Seahawks lock up Bobby Wagner with contract extension, but who might go?
it has been a big week for the Seattle Seahawks on the contract front.
Team owner Paul Allen tweeted out the good news Saturday night: The Seahawks have signed linebacker Bobby Wagner to a four-year, $43 million contract that will keep one of their defensive pillars in place. The team could not afford to allow Wagner — a standout tackler, coverage player and, in many ways, the defensive heartbeat of this team — to walk away after this season.
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This came after Russell Wilson and the team came to a four-year contract extension earlier in the week, which prompted Wagner to tweet this out:
And he’s right.
Wagner wasn’t upset that Wilson got his deal, and he made sure to make that point when he spoke to the media before his own contract extension was completed. But it’s going to be very difficult to make everyone else in the building happy from here on out.
The Seahawks have done an excellent job to this point of locking up their core: safety Earl Thomas, cornerback Richard Sherman, wide receiver Doug Baldwin, linebackers K.J. Wright and Wagner, defensive end Cliff Avril, running back Marshawn Lynch, tight end Jimmy Graham and Wilson all are secured for the next several seasons. That’s the outstanding news.
The flip side? Safety Kam Chancellor is holding out from training camp, defensive lineman Michael Bennett isn’t happy with his current deal (and really hasn’t been happy with it since about the moment the ink dried on it) and a few more key players are set to hit free agency after this season — left tackle Russell Okung, defensive tackle Brandon Mebane, defensive end-linebacker Bruce Irvin, among others.
So, yeah, there will be collateral damage somewhere along the way. Someone isn’t coming back after this season. More than likely more than one someone.
That’s the glass-half-empty view, though. For a team that has been to the Super Bowl the past two seasons to keep as much of its core as the Seahawks have is impressive and testament to their front-office commitment to build and retain from within and also the actuarial genius of vice president of football administration Matt Thomas to make all the numbers work — and work brilliantly — to this point.
This is how winning teams are built and sustained.
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Eric Edholm is a writer for Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @Eric_Edholm
