Roughly a week after being selected by the Seattle Seahawks with the 75th overall pick in the 2012 NFL Draft, Russell Wilson inked a four-year, $2.99 million rookie contract. Pretty standard for a third-round draft pick.
What's not standard is everything Wilson has accomplished since. All the quarterback has done is win Rookie of the Year honors and lead the Seahawks to back-to-back Super Bowls, including a championship victory for the 2013-14 season.
As a matter of fact, if it wasn't for one of the worse play calls in Super Bowl history made by coach Pete Carroll this past February—resulting in Wilson throwing a goal-line interception and the Seahawks losing the game—the young QB could have had two championship rings at only 26-years-old.
All being said, Wilson is scheduled to earn a base salary of $1.54 million for the upcoming 2015 season, as part of the fourth and final year of the rookie contract he signed in 2012. According to ESPN Stats & Info, there are unbelievably eight backup quarterbacks scheduled to make a higher base salary than Wilson in 2015...and one of them is third stringer Charlie Whitehurst.
Yes, Wilson is negotiating a longterm contract with the Seahawks that could make him the highest-paid QB in the NFL, but let's not ignore how underwhelming his salary is until then. We understand that the whole point of a third-rounder's rookie contract is to pay a player low, so he can earn his longterm contract, as well as to ensure that the organization doesn't take a big financial loss in the case of an injury or the player simply not panning out. But Wilson has more than earned his big-money deal, so this is clearly a case of when NFL rookie contracts go wrong...dead wrong.
Yet, on the brink of getting seriously paid to the tune of what could be a "five-year contract worth more than $110 million, with at least $50 million fully guaranteed," according to ESPN, Wilson continues to say all the right things.
"Ultimately, it comes down to the play. I let my play speak for itself and let the rest take care of itself. I continue to love the game for what it is and continue to fight and continue to play no matter how much I'm getting paid, no matter if it's $25 million or if it's $1.5 million," Wilson told the Worldwide Leader in Sports. I'll be ready to go."
It's going to be a lot closer to that $25 million mark than the $1.5 million, Russell. And you can take that to the bank.
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