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Until Russell Wilson takes the first strokes of the season for the Seattle Seahawks, the question of whether he will play for someone else next season will continue to persist.
Wilson took advantage of the off-season to express a certain level of frustration with the team over how much has been achieved and saying he wants to be involved in more aspects of the team, including hiring his new offensive coordinator, Shane Waldron.
Newly retired tight end Greg Olsen spent the last season with the Seahawks and talked about how he sees the relationship between Wilson, the team and Pete Carroll, the reasons why Wilson feels like he feels and is now expressing himself more, and if he sees Wilson playing elsewhere next season in a podcast appearance with Colin Cowherd.
Olsen believes that the two sides will find the right way to move forward together.
“I think this is torture,” said Olsen of Wilson’s chances of playing elsewhere. “I don’t think Seattle … You can’t accept those odds. If you are assessing the probability today, he is back in Seattle. They fix the things that they both agree on and that need to improve to boost the organization. ”
So, what does Olsen think of Wilson’s decision to be more vocal this off-season and try to leverage the Seahawks in certain directions? He thinks Wilson is starting to feel a little bit of his football mortality and that the urgency for him is increasing to win another Super Bowl and show that he can do it without a dominant defense and accelerated attack leading the way.
“He has every right to say what he feels he needs to be the player and be at the level of Tom Brady, the level of Peyton Manning,” said Olsen. I know this is what he strives to be. That’s how he sees himself. And now, he knows his career, you know, he’s almost in the double digits now. He can say whatever he wants, ‘I’m going to play 20 [years]. ‘This looks great. It is difficult to guarantee. He knows he is at the center of his career, his window of victory is now, and there are things he knows he needs to achieve what he set out to achieve and I do not blame him.
“Russ knows that if he wants to get into that category that I believe he already is, he needs to win more Super Bowls. And he needs it now. It is not the Boom Legion. it is not in the old days when he now wants that weight on his shoulders, he wants it to be a philosophy and a team focused on the offensive. Are they willing to allow him to operate the Seattle Seahawks this way? I think it is at this crossroads that they are now. After being there a year. I’m not sure which way they take it. … “He’s the most professional and top-level guy I’ve ever participated in, regardless of position. But his legacy is important to him, and I don’t blame him. He is a former Super Bowl champion, a former Super Bowl loser. This is important to him. He wants to win three, four, several Super Bowls, and he wants that to happen because that’s the kind of competitor he is. Will the Seattle Seahawks just say, ‘here are the keys, go win the Super Bowl offensively.’ I’m not sure.”
But Olsen also said that Carroll and the Seahawks have every right, due to their success and track record, to believe that the way they approached the game is also very good.
“And I don’t blame you,” said Olsen of Carroll. “He is one of the most impressive people in managing an organization that I have ever met. This does not mean that I agree with everything, I disagree … He runs an incredibly efficient football team, attention to details, situations, coaching. His team meeting lasts 35 minutes and you sit there all the time, at the end of the chair, because it’s not just a piece of wasted paper. So I understand. They both know that they are capable of being among the best of all time. They just have a slightly different philosophy about how this is done.
“We won 12 games last year. Right? I think people think we lost in the first round of the playoffs that we lost to LA and, you know, they didn’t have the quarterback and everything. At the end of the day, nobody won more games than Russell Wilson and the Seattle Seahawks to start a guy’s career, right. So success has also made them a little bit, you know, almost spoiled them a little bit. If they don’t win the Super Bowl, it is a big failure, yes. But most organizations cut their legs to win 12 games a year, right, so I think they are lucky in that respect. They have set a mark so high that it is the Super Bowl or the failure, which is incredible. “