When the Seahawks traded Russell Wilson to Denver in March of 2022, much of the explanation why the move happened centered on the juicy details of the gradual fraying of the relationship between the two sides.
Also at the heart of the team’s decision to trade Wilson was the specter of an upcoming contract negotiation that would likely be long and contentious.
Just how fraught negotiations with Wilson might have been was affirmed Tuesday when an arbitrator’s ruling from January of a collusion grievance between the NFL and the NFL Players Association regarding guaranteed contracts became public.
The ruling was revealed Tuesday morning by sports reporter and podcast host Pablo Torre.
The most important takeaway was that arbitrator Christopher Droney ruled in favor of the NFL despite finding evidence of the league encouraging teams in 2022 to collude to hold down the amount of contracts that are guaranteed in the wake of the Browns’ decision to guarantee all five years and $230 million of a contract given to quarterback Deshaun Watson — the biggest fully guaranteed deal in league history.
“There is little question that the NFL Management Council, with the blessing of the Commissioner, encouraged the 32 NFL Clubs to reduce guarantees in veterans’ contracts at the March 2022 annual owners’ meeting,” Droney wrote. Those meetings were held a few weeks after Wilson was traded to Denver and after Watson signed with the Browns.
The NFLPA tried and failed to get the league to agree to fully guarantee all contracts during negotiations before approving a new collective bargaining agreement in 2020.
After the Watson signing, the NFLPA argued in the grievance, NFL officials urged other teams to not to use that as a precedent to fully guarantee big deals. Most NFL contracts remain only partially guaranteed.
The release of the ruling Tuesday mostly focused on why the NFL and NFLPA appeared to not want it revealed publicly — the NFL possibly because it confirmed the league did at least appear to advise teams to try to hold down guarantees, and the NFLPA possibly because it did not win the ruling.
The pages of the document released by Torre contain some interesting insight into Wilson’s contract negotiations with Denver and the challenge the Seahawks would have faced trying to re-sign him, especially in wake of the well-reported philosophical issues between the two sides.
At the time the trade was made, Wilson had two years remaining on a four-year, $140 million contract he signed in 2019, a deal on which he had already earned $107 million but contained no guaranteed money beyond the 2022 season.
That meant both sides going back to the negotiating table following that season, assuming Wilson would talk to the team at all.
Asked on March 16, 2022, when the Seahawks announced the trade if it was true Wilson had told the team he would not sign another contract with Seattle, general manager John Schneider said: “I don’t know if those were the exact words, but we were under the impression that there wouldn’t be a long-term extension.”
The ruling released Tuesday includes testimony from Wilson, who was one of several marquee players who signed new deals in the wake of Watson’s contract after trying and failing to get full guarantees. The NFLPA also cited Baltimore’s Lamar Jackson and Arizona’s Kyler Murray as players who tried and failed to get fully guaranteed deals.
Wilson’s testimony, given last summer, implies he was initially promised by the Broncos that they would give him a new, fully guaranteed contract and seems to imply that played a role in his waiving the no-trade clause he had with the Seahawks and agreeing to the trade to the Broncos.
The ruling states: “Mr. Wilson testified that early in the discussions with the Broncos he requested a seven-year, fully guaranteed contract of around $50 million a year and ‘they didn’t blink’ (an eye).”
Wilson is quoted as saying the Broncos “kept saying ‘we’ll do whatever it takes, we’ll do whatever it takes’” in terms of a contract, and by implication to assure the trade would get done. Teams can give permission for players who are seeking trades to negotiate with other teams.
The ruling states that shortly after the trade became public — which was March 8, though neither team could announce it until March 16, per league rules — the Broncos began to hedge.
“Maybe within the next 10 days or so, they started getting cold feet on doing this fully guaranteed thing,” Wilson is quoted as saying.
An addendum to the ruling notes there was no other evidence that Wilson’s representatives and the Broncos had come to an agreement about guaranteed compensation before the trade became official.
Wilson’s contract talks with Denver were complicated by the team being sold that summer by Pat Bowlen to the Walton-Penner group, which became official in August.
The ruling includes a line stating how important the Broncos felt it was to get Wilson signed to a new contract as quickly as they could after the trade was made.
“The Broncos had traded several draft picks for Mr. Wilson, so they felt it was important to sign him to a new contract,” it states. “They did not want a disgruntled quarterback.”
Wilson eventually signed a five-year contract with Denver worth up to $245 million that included $124 million fully guaranteed on Sept. 1, 2022.
The ruling states the Broncos were not considered to have engaged in collusion in negotiations Wilson even though he didn’t get a fully guaranteed contract, despite finding evidence that the new Denver ownership was “aware of the precedent” fully guaranteeing Wilson’s deal might set for the rest of the league.
It notes that Denver felt it had “leverage” in the talks with Wilson because he had two years left on his contract “and therefore there was not a strong incentive” to agree to a fully guaranteed deal.
In the wake of the release of the ruling Tuesday, Pro Football Talk noted that then-NFLPA president J.C. Tretter was unhappy Wilson agreed to a deal with Denver that was not fully guaranteed.
“Instead of being the guy that made guaranteed contracts the norm, he’s the guy that ruined it for everyone,” PFT’s Mike Florio reported he was told Tretter said, reporting that he and Torre heard that Tretter referred to Wilson as a “wuss.”
Wilson’s Denver deal did include guaranteed salaries for the 2022, 2023 and 2024 seasons.
That’s something the Seahawks almost certainly would not have done.
Since Schneider became GM in 2010 the Seahawks have held to a policy of not fully guaranteeing money beyond the first year, not doing so in Wilson’s deals in 2015 and 2019. They held to that precedent again in the three-year contract Sam Darnold signed in March.
Wilson played just two years in Denver before being released.
According to OvertheCap.com, the Broncos paid him $122.790 million. OTC reports Wilson was paid $181.340 million by the Seahawks during his 10 years in Seattle.
As noted, the bigger takeaway of the ruling is the NFLPA’s continued fight to try to get more fully guaranteed contracts and the NFL’s attempts to resist those efforts.
Wilson’s testimony seems to make even clearer why the Seahawks decided to make the trade when they did, knowing how difficult, if not impossible, it would be to re-sign him.
