Contract negotiations between the Seattle Seahawks and franchise quarterback Russell Wilson have taken something of a contentious turn in recent days.
Seahawks GM John Schneider spoke on the matter recently and said that, while the team would love to have Wilson remain as their starting quarterback, he and the franchise's main focus is keeping as much of the core group of players together as possible and not overpaying at one spot, leaving them thin or without enough money to keep an important player at another.
Wilson himself hasn't said much about the negotiations, but recently mused about the potential of playing baseball along with football while a guest on Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel on HBO.
The Seahawks, per the latest report, aren't buying it and feel that Wilson's comments on being a two-sport athlete are just a thinly veiled effort to get more money out of them during negotiations.
"Basically, the Seahawks are looking at this and going, 'Let's get serious.' Now, John Schneider was very polite in his interview last week with the Seattle radio station saying that this is one of the things that makes Russell Wilson great - his desire and his confidence and his ability to go out and do all of these different things - but they also realize that Russell Wilson hasn't played minor league baseball in four years, didn't get beyond 'A' ball, struck out more than a third of the time during his two years in the minors, and very little power to show for that," Jason Cole of Bleacher Report revealed.
"So, in order for him to make it, you're looking at a three to four year path just to become a rookie, which means he'd be 29, maybe 30-years-old before he even makes the majors. There's a lot more money in football and a lot more money now in football."
Schneider and the Seahawks, per Cole, believe that any talk of Wilson playing baseball is simply posturing on the part of Wilson's camp in order to get the maximum value they can out of Seattle on his next contract. It doesn't seem to have upset Schneider and the Seattle brass as of yet, but who knows what will come or how the situation will continue to develop.
While the Seahawks believe there's almost zero chance of Wilson ever actually joining an MLB team, it seems that baseball is, at least in part, playing a part in the current negotiations.
"They're dealing with baseball agents here, these are the guys who represent Wilson when he started his baseball career and they're used to different parameters when dealing with contracts," said Cole. "They wanted a lot of guarantee up front and now they want to get maximum value with a lot of it guaranteed.
"There's a mix of issues going on here and now they're trying to play the baseball card."
