Monday was a weird day in the NFL world. In the span of 24 hours we went from “Russell Wilson can’t reach an agreement with the Seahawks” to “Will the Seahawks trade Russell Wilson?” to the sides negotiating late into the night.
Why did Russell Wilson announce his contract … in bed?
Is this all elaborate performance art?
James Dator has been covering a wide range of sports for SB Nation for over a decade, with a special focus on the NFL.
The only appropriate way to cap off such a supremely odd day was this:
This is absolutely tremendous and I love it so much. It’s so perfectly weird that it’s totally on brand for Wilson, who let’s face it, is a bit of an odd dude.
Let’s set the scene here: It’s 12:44 a.m. local time. Late, to be sure — but not cripplingly late. I’ll chalk up Wilson being exhausted to the fact that I’m sure contract negotiations suck, especially ones that go that long. So, considering that, why did he feel the need to record an in-bed video? It’s not like the video is that illuminating.
Wilson: Hey Seattle. We got a deal.
Ciara: Go Hawks.
Wilson: Go Hawks. But I’m gonna see y’all in the morning. It’s time for y’all to go to bed.
Ciara: And we can go to sleeeeeeep.
Wilson: See y’all in the morning.
It would have been just as easy to send a normal-ass tweet without a video, especially considering how tired they both were. The video format really wasn’t needed. But you know what else wasn’t needed? These chains.
Did Wilson just forget to take these off before bed? Did he put them on for the video? Does he always sleep in chains? I cannot imagine any of these scenarios are true and yet the chains are still here.
See, I have a theory. I think this an extended piece of performance art. The last time we got a good “athlete in bed” video was Dwyane Wade in 2016 after having dinner with Gabrielle Union and giving us all way too much information.
Note that Wade references his bed chains too here:
“So I’m looking at these chains and I’m like ‘Why do I sleep with them on?’ All they do is get tangled. They be bothering me in the middle of the night. I don’t know why.”
I posit that Wilson knew damn well what he was doing with all this and it was an elaborate homage to D-Wade, who just retired. The bed video, the chains ... all of it. Either that or he’s just weird. I don’t really know.
