After 14 NFL seasons Russell Wilson says goodbye to football, thanks Seattle
At age 37, after 14 NFL seasons, including his first 10 as the best quarterback Seattle’s ever had, Russell Wilson is retiring from football.
The unsigned former Seahawks Super Bowl-champion QB announced on social media Wednesday he will cease playing in the league to become a new NFL analyst for CBS Sports.
Wilson said he is looking forward to maintaining his passion for the sport with CBS. He confirmed he is joining the network’s game-day pregame show The NFL Today with James Brown, former Seahawks wide receiver Nate Burleson and former Steelers Super Bowl-winning and Hall of Fame coach Bill Cowher.
In his three-minute, 15-second video he posted on his X/Twitter account @DangeRussWilson, Wilson thanked football for its lessons. He thanked all his former coaches. He specifically thanked Pete Carroll, for drafting him in 2012 out of Wisconsin and making him the Seahawks’ starter from game one of Wilson’s rookie season.
Wilson rewarded Carroll’s faith by leading the Seahawks to consecutive Super Bowls in his second and third seasons. Wilson won Seattle’s first NFL championship at the end of the 2013 when he and the Seahawks dominated Peyton Manning’s record-setting Denver Broncos in Super Bowl 48.
“To Coach Carroll, thanks for taking a chance on a young, 5-11, Black kid from Richmond, Virginia, that was told he was too small to ever make it in the NFL,” Wilson said in his goodbye to the sport, over highlights of his football life.”
He thanked all his teammates he “had the privilege of sharing the locker room with” for “the brotherhood, the sacrifices.” Wilson voiced that over footage of him with Carroll, Bobby Wagner, DK Metcalf, Geno Smith and other former Seahawks teammates.
Wilson also included video from his post-Seahawks time with the Denver Broncos, Pittsburgh Steelers and, in his final, 2025 season, as a part-time starter-turned-backup behind Jaxson Dart on the New York Giants.
He thanked his fans, for their “energy” and “passion” that “mean more than you will ever know.”
“To Seattle, you raised me,” Wilson says over violin music and pictures of fans trudging through rain into Seahawks games at Lumen Field. “Not just through all the wins and crazy-loud games, but also the forever memories after he won the Super Bowl.
“But even more important,” Wilson says, “the kids at Seattle Children’s hospital.”
Wilson visited the sickest of the sick inside critical wards at the premier pediatric medical center just north of the University of Washington in Seattle every Tuesday during and in between seasons during his 10 years with the Seahawks. The patients, their families and the staff at Seattle Children’s had “Blue Tuesdays” there in Wilson’s honor for his visits, in addition to the “Blue Fridays” across the Pacific Northwest during Seahawks seasons.
“You gave me hope, and a belief in a better tomorrow,” Wilson said of the kids at Seattle Children’s, over video of his visits with them there.
“And hopefully, I did the same for you.”
For many who don’t know or care what football is, those visits and their impact is Wilson’s legacy in Seattle.
“I thank you football,” Wilson in his goodbye to football. “I thank you, I thank you, I thank you. I am forever grateful.
“Love, Three.”
This story was originally published June 4, 2026 at 5:00 AM with the headline "After 14 NFL seasons Russell Wilson says goodbye to football, thanks Seattle."
