‘I just want to go where I’m happy’ - Bobby Wagner on his Seahawks return

Mar 28, 2023 - 2:13 AM

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You wanted Bobby Wagner back with the Seattle Seahawks? You got your wish.

The legendary linebacker signed a one-year contract worth up to $7 million to reunite with the team he starred on for the first 10 seasons of his Hall of Fame career. Wagner was released last year by the Seahawks as a cap casualty, joining his hometown Los Angeles Rams as a free agent. When news of Wagner’s impending release from the Rams was made public, there was plenty of desire from Seahawks fans to bring Bobby back, especially with Jordyn Brooks on the mend following his ACL tear.

Wagner spoke with the Seattle Times on Sunday about his return to the Pacific Northwest, including this interesting line that indicates another big payday was secondary in determining where he’d play next.

“I’ve made a lot of money over my career,’’ Wagner said. “And so I think I’m at the point where I just want to go where I’m happy, and so I was just really pulling for this to work out.’’

It was around this time last year that Wagner’s release (or news of it, at least) and the Russell Wilson trade were reported on the same day. This could’ve been seen as the end of the greatest era of Seahawks football; historically speaking Pete Carroll and John Schneider haven’t brought back too many key players from the 2012-2014 squads for a late-career reunion. Usually an extreme emergency has to happen (see: Byron Maxwell in 2017, Marshawn Lynch in 2019) for that to materialize. Wagner didn’t expect to be an exception to the rule.

“I did not think that this was in the cards,’’ Wagner said. “I think it was just like how everything happened and just them wanting to go younger (with Brooks and Cody Barton) and things of that nature, I thought this wasn’t necessarily in the cards. And then, obviously, I thought the Rams situation would probably go a little bit different than it did. But I’m happy with the outcome.’’

You may recall that when Wagner was let go by the Rams, Quandre Diggs couldn’t wait to recruit him. After all, one of the final images of Wagner’s tenure with the Rams was Diggs gesturing towards him on the sideline after a season-saving interception in overtime. I’d say the mission was successful, so it’s only fitting that Quandre broke the news on his Twitter account.

“I wanted Quandre to be the one to kind of let everybody know just because I kind of wanted to show him my love and appreciation for what he was doing,’’ Wagner said. “But it was crazy. I wasn’t able to see everything (all the online reaction) but what I saw was a lot of people that were happy, and a city that was happy and it just felt right and just felt I was (back in) my football home.’’

Welcome home, Bobby.