Clause Says Seahawks Can Issue a Restructure
Hopes of Bears fans for a Russell Wilson trade could be headed for a quiet death.
At least it would seem this way if the Seattle Seahawks restructured Wilson's contract without fanfare, like the Bears did Saturday with Khalil Mack's deal. Except in Wilson's case he doesn't even need to give consent.
A report by Tacoma News Tribune reporter Gregg Bell said the Seahawks possess a contractual right in the deal Wilson signed to restructure it without his permission in order to create more salary cap space. With the Seahawks at 12-4 last year before a quick playoff exit, they could easily believe they simply need to add a few free agents on the offensive line to protect Wilson and get back to a Super Bowl.
The Seahawks could create about $12 million more in cap space with a restructuring which would turn salary into prorated bonus over the course of several years. By doing that, they would no longer be willing to trade Wilson, although it's never been confirmed by anyone that they were actually willing to do it anyway.
All Seattle did was field calls and NFL Network's Nate Silver reported those have come from a third of the NFL's teams.
No team would want to restructure a deal and then trade the player because they would then have to eat all of the prorated bonus cash from the restructuring.
It's why Khalil Mack fans can breathe a sigh of relief now. The Bears would be totally stupid to restructure his deal, then voluntarily eat bonus money over future years by trading him for Wilson or someone else.
As long as there was plenty of unguaranteed salary, the trading team doesn't have to eat the cash and it could be passed on to the new team.
Now, the Seahawks could avoid some of this cap hit problem by trading Wilson after June 1, but they still would need to absorb dead cap from a restructuring in the future, anyway. So it still wouldn't make sense to trade him after a restructuring.
No one has said the restructuring has occurred or is occurring, but it makes way too much sense because then Seattle could afford to pursue offensive linemen in free agency to keep Wilson from beaten up the way he has been so often by opposing pass rushers. He was reportedly upset about being knocked around too much when reports first surfaced about him being at odds with the Seahawks.
One possible interesting twist would be if Wilson knew they were going to restructure his deal but the Seahawks weren't intending to sign any free agent offensive linemen. Now, that would certainly go a long way toward explaining why Silver keeps reporting the rift between the team and Wilson keeps widening.
Regardless, if Seattle does this restructure we will at last have an answer to whether the Bears still actually could acquire Wilson in a trade.
Considering free agency starts with the legalized tampering period on Monday and all the teams have to get below the cap by 3 p.m. Wednesday so signings can begin, we will know the answer about the trade possibility by then if not sooner.
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