Exiting as he arrived: K.J. Wright signs 1-day deal with Seahawks, retires with them
K.J. Wright is going out the way he came in.
And the way he wanted.
The Seahawks announced as training camp began Wednesday they signed Wright to a one-day contract so the ultra-popular, 33-year-old linebacker who won a Super Bowl and co-anchored Seattle’s championship defense could retire as a Seahawk.
Wright said last month while attending a Seahawks minicamp practice and laughing with old teammates he hoped to play an 12th NFL season this fall — only for Seattle. If the Seahawks didn’t sign him back after his 10 years with them and his one season last year for the Las Vegas Raiders, Wright said he would retire.
Now, he has. As a Seahawk. With the team that drafted him as a 22-year-old outside linebacker from Mississippi State near his hometown in 2011.
As Wright signed his ceremonial, one-day deal Wednesday, a team photographer captured him bowing his head and rubbing his eyes. Pete Carroll, his Seahawks coach for all 10 of those wondrous seasons in Seattle, wrapped his right arm around around the seated Wright. Carroll hugged the man he’s called “the perfect teammate.”
“I’ve accomplished way, way more than I thought I ever could,” Wright said in 2020, during what became his final and productive season for the Seahawks. “When I first came here, I just wanted to play football, but you start playing football, and all these different opportunities start opening up for you, so it’s just been amazing. I’ve done everything I could for this city, and I plan to continue to post-football. I just want to be great in the community, help people and be around football.
“It’s meant everything. I believe I put together a Ring-of-Honor resume with my play, how I’ve helped in the community, helped bring the team a Super Bowl.
“The legacy is pretty cool. I’m thankful for every play that I’ve played.”
Besides going to the playoffs eight times in his 10 seasons with the team, Wright was the Seahawks’ 2018 nominee for the NFL Walter Payton Man of the Year award. That was after he’d gone with his wife on vacation in Kenya. He found villages in that African country that lacked usable water. So he bought the village two wells, so they could drink, bathe, wash clothes — live.
Wright also helped build tiny homes for previously homeless citizens in Seattle. He traveled with former Seahawks defensive end Cliff Avril to Haiti to help build a school. In 2020, Wright won the Steve Largent Award, the Seahawks’ prestigous honor for being a great player and person.
That — as much as his 144 regular-season games, 16 postseason games, two Super Bowls and one Pro Bowl he played while next to Wagner on what became the NFL’s best defense in the mid-2010s — is his Seattle legacy.
He and his wife Nathalie, a Seattle-area native, intend to keep their family in Seattle in Wright’s post-football years.
His wife and children didn’t move with him when Wright signed with Las Vegas last summer to play his one, commuting season with the Raiders.
“I mean, I love ball, but I’m not willing to pick up and leave my family like I did last year,” Wright said on SiriusXM’s “I Am Athlete Tonight” show late last month. “Because my family had to stay back. They didn’t come with me to Vegas. I’m not doing that again.
“And so I think it’s pretty well known where I stand at, how I want to end my career, going into my 12th season. “If it’s not in Seattle, then I’ll be all good.”
