Thoughts on Russ

[c_hawkbob]

What do you mean "he can't have it both ways"? In real life the truth is always multifaceted, "I don't want to be traded" and "if I were traded I'd only accept a, b, c or d" are not mutually exclusive. Sports stars are not under any sort of onus to dumb things down to their simplest "this is the most true" to suit their simple minded fans.

[Aseahawkfan]

It's an oxymoronic statement. They can't both be true. It's like saying "I don't like beer", then adding "but if I did, Budweiser would be my favorite". How can it be your favorite if you don't like beer?

Not sure what you even mean by this.

It is obvious the team wasn't communicating with him that they were not interested in trading him. He had nothing to do with requesting a trade. He can't control what the team does behind the scenes.

So not sure what you mean by both ways. Teams trade or cut players all the time telling them at the last minute they are getting cut with no advance communication with the player. For all Russ knew the team was attempting to trade him, so his agent let the team know if they don't want him anymore, here is where he might go.

Why aren't you or some of the others in any way blaming the team for the terrible handling of this as well? Why is Russ taking the brunt of this garbage?

Why didn't Pete or Seattle come out and clearly state they weren't interested in trading him? Why let the rumors of phone calls for Russ and negotiated trades behind the scenes happen? Why send out a newsletter making it seem like Russ did nothing last year? Why isn't the Seahawks front office taking more than half the share of this crap that they didn't speak up about either?

It has nothing to do with Russ wanting it both ways since you have or the other fans have no idea what Russ knew was happening. And I don't know if you noticed over the years, but FOs and organizations don't exactly play up front with players or fans and players don't have much control as to when and where they go due to the power teams hold over them via their contracts.

But of course the fans get to blame the player again because there's no way that the organization would play games that would get back to the player via rumors. That never happens does it? Yeah, right.

As far as I'm concerned this is more on the Seattle FO not sending a clear message that a Russ trade isn't happening, sending out that PoS newsletter, and generally letting this thing run too far when they could have clearly sent a message they weren't talking to teams to trade Russ. But the Seattle FO didn't do jack squat to shut this down either.

So why is Russ taking all the blame for this from the fans? Explain that crap to me.

[RiverDog]

It's an oxymoronic statement. They can't both be true. It's like saying "I don't like beer", then adding "but if I did, Budweiser would be my favorite". How can it be your favorite if you don't like beer?

Not sure what you even mean by this.

The point is that you can't make both statements without contradicting yourself. Russell cannot say on the one hand that he's not thinking about asking for a trade then in the next breath, has his agent put out a detailed list of teams he'd be willing to be traded to.

I

It is obvious the team wasn't communicating with him that they were not interested in trading him. He had nothing to do with requesting a trade. He can't control what the team does behind the scenes.

Yes, Russell can control what the team does behind the scenes. He has a no trade clause in his contract. The team would be wasting its time if they were negotiating a trade of which Russell was dead set against. Do you honestly think that JS would spend valuable time. during the busiest time of the season, entertaining other clubs' offers about a potential trade if RW were not at least open to the thought? Additionally, Russell could have, at any given time, picked up the phone and told JS of his sentiments and asked him to help him squash the rumors if they were completely unfounded as you and some of the others are trying to argue. But for a long time, all we heard from Russell and his agent was crickets.

So not sure what you mean by both ways. Teams trade or cut players all the time telling them at the last minute they are getting cut with no advance communication with the player. For all Russ knew the team was attempting to trade him, so his agent let the team know if they don't want him anymore, here is where he might go.

Russell isn't like "other players." Other players don't have no trade clauses in their contracts. Other players, save for a half dozen or so, aren't high profile franchise quarterbacks. Russell cannot, with any degree of credibility, claim on the one hand that he is fully committed to being a Seahawk while on the other hand trotting his agent out to tell the world what teams he would accept a trade to. The two actions/statements do not align with each other.

Why aren't you or some of the others in any way blaming the team for the terrible handling of this as well? Why is Russ taking the brunt of this garbage?

Because it was Russell that took the issue public, not the team. It was Russell that complained publicly about being "hit too much" without acknowledging his role in the QB sacks. It was Russell's agent that put out the 4 team list. The Hawks retaliated, a bit childishly IMO, by excluding him from their advertising, but other than that, they really haven't said much about the controversy one way or the other and just let it run its course. So yes, I blame Russell for about 80% of this "garbage."

Why didn't Pete or Seattle come out and clearly state they weren't interested in trading him?

How do you know that they weren't interested in trading RW? Until recently, neither side came out and squelched the rumors. I would have liked to have seen one side or the other come out and say something definitive as it's detrimental of what we assume is a common goal of both RW and the team, which is to improve our chances of getting back to the SB, but it didn't happen, which leads me to believe there was at least some truth to the rumors.

I've never said that Russell requested a trade or that Pete, JS and company were actively exploring one, but neither do I believe that the two camps weren't at least entertaining the idea of one. You'd have to be pretty naïve to believe that it was exclusively a media driven rumor.

But the good news that we can all agree on is that the rumors seems to be water under the bridge, at least at this point. Once training camp opens, we'll be talking more about X's and O's rather than this drama that we've been treated to the past several months.

[jshawaii22]

Aseahawkfan wrote:
Why didn't Pete or Seattle come out and clearly state they weren't interested in trading him?

JS did come out after Chicago announced they had made a 'heavy' play and went all-in to try to trade for Russell. JS said "He's not available at any price"... that pretty much summed up the teams feeling, so YES, i put this on Russell and his team, not the Seahawks as it was Russell and his team making all the public statements that were taken as negative and possibly out of context by the public and fans.

[Aseahawkfan]

Aseahawkfan wrote:
Why didn't Pete or Seattle come out and clearly state they weren't interested in trading him?

JS did come out after Chicago announced they had made a 'heavy' play and went all-in to try to trade for Russell. JS said "He's not available at any price"... that pretty much summed up the teams feeling, so YES, i put this on Russell and his team, not the Seahawks as it was Russell and his team making all the public statements that were taken as negative and possibly out of context by the public and fans.

BS.

What about the newsletter? What about that? A newsletter not including any talk of Russ having a career year. That wasn't on the team sending a messed up message?

[jshawaii22]

Russ had a 'career year'? Maybe the first 1/2 of the year, but a 'career year' would have to encompass the entire year and you aren't talking about the last 1/2 of the season + the playoff against the Rams are you? The last 1/2 of the season is the exact reason we're here having this discussion.
He sucked, the defense sucked, and coaches sucked or thereabouts, but no one should be touting Russell for having a career year.

According to reports, it was Russell and his team that was doing the complaining, leading to the dismissal of the OC among others. AS for missing him in the promotion, maybe Russell didn't want to be involved in PR at that point in time. It takes 2 to tangle. He might of told the PR staff to leave him out or just didn't show up. Quit blaming the team for all it's issues.

[RiverDog]

BS.

What about the newsletter? What about that? A newsletter not including any talk of Russ having a career year. That wasn't on the team sending a messed up message?

The letter was undiplomatic to say the least, but you have to remember that when it was published, rumors were circulating...rumors made more credible by Russell and his camp putting out that 4 team list...that he might not be on the team the next season. Can a season ticket holder sue the team because he was sold tickets under the pretense that the franchise QB was going to be part of the team? I honestly don't know the answer, but some A-hole looking for their 15 seconds of fame might have tried and in doing so, put the Hawks in a difficult position.

And I agree with JS regarding Russell's "career year". He pumped up his stats early in the season when we were facing hapless defenses then flopped against the back loaded schedule in the 2nd half of the season where we faced better teams and in that last horrible game that was one of his worst playoff performances ever. It was an unacceptable overall performance from both the team in general and from Russell in particular.

[c_hawkbob]

What a load of crap. 10-4 and a division championship is NOT unacceptable in any reality but y'alls. the only thing unacceptable was the first round playoff loss. As for the "pumped up his stats against hapless defenses" BS, that can be said of virtually any statistic in any season, whether team or individual. That's just how it freakin' works. You throw out the high points in any statistical tracking and the results are gonna be garbage.

[govandals]

I understand if folks want to call it a career year for RW. The raw numbers don't lie, regardless of the opposition.

However, there were stretches in the second half where RW was flat out bad, the worst Russ I've ever seen.

And he capped it off with a home playoff performance of 11-27 (40.7 comp %), 174 yards, 2 tds, 1 Int and a 72.1 rating.

In my eyes, not a career year.

[NorthHawk]

A Russell Wilson career year should put him in contention to win MVP at the end of the year.
That he wasn't even considered at the end says a lot about his dropoff in performance and results.
As we discussed at the time, it seemed something was off about Russ after the Buffalo game and it turns out that was when Pete pulled back
the reins and limited the Offense. It might well have been when Russ started to get really unhappy and started the ball rolling to when he
told his agent as well as friends in the media he wasn't happy and eventually let a list of teams he would be willing to be traded to.

[c_hawkbob]

I understand if folks want to call it a career year for RW. The raw numbers don't lie, regardless of the opposition.

However, there were stretches in the second half where RW was flat out bad, the worst Russ I've ever seen.

And he capped it off with a home playoff performance of 11-27 (40.7 comp %), 174 yards, 2 tds, 1 Int and a 72.1 rating.

In my eyes, not a career year.

Now that I agree with.

[Aseahawkfan]

I consider Russ's year a career year. It set a new high bar for Tds for the franchise. I don't think we go 12-4 if Russ didn't do what he did. We lost four games. That is a great year for any team, not sure what else people want.

All I hear on here is a bunch of Seattle fans whose expectations are ridiculous. They have become entitled and will experience the pain of not having an elite QB like Russell soon enough, then these will be remembered as the good days of the franchise.

It is not at all easy to go to 9 years without missing a game while performing at the level Russ performs at. Only a handful of QBs have done even close to what Russell does. Yet we got Seattle fans on here acting like he's the reason the team failed and other such garbage.

It is so easy to forget that no QB in Seattle's history has been close to as good as Russell or played 9 years without a missing a game in the regular or post-season. But hey, when a fanbase becomes spoiled, this is what you get.

Entitled BS complaints about a guy who never misses a game and gives everything he has every year. When he has a great year like he did in 2020, just excuses for why it wasn't great year.

I don't agree with assessments of this kind. Russ is top notch in my book. He had a career year last year. He continues to set an enormously high bar for any future Seattle QB. We'll see if we see another QB match what Russell has done in Seattle in our lifetime.

Then we'll see what a bunch of you have to say about Russ when his time really is done, which hopefully is a good ways away. I'll easily take 5 more years of what Russ did in 2020 barring the playoff game.

[NorthHawk]

It’s not ridiculous to expect your team to improve after 5 years.
We’re simply stuck at the point of making the playoffs then laying an egg.
That’s not good enough for a team that says they expect to go to the SB
each year. Every other team in our division has got to the SB since we
were last there.

[RiverDog]

It’s not ridiculous to expect your team to improve after 5 years.
We’re simply stuck at the point of making the playoffs then laying an egg.
That’s not good enough for a team that says they expect to go to the SB
each year. Every other team in our division has got to the SB since we
were last there.

You're forgetting about the Cards, but your point is well taken. And you can extend the stuck in a rut time frame to 6 years. Our last SB season was in 2014.

[govandals]

Russ and Pete are still friends.


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