Seahawks admit they owed star LB Bobby Wagner better about release

While fans may not have agreed with the Seattle Seahawks' decisions to trade one-time Super Bowl champion quarterback Russell Wilson to the Denver Broncos and release All-Pro linebacker Bobby Wagner before the start of the new league year on Wednesday, they could at least understand such transactions represented the franchise hitting the figurative reset button and beginning a rebuild. 

Many of those same people couldn't help but frown toward the Seahawks, though, when Wagner, who had been associated only with the club since the 2012 draft, took to Twitter to announce he "didn't even hear" the news about his release from those within the organization. Both general manager John Schneider and coach Pete Carroll addressed that topic on Wednesday and accepted blame for how Wagner's exit occurred. 

"Yeah, that's on me. I own that," Schneider explained before cutting Carroll off, according to Kevin Patra of the NFL's website. "No, it really is [on me]. 

"I wish I could have handled things better in that regard from a communication standpoint. I owe it to him. The organization owes it to him."

Carroll eventually added: 

"I'm guilty, too, because I didn't want it to happen. I wanted Bobby to stay with us forever, and so I kept encouraging John, 'Let's see what all the options could possibly be so maybe there's a way out that we don't have to do this.' So each day was crucial as we were drawing closer to it. And then really, it seemed like when Russell's news went out, then everything hit the fan kind of thing. We were supposed to meet with Bobby a couple of days after that, and the timing just didn't work out right. I regret that we didn't do a better job timing-wise.

"I don't know how he heard. You all were talking about it left and right, and then your articles were all over the internet and everything about [the possibility of Wagner being released], so the suggestions were out. But ... it's a hard deal. It's really hard."

In a different strange twist, Seahawks chair Jody Allen said in a statement released Wednesday after the trade of Wilson became official that "Russell made it clear he wanted this change," a claim the signal-caller denied during his Broncos introductory press conference.