News & Info/Headlines

Russell Wilson has not demanded a trade, his agent Mark Rodgers told ESPN's Adam Schefter on Thursday. Rodgers also said Wilson has told the Seahawks that he wants to play in Seattle.

But. ... That doesn't mean he's currently happy as a Seahawk or wouldn't be fine moving on.

In fact, Wilson has a list of teams he'd be willing to play for if a trade were considered: The Dallas Cowboys, New Orleans Saints, Las Vegas Raiders and Chicago Bears.

As we've seen over the course of recent media appearances, Wilson, 32, expressed frustration over all the hits he has taken and stated his desire for more say in the team's personnel decisions. According to ESPN's Brady Henderson, those frank comments were out of the norm for Wilson, who had never publicly aired any grievances over his first nine seasons in the NFL.

Sources involved have maintained to ESPN that Seattle has not approached Wilson with a potential deal in place and a trade is unlikely. But other teams are noticing tension that has brewed for years, which The Athletic outlined in a report on Thursday.

Multiple league execs believe Wilson will be made available at the right price either this offseason or next due to that tension.

Wilson's contract has a no-trade clause that he would have to waive in order to be dealt.

The Seahawks, according to multiple reports, made it clear to suitors earlier this month that Wilson would not be dealt.

Trading him before June 1 of this year would trigger $39 million in dead-money charges against Seattle's 2021 salary cap. Wilson has three years left on the four-year, $140 million extension he signed in April 2019. That includes base salaries of $19 million, $19 million and $21 million.

According to the report by Michael-Shawn Dugar, Mike Sando and Jayson Jenks of The Athletic (and subsequently confirmed by multiple sources ESPN), Wilson stormed out of a meeting with Seahawks coaches last season out of frustration that his suggestions for fixing the team's sputtering offense were dismissed.

A source told ESPN that was a "dark day," with frustrations riding high after an ugly 44-34 loss to the Buffalo Bills, but the issue was resolved quickly.

The incident occurred the week of Seattle's Thursday night game against the Arizona Cardinals in November. The Seahawks had lost two straight games and three of four, coinciding with the worst turnover stretch of Wilson's career -- he had seven turnovers in those two games.

Wilson had privately lobbied before the season for the Seahawks to throw earlier and more often and had publicly endorsed the "Let Russ Cook" movement that encouraged more of Seattle's offense to go through its $35 million-per-year quarterback. For the first 10 weeks of the season, the Seahawks dropped back to pass more than any team in the NFL at 69.2 percent, according to ESPN.

But their 28-21 win over Arizona in Week 11 marked a reversion back toward the run-heavy approach that coach Pete Carroll had long favored. Seattle was 16th in dropback rate over the final seven weeks of the regular season, at 62.4 percent.

Carroll signaled publicly that the shift was coming.

Sources have told ESPN that Wilson's frustrations with the organization go beyond pass protection and his perceived lack of say in personnel decisions relative to other top quarterbacks -- the two issues he recently cited in public interviews. Wilson also wants more of Seattle's offense to go through him, as reported in The Athletic.

The four teams Rodgers told Schefter that the quarterback would play for -- Dallas, New Orleans, Las Vegas and Chicago -- are all led by offensive-minded head coaches.

As Profootballtalk.com's Mike Florio notes, whenever the issue of Wilson's long-term future has come up, we've heard the Cowboys as a potential destination.

The presence of the Raiders on the list is also intriguing, since they have a supposed franchise quarterback whom they say don't want to trade.

Wilson on the Saints also would be fascinating, given the ability of Sean Payton to maximize a quarterback's skills.

In Chicago, Wilson instantly would be the team's best quarterback since Sid Luckman, and maybe better.

Where things go from here remains to be seen. As Florio suggests, it seems like no accident that Rodgers has decided to go on the record with Wilson's preferred destination on the same day a report emerged with plenty of off-record quotes that seem to trace back to the Seahawks.

Ultimately, it's an issue the Seahawks needs to resolve.

As NFL.com's Nick Shook put it, "The Seahawks aren't in a position to rebuild at all, with Carroll at 70 years old and Wilson having turned 32 in November. No one involved wants to reset, and with a salary cap tighter than usual and Seattle without first-round picks due to the Jamal Adams trade -- another move made to win now -- there isn't a ton of room for offseason maneuvering.

"Add in the reported rift that is creeping toward chasm between Wilson and the Seahawks staff, and you have an intriguing, if not worrisome situation in Seattle -- perhaps even sleepless."