The headache the Seahawks avoided

Pablo Torre is a journalist and former ESPN host, and what he did this week fascinated me for two reasons. 

1. He secured a copy of an arbitrator’s ruling regarding collusion among NFL owners, a 61-page document that the NFL apparently did not want to be made public. This is the kind of thing that is generally the domain of investigative journalists and catnip for anyone (like me) who’s interested in the inner-workings of the pro-football labor market.

2. The testimony in that case—including that of Russell Wilson—shows the size of the contractual demands Seattle would have faced from its quarterback had the Seahawks not traded him in March 2022.

However … I’m not sure if you’re actually interested in reading about the nuts and bolts of NFL labor policy or revisiting the backstory for a trade we already know the Seahawks won. In recognition of this fact, I’m going to get to that only after I cover a few other things:

•  The biggest issue the Mariners are currently facing (hint: it’s not their lineup)

• An NFL insider who drives me up a wall

• This week’s podcast appearances

The Mariners are in the final leg of a 10-game road trip that—so far—has been demonstrably good in spite of a recent hiccup.

They scored 47 runs during the first five games of the trip, the second-largest scoring binge of the season. Cal Raleigh provided much of the horsepower with five home runs in the first four games of the trip, a big reason Seattle was able to win two of its three games at Wrigley Field against the division-leading Cubs.

Now, Seattle’s bats did go silent as they managed only one run over their past two games in Minnesota, but they’re 4-3 on this trip heading into a three-game set at Texas, which starts Friday.

The biggest problem for Seattle? Houston. The Astros have won 12 of their last 15, they’re 17-6 in the month of June and they’ve staked out what is the second largest division lead in baseball.

In other words, that half-game lead Seattle had when June started is like a pale memory from a fading fever dream. At 48-33, the Astros hold a 6.5-game lead over the Mariners. The Tigers are the only team in baseball with a larger cushion.

This week, I wrote about my least-favorite media member for The News Tribune.

Because my least-favorite media member happens to be the son of the guy who happened to have sold the Sonics to the carpetbaggers who happened to relocate that team to Oklahoma City, I know there are some people who believe my antagonism toward Jordan Schultz is the result of my feelings about his father.

In an effort to prove that my objections to Jordan Schultz stand on their own merits, independent from any issues I have regarding his father’s civic treason, I elected not to mention the following quote in my column for The News Tribune:

If my antagonism toward Jordan Schultz were simply the result of my feelings about his father, I would have harped on the fact that Jordan sees the criticism his father faced in Seattle as part of his origin story. A cautionary tale he’s sought to avoid while charting a path for himself in media.

I didn’t harp on this, though. I didn’t even mention it. Instead, I focused on the reasons why I see what Schultz does as publicity as opposed to journalism and why I’m increasingly frightened that people can’t spot the difference between the two.

If you’re interested in additional information on why Seattle was willing to trade Russell Wilson in March 2022, of w.

If you’re interested in why the contract that Wilson signed with Denver not to mention Lamar Jackson’s eventual deal in Baltimore were not fully guaranteed, that 61-page document is even more interesting.

And if you’re a journalist who’s familiar with the smoldering crater that was once this country’s thriving magazine crater, how Torre discussed all of this provides a hint of how journalists who like to produce long, weaving stories might showcase their work in the future.

This, however, is not a long, weaving story. This is the final element of my Friday newsletter, and as such I’m going to lay things out in a much more straightforward manner:

What it is: An independent arbitrator heard a case in which the NFL’s 32 owners were accused of colluding to keep the fully guaranteed contract that Deshaun Watson signed with Cleveland from becoming standard across the industry.

What it consists of: The case included testimony from commissioner Roger Goodell, eight owners and three different quarterbacks (Russell Wilson, Lamar Jackson, Kyler Murray). There was a 61-page summary of the case, the contents of which were kept secret, in which the aribtrator concluded that NFL teams were absolutely encouraged to minimize the amount of money guaranteed in veteran contracts. However, the arbitrator stated there was no preponderence of proof that NFL teams had acted on this advice.

What’s important here? Joel Corry is a former NFL agent, and his analysis of the case for CBS Sports shows the fear that NFL teams felt after Cleveland (somewhat surprisingly) signed Deshaun Watson to a five-year, $230 million that was fully guaranteed at the time of signing.

The long-term deals signed by Kyler Murray, Russell Wilson and Lamar Jackson essentially became battlegrounds to see if the structure of Watson’s deal would become industry standard for franchise quarterbacks. (Spoiler-alert: It did not become industry standard.)

What happened with Wilson provides a real-life example of the implications.

When Seattle traded Wilson in 2022 … he had two years remaining on his contract.

Prior to the trade, Wilson said the Broncos knew he was hoping for his next deal to be fully guaranteed at about $50 million. They “didn’t blink” at that expectation, according to Wilson’s testimony in the arbitration case. That started to change after the trade. The fact the team was in the process of being sold certainly complicated things, too.

Wilson signed a new contract with Denver less than a month before playing his first regular-season game for the Broncos.

The five-year, $245 million deal was very close to the $50 million annual average Wilson mentioned in his testimony. However, initial reports on the contract stated “only” $165 million of that was guaranteed. Even this turned out to be not entirely accurate.

Wilson was paid a total of $122.8 million* by Denver for what turned out to be two seasons of work. He was released on March 4, 2024. If he had remained on the Broncos that offseason, his 2025 salary of $37 million would have become fully guaranteed

*(Technically, the Broncos were obligated to pay him $124 million. However, the contract included offset provisions and because Pittsburgh paid him the veteran minimum of $1.21 million last season, that amount was deducted from Denver’s obligation.)

So what does all this mean for the Seahawks? Well, as Bob Condotta pointed out in The Seattle Times, the testimony gives you an idea of what Wilson would have been asking for in his next contract. Columnist Matt Calkins went so far as to say that Seattle dodged a bullet in dealing Wilson when it did.

Calkins is right, but that’s because the Seahawks dealt Wilson prior to what was a fairly precipitous decline in his performance.

There was absolutely no scenario in which Wilson was going to sign an extension of any kind with Seattle in 2022. First, he (or his representative) indicated he wasn’t interested in signing another long-term deal with Seattle. Second, if he had been, there was no way that Seattle was going to offer any extension with two years remaining on Wilson’s existing deal, let alone an extension that was fully guaranteed.

If Seattle had been intent on keeping Wilson, it could have kept him through the final two years of his existing deal and then used the franchise tag for two more seasons before the cost became utterly prohibitive.

What Wilson’s testimony in the arbitration case shows is that any future negotiations with Wilson were going to be exceptionally complicated no matter what happened.

However, the negotiations on his previous two extensions had also been exceptionally complicated and often contentious.

Back then, Seattle believed his performance was worth waiting it out. That changed after the 2021 season.