How much could it cost Seahawks to get deal done with LB Bobby Wagner?
Apr 16, 2019, 9:40 AM | Updated: 9:45 am
Seahawks LB Bobby Wagner was prepared to play the final year of his contract in 2019. (AP)
(AP)
With Tuesday morning’s news that the Seahawks signed quarterback Russell Wilson to the league’s richest contract, it didn’t take long for speculation to build about potential deals for two remaining 2020 free agent starters: middle linebacker Bobby Wagner and defensive end Frank Clark.
Amidst Wilson’s deadline, Frank Clark trade rumors appear
When it comes to Wagner at least, the question doesn’t appear to be, “Will he be a Seahawk,” but rather, “How much will it cost to keep Wagner with the Seahawks?”
During the NFL annual meeting in March, Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll made it clear to reporters that Seattle intends to keep Wagner past the final year of the All-Pro’s current deal.
“Bobby’s going to be a Seahawk,” Carroll said.
What would the salary of that deal look like? And now that 18 percent of the salary cap will be dedicated to Wilson, can Seattle still give Wagner what he’s looking for?
710 ESPN Seattle’s Jake Heaps stepped in for Brock Huard during Tuesday morning’s Blue 42 to answer three football questions, including one about Wagner’s potential contract numbers. You can listen to the full segment in the audio clip embedded above.
“It’s going to be interesting with Bobby taking this thing on on his own in terms of not having an agent and him wanting to represent himself,” Heaps said. “That typically has meant good things for the organization. When you look at Richard Sherman, when you look at Russell Okung, those have been favorable deals for the team. Now, what Bobby Wagner is going to look at is C.J. Mosley’s deal. Mosley signed a big-time deal with the New York Jets: five years, $85 million, $17 million average per year, with $43 million guaranteed. So to me, if I’m Bobby Wagner, I’m looking for $18 million at the least per year, and guaranteed money above that. And Bobby Wagner has earned every single penny of it. So it’s going to be interesting to see how this ultimately comes down and how they’re able to maneuver this contract around, just like how they did with Russell in terms of signing bonus versus maybe not handing out the year two, year three guarantees. So we’ll see.”
