The Good 

Savor this news. This is a grand day in Seattle sports history. Russell Wilson is the team’s best player, most important player, and he has been for years. The Anti-Russ crowd needs to come to terms with this now. Russ was the difference between that 10-6  playoff team being 6-10 last year. That’s what a franchise quarterback does for your team.

The “no trade” clause in this contract runs extremely counter to the speculation of Russell wanting out of Seattle. Pretty interesting stuff.

General manager John Schneider said on the ESPN 710 the other week that the two most important people in the building are the head coach and quarterback. That should have been a pretty strong hint that a deal would, in fact, get done. Seattle now has Pete Carroll for three more years, and Russell Wilson for five. Massive advantage for them to stay in solid contention year after year.

With Russell locked in, they don’t have to worry about spending critical draft capital on a quarterback this Spring.

The Bad

While it is tremendous news that this deal got done, I think both sides played an overwhelmingly intense negotiation game in the media, between reports that Russell felt under appreciated to Russell wanting out. They dragged the fans through the mud on this, and we got played a bit during the process. Glad the deal got done, but not cool.

With all that money going to one player, Seattle is probably not going to be able to hang onto all their top talent. This will put more pressure on drafting and developing well, and finding bargain gems in free agency.

The Ugly

Even time I tuned into Colin Cowherd during this offseason saga of Russell and the team, Cowherd successfully made me want to puke in my mouth a bit with the way he would hang on Russ, and then trash the team and the region. I’m happy the team signed Russ, and agree with his position that the team needed to do this, but his blowhard takes on how nobody likes Seattle, and Seattle never did anything before Russ, and everyone wants to leave Seattle was more than a bit much. Every time I would tune in, he made me fantasize about Seattle trading the QB. Not sure that’s the effect he was aiming for.

Hey Cowherd, got some news for you; Seattle doesn’t really like you either, and would be perfectly happy for you to keep its name out yo’ mouth. The fact you are from this region and continue to trash it makes me think that you are more of a soulless sell out than anything else, but nice tan you got there. Read me? Go Hawks.

Moving forward

The NFL draft is next week, and the Seahawks have only four picks. They need more.  With Russell Wilson now locked up, do they trade Frank Clark to get more picks? This is regarded as a historically deep draft class  at defensive line. It’s going to be interesting to see what they do. I think they probably hang onto him, and trade back.

Go Hawks!