Bobby Wagner, Rams agree to part ways after 1 season. Seahawks need linebacker help

Bobby Wagner is a free agent again.

The Seahawks need middle linebacker help.

Wagner has been the best one they’ve ever had. From his rookie year of 2012 through 2021 he was a six-time All-Pro and Super Bowl champion for Seattle.

Yes, count on Pete Carroll and John Schneider getting asked about this new situation Tuesday. That’s when the Seahawks’ leaders speak to The News Tribune and all media in Indianapolis at the NFL’s annual scouting combine.

Wagner and his hometown Los Angeles Rams agreed Thursday to part ways after one productive season together, per a report from ESPN.

The Rams signed Wagner, a native of inland Ontario, California, to a back-loaded contract last offseason. It was technically for five years and up to $50 million with a $5 million signing bonus and $20 million in guarantees. He had been scheduled for a base salary of $7.5 million for 2023. Los Angeles had been obligated to fully guarantee all of that amount on March 19.

That was when the Rams were defending Super Bowl champions. Times have changed. The Rams are coming off a 5-12 season. They need to rebuild. Wagner turns 33 in June and would have cost $11 million in cash and $12.75 million in salary-cap space for 2023.

Times have also changed for the Seahawks. They’re not the team they were when they released Wagner last spring.

Seahawks need linebacker help

Then, the Seahawks saved $16.6 million against the 2022 salary cap by cutting Wagner. Then, he was coming off a late-season knee injury at the end of the 2021 season. He was entering the final year of his three-year, $54 million contract. His cap charge had been scheduled to be $20.35 million in 2022, second only to Russell Wilson’s $37 million.

The Seahawks traded Wilson and decided to release Wagner on the same Tuesday last March.

Throughout last season, in which two of Wagner’s better games were against his former team, Seattle’s coaches and players professed Wagner will essentially be a Seahawk forever. That’s because of his enduring popularity following his decade of leadership and excellence with the team, on and off the field.

The Seahawks’ decisions and play at inside linebacker were decisively worse without Wagner last season. Opposing offenses targeted the middle of Seattle’s defense with run blocks, running plays and pass routes. They all worked.

Cody Barton and Jordyn Brooks, understudies Wagner had mentored for years, were the two new starting linebackers inside in Seattle’s new 3-4 scheme last season. Wagner had starred for 10 seasons as the lone middle linebacker in a Seahawks 4-3.

Last season was Brooks’ first as an inside linebacker in the NFL. He replaced Wagner as the team’s defensive signal caller. Brooks had been a weakside linebacker next to Wagner his first three seasons, after Seattle drafted Brooks in the first round out of Texas Tech.

Seattle made the playoffs this past season behind the unexpectedly strong play of first-time Pro Bowl quarterback Geno Smith replacing Wilson — not because of but despite its defense. The Seahawks finished 26th in total defense. They were 25th in the 32-team NFL in points allowed.

Now, Barton’s rookie contract has expired. He’s eligible for free agency that begins March 15. It’s far from a sure thing he returns to the team for 2023.

Brooks again led the Seahawks in tackles with 161 last season, 23 fewer than when he set the team record for stops in 2021 playing outside linebacker. But Brooks suffered an injury to the anterior cruciate ligament in his knee Jan. 1 in Seattle’s win over the New York Jets.

Such an injury often takes nine to 12 months or more of recovery from major surgery. It’s possible Brooks will not be on the field when the Seahawks begin next season in September.

‘I love the Seahawks’

Wagner has been representing himself, without an agent, since signing his contract with Seattle and directly negotiating with Schneider in the spring and summer of 2019. So there is no middle man here in talks about his future, with any team.

In January 2022, days before what would be the final game as a Seahawk, Wagner said: “In my mind, I don’t feel like this is my last time. I don’t feel like this is my last time putting on a Seahawks uniform. I don’t feel it’s my last time doing that.

Wagner sprained his knee Jan. 2, 2022, on the first play of a Seahawks win over Detroit. He did not return to that game.

It’s proved to be his last one as a Seahawk — so far.

“Obviously, I can’t control everything. I can only control my part,” Wagner said 13 months ago, “and my part on this is I feel like, I love this city. I love this team. I love the Seahawks. And so I always wanted to be part of a franchise’s good times and bad times, and every time. And so this is a team I would love to be able to be a part of for a very, very long time.

“So on my end, that’s where I’m at, that I’m a Seahawk until they tell me I’m not.”