Ian Furness of KJR Radio and Fox-13 in Seattle didn’t hold back on Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Russell Wilson in a recent interview with Tim Benz of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.
Furness said he initially liked Wilson when he was drafted by the Seattle Seahawks in 2012, but he noticed a change after he was more frequently in the spotlight after his marriage to famous singer/songwriter Ciara. He started to become fake and superficial, according to Furness.
“Some of the stuff you see now that seems kind of corny and canned, the rah rah stuff with Russ, was more authentic back then. The dude competed; he was a gamer. And honestly, they don’t win a Super Bowl without him,” Furness told Benz. “A lot of things started to change when (he got married to Ciara) and he became a, ‘Look at me guy.’ He became a problem inside the facility, with the front office, and with the staff, and it just snowballed from there until they traded him.”
Furness said Wilson’s relationship with the Seahawks blew up after a pair of contentious contract negotiations, working with his own private quarterback coach (Jake Heaps) and a reported attempt to get head coach Pete Carroll and general manager John Schneider fired. Wilson strongly denies that claim, however.
“He tried to kind of take over the organization as a player, and you saw what happened in Denver,” Furness said. “The first year, he had his own office. (Heaps at) that office every day. It kind of came to light, and everyone lost their mind. They tried to downplay it, but that’s how he operated. He operated on his own agenda. And it was about Russ. In the ultimate team sport, it was all about Russ — to the point the ‘diva quarterback’ moniker was placed on him. And for good reason.”
Despite Wilson’s denial, Furness fully believes that he tried to get Carroll and Schneider fired in Seattle.
“I’ll tell you this point blank: this is why I had a problem with him. I don’t root for a guy that tried to get people fired, and that’s what he did,” Furness said.
Multiple sources told Alan Saunders of Steelers Now that by the end of Wilson’s tenure in Denver, the relationship with Denver Broncos head coach Sean Payton had become toxic.
But was all of that the fault of Wilson, or was he just a part of a few bad situations. In conversations with several sources close to the Broncos and former teammates of Wilson’s, no one was willing to offer a cogent criticism of the behavior of the 35-year-old quarterback.
“All of that is overblown,” one Broncos source told Steelers Now. “He’s a great guy and great in the locker room.”
Another league source said that while the personalities between Payton and Wilson were “oil and water,” it was more of a bad fit between the two than any specific fault of one or the other. A player that had been a younger teammate of Wilson’s in Seattle credited his leadership and mentorship during his time there.
Furness thinks this most likely will be Wilson’s last chance to salvage a one promising NFL career. Wilson’s legacy and reputation certainly took a big hit in Denver.
“With an organization like Pittsburgh and a coach like that, this will be the true test. Listen, this is probably the last and only stop he could make to try to resurrect things. I don’t think you could go to a weaker organization and get back what you used to have. If he went to the Jets or the Giants, it would just be an absolute trainwreck. It’d be fun as hell to watch, but it’d be a trainwreck,” Furness said.
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