For most franchises, a Super Bowl winning quarterback with nine Pro Bowls would be a pretty good bet to have his number retired.
For the Seattle Seahawks, it’s obviously a bit more complicated than that.
Bob Condotta of The Seattle Times saw something remarkable about the seahawks online rosterNumber 3 is given. Former Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson wore the same number for 10 mostly stellar seasons.
Number 3 has been assigned to cornerback Artie Burns. Burns signed a one-year, $2 million deal in the offseason after playing in three games for Seattle last season. It’s not exactly New York Jets fans wondering whether Aaron Rodgers will ask Joe Namath if he can wear number 12.
Wilson’s legacy is more complex than you might think, having helped lead the franchise to new heights, including the first Super Bowl in team history. The Seahawks traded Wilson to the Denver Broncos last season, and he was mostly booed by Seahawks fans when the Broncos played in Seattle in Week 1. Even if you consider Wilson an opponent that night, it’s not like Peyton Manning was booed when he came back to Indianapolis as a member of the Broncos. It was very shocking.
It’s also jarring to be handed Wilson’s jersey again after just one season, but Condotta explained There are some subtleties involved. With 90 players on the roster, there aren’t too many numbers to go around. Burns wore number 21 last season, and it went to first-round pick Devon Witherspoon when Burns was unsigned. Kondotta said that there were basically no defensive numbers left. And it’s only May. Perhaps Burns, or anyone else, will never wear No. 3 in a regular season game for Seattle.
Still, it looks like some work could be done. Teams put the numbers of famous players out of circulation for a few years or forever. the pittsburgh steelers have handful of numbers Which are not retired but never released. This can be done if a team cares about protecting a number from being spoofed again.
The Seahawks may revisit this all at some point, and maybe Wilson will retire his number someday, regardless of who wears it in the meantime. But it certainly seemed like another sign of the Seahawks walking away from a player you believed would be treated like a franchise icon.
