Russell Wilson aims to play 12 more years, win 3-4 more Super Bowls

Russell Wilson flashed that mile-wide smile and embraced the prospect of enjoying within the loaded AFC and within the shadows of John Elway and Peyton Manning.

“I need to win three to 4 extra Tremendous Bowls. That is the plan, that is the objective, that is the mission, that is the imaginative and prescient,” Wilson declared Wednesday after the NFL signed off on the most important blockbuster commerce of the offseason.

“So, let’s do it. Why not?” the previous Seahawks QB added as he scanned the auditorium the place Elway himself, now a marketing consultant to basic supervisor George Paton, stood smiling within the again.

The deal agreed to final week despatched the star 33-year-old quarterback from Seattle to the Rocky Mountains for an enormous bundle of picks and gamers.

Wilson mentioned he picked Manning’s mind about making a mid-career transition, about colleges in Denver, and in regards to the group, as soon as it grew to become obvious he’d get his want and transfer to Colorado for the second — and he hopes, ultimate — chapter of his stellar profession.

Though the commerce could not be finalized till the beginning of the brand new league 12 months Wednesday, Wilson and his spouse, R&B singer-songwriter Ciara, have already got visited sick youngsters in Denver identical to the couple used to do in Seattle.

Wilson mentioned he goals to play 10 to 12 extra seasons and end his profession in Denver after a fruitful decade in Seattle, the place the Seahawks made it clear in congratulatory Twitter posts Wednesday that Wilson was the one who had requested for the breakup.

“Yeah, I did not provoke it,” Wilson retorted. “It was positively mutual.”

He additionally insisted he harbors no sick will towards his former workforce.

“Laborious emotions? No. I had 10 unbelievable years” there, Wilson mentioned. “… And what I do know is that a number of the best quarterbacks of all time, from Manning to Tom Brady, Drew Brees, have gone from one place to a different, guys I’ve all the time recognized and admired. So, on this second, I’m trying ahead to the chance to proceed to develop and study.”

Wilson mentioned he believes he isn’t even midway via his NFL profession due to his work ethic and concentrate on well being and diet. He did not miss a recreation till final 12 months, when a fractured proper center finger sidelined him for a month after he’d began his first 165 video games, together with 16 within the playoffs.

Wilson turns into the primary QB to hitch the workforce he beat within the Tremendous Bowl, having vanquished the Broncos 43-8 after the 2013 season. Now he needs to comply with Manning and Brady in successful a Tremendous Bowl together with his second workforce.

“Their finest years are 30- to 40-plus vary,” Wilson mentioned. “You see Tom coming again, Drew so long as he performed, . So, to me, I ain’t even received began but.”

Wilson is not simply enjoying within the shadow of nice quarterbacks in a QB-crazed metropolis, he is becoming a member of an AFC that is loaded with the likes of Joe Burrow, Lamar Jackson and Josh Allen. He is additionally now a part of the division’s Mount Rushmore of Quarterbacks within the AFC West that additionally options Patrick Mahomes, Justin Herbert and Derek Carr.

“Effectively, to start with, why would you need it some other manner?” Wilson mentioned. “I need to compete on the highest degree. So, I believe to start with, we have to discuss John Elway, about Peyton Manning.”

He recounted going to the Manning passing camp as a excessive schooler and assembly Manning in Denver on a go to earlier than the Seahawks drafted him out of Wisconsin in 2012 — after he determined to stop baseball (he was as soon as within the Colorado Rockies’ minor league system) and concentrate on soccer.

“So, these form of recollections, it is an honor, it is a custom, it is a spot of excellence,” Wilson mentioned. “And that is the usual that I’ve to carry day by day. That is the one factor I do know.”

And so far as the AFC West goes, Wilson mentioned, “I need to play with the most effective. I do not worry something.”

Wilson has two years left on his contract that may pay him $24 million in 2022, though the Broncos may give him a brand new megadeal earlier than the season even begins, one that might double his annual wage.

In Seattle, GM John Schneider mentioned it had turn out to be obvious to the Seahawks it will be tough to signal Wilson to an extension past his present contract that’s set to run out after 2023.

“I don’t know if these had been the precise phrases,” Schneider mentioned, “however we had been beneath the impression that there wouldn’t be a long-term extension.”

Seahawks coach Pete Carroll mentioned he by no means needed to lose Wilson however “we’re shocked at how good a deal got here to us.”

That deal consists of first- and second-round picks this 12 months and subsequent together with QB Drew Lock, DE Shelby Harris and TE Noah Fant.

“It wasn’t about (a soured) relationship. It was about alternative,” Carroll mentioned. “… He’s seen quite a lot of nice gamers and nice athletes do quite a lot of nice issues by making that transfer someplace of their profession, whether or not it was the quarterbacks that we all know of, what occurs within the NBA, baseball guys do it.

“I believe it intrigued him, and so it made it out there after an extended dialogue, quite a lot of time collectively and all that, that we had been eye to eye, OK, let’s go down this street and see what occurs.”