Commentary: A day after parting with Russell Wilson and Bobby Wagner, where do the Seahawks go from here?

SEATTLE – They were the enduring symbols of what with each passing year seemed more and more like a bygone era, an idealized relic of the past, like the Roaring ’20s.

Russell Wilson and Bobby Wagner came to the Seahawks on the same day in 2012, and on Tuesday they departed together, as definitive a statement as you’ll ever find that this era, symbolically and in practice, had reached the end of the line.

It’s no longer the Legion of Boom Seahawks, the Beast Mode Seahawks, the Russell Wilson or Bobby Wagner Seahawks. If anything, it’s now the Pete Carroll Seahawks. Not only is the coach the last remaining on-field link to the Super Bowl championship team of 2013 (and, significantly, the Super Bowl losing team of 2014), but clear proof that the organization has chosen to pin its future on believing that Carroll’s wizardry, and not Wilson’s quarterbacking, will lead it to greatness again.

If Tuesday was dominated by reflections on Wilson’s place in the hierarchy of Seattle sports, memories of the grand scales to which he ascended and the uncomfortable tension he fostered at the end, then today should rightly feature some musing about Wagner’s place in the Seahawks’ pantheon.

He deserves to be remembered as an all-time great, a slam-dunk Ring of Honor member and future Pro Football Hall of Famer. Wagner was someone who engendered instant respect as a rookie and then evolved into a vital team leader and ultimately a beloved elder statesman. Through it all, Wagner spent a decade as one of the most-feared middle linebackers in the NFL, always the centerpiece of Seattle’s defense around which the rest of the unit gravitated. That was the dynamic on and off the field.

But beyond that, Wagner was one of the most sincere and genuine athletes I’ve been around, one who took all his responsibilities seriously. That didn’t just include his contribution as a linebacker, which obviously was immense; it also meant embracing his impact as role model and influencer, both of which he took to heart. As I chronicled in January, Wagner spent part of his weekly news conference last season discussing issues that were far removed from football, but closely connected to fostering a better world.

But the biological clock in sports, as in life, is finite – and ever more so in the NFL. Ultimately, Wagner reached a point where the Seahawks determined that his play, coupled with his advancing years, could no longer justify his contract. And that meant he had to be ushered out the door, just as all the other stalwarts of the Seahawks’ epic defense, from Richard Sherman to Earl Thomas and beyond, had been. It is a testament to Wagner’s durability and influence that he lasted a decade at the most physically demanding position in football, still playing and mentoring at an elite level.

Now the Seahawks must figure out a plan to move forward without (for now, at least) an elite quarterback, and without the institutional knowledge of the last two remaining Seattle players who could preach to teammates, from firsthand experience, what constituted a championship mindset.

I’d assume, perhaps naively, the Seahawks wouldn’t have traded Wilson without a quarterback plan that isn’t exclusively built on the hope they can coax more out of Drew Lock than the Broncos did. Too many teams have paid dearly for the hubris of thinking they have the unique nurturing ability to unearth hidden talent from whatever struggling QB prospect is in question.

I don’t expect Carroll to utter the word “rebuilding.” It’s simply not in his personality to acknowledge such a thing, but when you remove a franchise quarterback from your roster, that’s the direction you’re headed, whether you acknowledge it or not.

The key is how fast you can execute the transition, which will be determined by the efficacy of the Seahawks’ upcoming drafts and how wisely they invest their free-agency dollars (an amount that increased considerably with their two moves Tuesday).

But mostly, it will be determined by how the Seahawks fill the quarterback spot, and how long it takes them to find the right guy to move forward in a championship pursuit. Some organizations spend years or even decades in that quest, which is why the trade of Wilson was such a massive gamble.

I tend to see this as something more akin to what the Mariners deemed a “step back” or “reimagination,” rather than a rebuild, when they concluded after an 89-win season in 2018 that they didn’t have championship potential as constituted. Out the door went Robinson Cano, Edwin Diaz, Nelson Cruz, Jean Segura, Mike Zunino, James Paxton and others in exchange for prospects (the MLB equivalent of draft picks) and young veterans. Three seasons later, the Mariners won 90 games in 2021 and hope to be poised for more.

Are the Seahawks willing to wait that long with a coach who is going to be 71 early next season? Or can Carroll and Schneider figure out a way to juice up a seven-win team immediately so they can compete in the most rugged division in the NFL in 2022?

That’s what will make the upcoming months so fascinating. I can see this whole transformation being liberating for Carroll, who has supreme confidence in his ability to construct a winning team. Call it the “Let Pete Cook” phase. Though he has shown a welcome willingness to adapt his defense after some down years, it’s also easy to envision him happily embracing his core strategy of a risk-averse, ball-control offense without having to worry about how their play calls affect the sensibilities of their quarterback.

Of course, be careful what you wish for. That quarterback was the best thing that happened to this franchise. And Bobby Wagner, similarly, was a second-round blessing for the Seahawks .

Now both are gone. And so are the Seahawks as we knew them for a decade.