Heaps: What’s OK and not OK about Seahawks trading Russell Wilson
Mar 8, 2022, 2:24 PM
The Seahawks will be beginning a new era as Seattle has an agreement in place with the Denver Broncos to trade star quarterback Russell Wilson, according to multiple reports.
Reports: Seahawks trading QB Russell Wilson to Denver Broncos
Per the reports, Denver will receive Wilson and a fourth-round pick while Seattle gets three players, two first-round picks, two second-round picks and a fifth-round pick. You can learn about the three players coming to the Seahawks in the story at this link.
The reports came just hours after it surfaced that Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers would be staying with Green Bay and signing a new deal. Rodgers later confirmed he’s staying but said that he has no new deal in place and that reported contract amounts were incorrect.
Rodgers is important to bring up with Wilson, though, as the Broncos were seen as a potential landing spot for Rodgers due to their new head coach being Nathaniel Hackett, who was the offensive coordinator in Green Bay for the last three years. Now, Hackett has his quarterback in Wilson while the Seahawks begin a new era.
Former NFL quarterback Jake Heaps, who helps coach Wilson during the offseason and is also the head coach of the Russell Wilson QB Academy, reacted to the news shortly after it broke late Tuesday morning during Seattle Sports’ Jake and Stacy on 710 AM.
“When you look at this, this is honestly an end of an era here in Seattle,” Heaps said. “Moving on from Russell Wilson, trading Russell Wilson, this is an end of an era situation that you have going on and you’re going to have a completely different team, a new look.”
Heaps said that the Seahawks entered this offseason needing to make tough decisions on their best path forward, and it appears they ultimately decided to load up on draft picks to rebuild the roster.
“They elected for a rebuild, they elected to move on from Russell Wilson to gain back a ton of capital,” Heaps said. “And as I’ve said, the Denver Broncos are the team, in my mind, that has always been the team that has the enough firepower to where they would be able to put together a trade that the Seattle Seahawks would view as very enticing.”
The Broncos evidently were able to do that and land the franchise quarterback they’ve been searching for since Peyton Manning retired in 2015.
“They feel like their roster is ready to win a Super Bowl now,” Heaps said of the Broncos. “Whereas the Seattle Seahawks, they have declared themselves as a team that is ready to move onto the next chapter, the next era under (head coach) Pete Carroll and (general manager) John Schneider. And this was the last remaining piece, along with Bobby Wagner, to be able to try to round out their roster and to build an elite roster again like they did in their first iteration.”
Heaps said that after some friction between Wilson and the Seahawks, the two sides have found somewhat of a resolution, though it’s not one he agrees with.
“You’re looking for an opportunity to come to a compromise, to come to resolution, and that happened, so to speak,” Heaps said, “but not to the way that everyone felt great about the direction of the organization moving forward with Russell Wilson at the helm as their franchise quarterback for the foreseeable future.”
Heaps believes that Carroll and Schneider may be looking to return to their roots to some degree by moving on from Wilson.
“I do believe that there was an element of Pete Carroll and John Schneider, particularly John Schneider, that wanted to get an opportunity to do this again, to start from scratch, to be able to have an opportunity to rebuild the team, revamp the roster, and bring their philosophy back to life,” Heaps said. “And they were kind of in a position where they were in between who they wanted to be and what they wanted to do and what identity they wanted to create. And this is something that I believe the Seahawks needed to do one way or the other. They either needed to fully commit to Russell Wilson or they needed to make this trade and be able to take a couple steps back in order to try and take a couple steps forward down the road.”
Heaps said the Seahawks are going to be taking “a couple steps back” after this trade, which he says is OK.
“If that’s the view that you have in order to take a couple steps forward and to get yourself back into the Super Bowl conversation, that’s OK in my opinion,” Heaps said. “But what wasn’t OK is having a franchise quarterback of Russell Wilson’s caliber and being caught in between what you want to do and never really truly taking the steps needed or necessary to compete with the Rams, to compete with the 49ers, and to give yourself the best chance to get to a Super Bowl.”
