Patience is Russell Wilson’s play in negotiations with Seahawks

No hurry.

Of everything Russell Wilson’s agent said during his 27-minute conversation with “Brock and Salk” on Thursday, most significant was the point he stressed about there not being any sense of urgency in the contract negotiations between the Seahawks and their star quarterback.

Especially from Wilson’s standpoint.

“Russell Wilson’s under contract with the Seahawks and he absolutely – if he has to – would certainly be fine playing his fourth year under a four-year contract that he signed coming out, and then moving on from there,” Mark Rodgers said. “I don’t feel any particular crunch on time and any real particular deadlines.”

Therein lies what figures to be Wilson’s play as his side proceeds in a negotiation that at the moment doesn’t seem all that close to resulting in an agreement – not necessarily being determined to wait to get a deal done but at the very least being willing to do so.

For all the breath-holding over when an extension will get done, there’s no deadline looming. Wilson still has a year remaining on the rookie deal he signed in 2012, which is scheduled to pay him $1.5 million next season. While that minimal salary gives him plenty of incentive to get a deal done before then, he doesn’t have to.

And Rodgers stressed that Wilson is willing and even prepared to wait for the right offer, going so far as to say that he’s budgeting his money as if he’s going to make $1.5 million next season. Rodgers left the impression that Wilson isn’t necessarily expecting to get a deal done soon nor is he stressing about when it might happen.

“This isn’t what Russell and I talk about every day,” Rodgers said. “This isn’t something that is foremost on his mind.”

So what if Wilson were to play out the final year of his rookie deal? The team would then likely apply the franchise tag, an option it could exercise up to three times and thereby keep Wilson from reaching unrestricted free agency until after the 2018 season if no extension is reached before then. But that would start out at a hefty price and it would only get more expensive, a point Rodgers made Thursday.

(It’s) not club-friendly,” he said of that option. “Let’s be honest, the franchise numbers for a starting quarterback in the league is very, very, very, very high and really is problematic for any team to use.”

Based on this projection from former NFL agent Joel Corry, it could potentially cost the Seahawks around $23 million in 2016 – if they were to use the exclusive tag – with the price increasing by 20 percent each year after that. And each year’s franchise-tag salary would count in its entirety against that year’s cap, which means the Seahawks wouldn’t have the flexibility to spread out the hefty charges like they would on a long-term deal.

Of course, it may never come to that. It probably won’t when you consider the incentive that both sides have to get a deal done before then. The Seahawks wouldn’t have to go down the franchise-tag road. Wilson wouldn’t have to take the risk of sustaining a career-altering injury without having signed a long-term deal that would secure him financially even in that event. Neither side would have to deal with all the contract drama and uncertainty playing out during the season.

But what was clear from Rodgers’ interview is that Wilson is in no hurry to accept an offer he deems unsatisfactory when he can wait for something better, even if that means playing out the final year of his rookie deal.