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Brady HendersonESPN
SEATTLE — Bobby Wagner will be back in the middle of the Seattle Seahawks‘ defense and back in his familiar No. 54 after wearing No. 45 last year in his lone season with the Los Angeles Rams.
But in his first public comments since returning to the organization with which he built a Hall of Fame resume, the eight-time Pro Bowl linebacker said he’s somewhat treating it as though he’s joining a new team.
And he isn’t holding on to any of the hard feelings he had when he left.
“It’s been great just being back in the building,” Wagner said Wednesday during a virtual news conference from the Seahawks’ Renton, Washington, headquarters. “Things didn’t end that great, and I don’t live that far from the building, so I would drive by and not have too many nice things to say about the building until this happened. So it’s good to be back in this place.”
Wagner’s first stint with Seattle came to an unceremonious end last March, when he caught wind of the Seahawks’ plan to move on before he heard it directly from the team. Wagner vented both publicly and privately, prompting mea culpas from coach Pete Carroll and general manager John Schneider.
“I never felt any type of way towards Pete or John or anybody,” Wagner said earlier Wednesday on Seattle Sports 710 AM. “I just think the biggest thing was I just felt like we could have handled it differently, handled the business side personally. But I think I’m mature enough to know that business is business and sometimes things don’t get handled the same way, and so I don’t really hold grudges like that.
“It’s hard to just throw away like 10 years of a relationship or a friendship over something that we potentially won’t even remember — well, I’ll remember it. But depending on how the story ends, you won’t remember. And it’s not like I ended up at a terrible place or a place that was far, far away from home. I ended up down the street from where I grew up.”
Wagner, a Los Angeles native, delivered a resurgent season while starting every game for the Rams. But with the team in a rebuild and the 32-year-old Wagner wanting a chance to compete for a second Super Bowl, the two sides mutually agreed to part ways in February, opening the door for his return to Seattle.
As Wagner and the Seahawks began discussing a potential reunion, safety Quandre Diggs and other teammates began lighting up Twitter with pleas for the team to bring him back. Wagner said the support meant a lot to him, and he thinks it helped his case.
“I don’t think I went a day without seeing a tweet from somebody,” he said. “It was cool.”
Wagner, who continues to serve as his own agent, negotiated his one-year, $5.5 million deal. It includes $4.48 million guaranteed, $1.02 million tied to per-game roster bonuses and an additional $1.5 million available in incentives. He said he wants to retire as a Seahawk and that he plans on playing beyond 2022.
“But I think we’re at the point where you take it a year at a time,” he said.
Wagner was a captain in six of his 10 seasons in Seattle. He remains the Seahawks’ all-time leading tackler and arguably the best defensive player in franchise history. But all indications are that he’ll be returning in a somewhat different role both on the field and in the locker room.
Wagner said he wants the leaders who emerged in his absence last season to remain in those leadership roles.
“I’m not trying to come in here and just take over or anything like that,” he told the station. “I think it could be a collaborative thing. I think it could be a thing that we all lean on each other and we all rely on each other to bring the best out of one another.”
One factor in the Seahawks bringing back Wagner was how well he played in the Rams’ defense, which is similar to the 3-4 Seattle began running last season. Carroll and Schneider, however, have hinted that Wagner may not play as many snaps as he did during his first stint, when he virtually never came off the field.
“I’m just excited to compete and find my way on the field and compete keep playing at a high level,” Wagner said.