Russell Wilson raised a lot of eyebrows with his comments on "The Dan Patrick Show" this week where he said he didn’t like getting hit as often as he has been and that he’d like to be more involved in personnel decisions. There was also a sourced report that Wilson has grown frustrated with the Seahawks’ inability to build an offensive line around him.
While Wilson certainly didn’t do anything to tamp down the recent speculation on Patrick’s show, it does sound like he had the input he’s seeking on at least one big recent decision. Wilson was “involved in the hire” of Shane Waldron as offensive coordinator, according to Ian Rapoport of NFL Network (Twitter video link). Interestingly, it sounds like Wilson may not have initially been happy with the search, which was known to be wide-ranging.
Rapoport says there were “some choices kind of midway through he wasn’t pleased with,” which will be fun to speculate about. It’s impossible to say for sure who Wilson was concerned about, but there were some controversial big names thrown out in the initial search after the firing of Brian Schottenheimer.
Polarizing figures like Adam Gase reportedly spoke with Seattle brass about the OC opening. In the end though, it sounds like Wilson got his guy in the former Sean McVay protégé. That would seem to indicate the Seahawks are intent on keeping Wilson content and have no intention of going the Texans/Deshaun Watson route of freezing out.
Of course, Rapsheet points out that all this comes against the backdrop of the recent report that teams had inquired about trading for Wilson. While he emphasizes those trade advances were rebuffed by Seattle, Rapoport also adds that it’s “noteworthy” that teams “thought there might be something there, that maybe they could get him.” We’ll continue to monitor the situation.
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