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- Mar 20, 2019
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When long-time Seahawks owner Paul Allen died last year, his sister, Jody, became responsible for the team. And Jody Allen currently is facing her first real challenge as the person in charge of the Seahawks.
Quarterback Russell Wilson wants a long-term contract by April 15. He sent a message last month on The Tonight Show that he’d like to be the highest-paid player in league history. Given that we now know that negotiations were occurring when those comments were made, the message becomes even more obvious.
So how will the message be received? Like her brother consistently did, Jody Allen likely will be inclined to delegate the decision-making process to the team’s primary football employees: G.M. John Schneider and coach Pete Carroll.
But what if the dealbreaker becomes a willingness to tie Wilson’s pay to a fixed percentage of the salary cap? Schneider and Carroll may not want to go there, but if that’s the only way to sidestep a Kirk Cousins-style franchise-tag dance (which starts at $30.34 million, continues at $36.4 million, and culminates at $52.43 million), that may be the only way to go.
Ultimately, Jody Allen will need to sign off on whatever approach is chosen — and to sign what could be a gigantic check. Wilson has the leverage to become the highest-paid player in league history, and quite possibly to finagle an unprecedented term that would protect him against being leapfrogged repeatedly as the cap continues to grow, which it surely will given a new labor deal, new TV deals, and the growth of legalized gambling. If the Seahawks choose not to give him that kind of protection, they’ll be activating a launch sequence that could result in Wilson landing on a different roster, by 2022 or 2023.