Why Bobby Wagner’s return to Seattle as Seahawks foe is different than Russell Wilson’s

Bobby Wagner calls Seattle “my second home.”

The All-Pro linebacker is coming home this weekend. He seems destined to get a love-filled reception from Seahawks fans.

Unlike the other departed franchise icon who returned this season.

Wagner’s return to Seattle with his Los Angeles Rams Sunday at Lumen Field to end the regular season has the makings of being the opposite of Russell Wilson’s return with his new Denver Broncos that began the season, back in September.

Back then, Carroll didn’t explicitly encourage Seahawks fans to boo Wilson in his return to Seattle. But...

“You are either competing, or you’re not. I’m leaving it up to the 12s,” Carroll said Sept. 8.

Four days later, the packed Lumen Field crowd did what Carroll about dared them to do. Seattle’s fans booed lustily when Wilson took the field for warm-ups an hour before kickoff. They booed him when he came out for the coin toss before kickoff. They booed him for more than three more hours, through his replacement Geno Smith and the Seahawks beating Wilson and the Broncos 17-16.

It was as raucous a crowd and environment Seattle has had for an NFL game since the Seahawks’ consecutive, rollicking Super Bowl seasons of 2013 and ‘14.

Wednesday, four days before Wagner comes back to play in Seattle as a Seahawks foe for the first time, Carroll said this when asked how he hopes fans greet Wagner: “Oh, yeah, they’re going to be great. They love him. I think they’re going to welcome him back. I just think that’s what’ll happen.

“Then if he makes a tackle or something, then maybe they don’t give him as much love, I don’t know.

“But they’ll do the right thing. Whatever it is, they’ll do it.”

Not exactly a call to booing.

Wagner’s vs. Wilson’s departures, returns

The difference in their returns to Seattle is obvious: It’s because of the way each left town.

The fans that will pack Lumen Field Sunday for a game Seattle must win to get into the playoffs (with help from Detroit beating Green Bay) know it.

Wagner didn’t want to leave Seattle, which drafted him in 2012 in the second round, one round before it drafted Wilson. He has said so.

“That really became my second home, and it’s a place where I grew up,” Wagner said. “I grew up in California, but really, 21, I was on my own, making my own decisions, doing my own thing. I didn’t have the parents controlling everything. That’s really where I grew up, and they accepted me. They showed a lot of love, and so I’m forever grateful.”

In March, after 10 years, six All-Pro selections, eight Pro Bowls, the franchise’s only Super Bowl title and the captaincy of the team for most of the wondrous decade, the Seahawks kicked Wagner out. They cut him in March, to save more than $16 million in salary-cap space on the 32-year-old middle linebacker before his play sharply declined.

It hasn’t, by the way, with the Rams.

Wagner felt disrespected that he didn’t hear from Schneider or Carroll that the Seahawks were cutting him before he found out about it. Schneider and Carroll soon after took blame for that.

“From a timing standpoint, I wish I would’ve handled things differently,” Schneider said in March. “Too much respect to have that happen.”

The GM and coach cited a miscommunication, saying because Wagner was representing himself they didn’t have an agent to call and indicate their thinking.

Wagner called that “weak.”

“I think after 10 years, it’s just simple communication,” Wagner told reporters in California after he signed his five-year, $50 million deal with the Rams this spring. “I don’t think it had to be that difficult.”

Wednesday, Wagner said the Rams at Seahawks on Sunday is going to be an emotional game for him because he’s “playing the organization that you felt gave up on you.”

Wilson wanted to leave. He orchestrated his way out of Seattle.

The quarterback picked the one team he would waive his no-trade clause to get traded to, where he thought he could further his legacy more quickly in an offense more catered to him. Seahawks general manager John Schneider said “we were under the impression” Wilson would not re-sign with Seattle when his $140 million contract ended after the 2023 season. The Seahawks knew that cost would be at least $50 million per year to re-sign him.

When Schneider and Carroll got from Denver an offer they never thought they’d get for Wilson — two first-round draft choices, two second-round picks, three veteran players who have been NFL starters in Noah Fant, Shelby Harris and Drew Lock — they made the deal. Carroll didn’t want to trade Wilson, until he saw the Broncos’ offer and then realized the haul the Seahawks could get for giving Wilson what he wanted.

The Seahawks traded Wilson and decided to release Wagner on the same day, March 8. Turn ‘em loose Tuesday.

So, yes, Wagner is going to have different feelings Sunday than he has for any other Rams road game this first L.A. season.

“It’s going into a stadium I’ve been thousands of times, played hundreds of times, and to be in a position to spoil their playoff hopes is always a good position, something worth playing for,” Wagner told reporters in Southern California Wednesday. “It will be fun to go back there, be back in front of those fans that I spend so much time (around). And it should be a fun game.”

Wild man last time vs. Seahawks

Wagner played with noticeable fire and energy when the Seahawks rallied to beat the Rams Dec. 4 in Inglewood, California. He had seven tackles, two sacks of Smith, three tackles for loss, two quarterback hits, a pass defensed, a disputed interception — and a ton of smack talking and pointing at the Seahawks and their sideline.

“I’m pretty sure you’ve played your family before in basketball, golf or whatever,” Wagner said of his ire that day against the Seahawks. “When you play your friend, y’all might talk a little trash. It is what it is. But when you’re playing your family member that knows your deepest, darkest secrets and knows exactly what to say to you to make you feel a certain type of way. And also you’re playing the organization that you feel gave up on you.

“It was warranted, to be honest.

“And then again, I’m playing against people I know how to push their buttons too, so I know exactly what to say to them to make them mad, and I did that.”

Wagner’s former Seahawks teammates noticed Wagner’s play, and actions after plays, against them last month.

“He’s had a great season, especially the first time we played him. It looked like he was all over the field making sacks, catching picks,” Seattle wide receiver DK Metcalf said. “I know this is going to be a big game for him to be back up here playing in Seattle.”

Metcalf calls Wagner, and Wilson, each a friend and a brother. Is Metcalf focused on spoiling Wagner’s Seattle reunion amid what sets up to be cheers, not boos, Sunday at Lumen Field?

“No, we are just trying to win. We are not trying to ruin anyone’s homecoming,” Metcalf said.

Then he thought about that.

“I guess if we do win, it’s going to be ruined,” Metcalf said. “It’s going to be ruined, regardless.”