like having his own office, having his own quarterback coach and everything else.

OK. Not sure where you’re going here, Russ, but I’m willing to hear what these nuances might be.

Not entirely true. Yes, you watched a ton of film. You had a spot where you did that. Perhaps it was even understood to be reserved for your use, but it wasn’t like you had an office alongside the coaching staff or somewhere the people who worked for you had access to in the same way as it was in Denver.

 Dammit, Russ. This is where you lose me.

You thought that as Seattle’s franchise quarterback, you should have had more influence than you did. You thought you should be consulted more than you were. You thought there should be a little more deference to what you wanted.

I’m not even say you’re about that, but it absolutely happened, and one of the reasons you wound up in Denver is because the Broncos were willing to give you sway not just in terms of an office and people who worked for you having access to the facility, but in terms of sitting in on draft preparation.

I realize I might be harping on small little word choices, but when I hear things like this, I feel like he’s trying to imply he never really wanted all of the status and influence he got in Denver and that’s simply not true.

He was empowered in Denver in a way that he never was in Seattle. It did not go well.

Now, he’s about to hit the open market for the third consecutive offseason, and I really don’t know when or if he’s going to sign.

Last year, his one-year contract with the Giants was signed two weeks after teams could begin negotiating with free agents. This year, it might be longer.

I could see a scenario where he’s unsigned when training camp begins, waiting to see fi an August injury prompts a team to look for someone with starting experience.