What do the Seahawks miss about Bobby Wagner now that he plays for the Rams? ‘Everything’

On the eve of playing against him for the first time, what do the Seahawks miss not having Bobby Wagner anymore?

“We miss everything about him,” coach Pete Carroll said.

“There’s no replacing him. He was unique, one-of-a-kind guy.”

And that’s from the man who cut him.

So much has happened since the Seahawks released Wagner in March to save truckloads of salary-cap money for 2022. But it’s safe to say Seattle and its defense that has been getting run over lately misses the leadership, savviness and play (even if it’s not all it used to be) of the six-time All-Pro middle linebacker.

The Seahawks’ number 54 is now the Rams’ number 45.

The 32-year-old veteran of 11 NFL seasons and two Seahawks Super Bowls will be in the middle of Los Angeles’ defense, not Seattle’s, on Sunday. Wagner will be playing for his floundering, hometown team against the upstart, 6-5 Seahawks at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California.

Like Carroll preached to him for 10 years on the Seahawks, Wagner isn’t taking this reunion much differently than any other game.

Not that he’ll admit to publicly, anyway.

“It’s just another game,” Wagner told reporters in southern California Wednesday. “It’s just a game coming up played in our stadium against a team that’s pretty good.

“It’s pretty easy (to think like that) because, like, being in that organization, that’s kind of the method,” Wagner said of the Seahawks. “You never really make a game too big or too little. You never make like a Monday night game or Tuesday game (a sly reference to his Seahawks playing a rescheduled-by-COVID-19 game at L.A. on a Tuesday afternoon last December) bigger or the opponent bigger, because then it makes you inconsistent because you’ll get up for one game but then you won’t get up for the next game.

“So I’m personally just treating this game like it’s a normal game.”

So Wagner hasn’t totally disowned the Seahawks. He’s still adopting Carroll’s teachings.

And Carroll is still professing his love for Wagner. The coach drafted the supposedly too-short middle linebacker from Ontario, California, and Utah State in the second round in 2012. It was one round before Seattle drafted Wilson.

“We’ve been watching and catching him all year. I love watching him. He’s a great player and was a great part of our program,” Carroll said. “Bobby knows. He knows that I love competing against him. It’s one of the things that I’ve always cherished about him, people that you know really well and want to go against them and battle with them.

“I know that he will be ready to go.”

Wagner’s former teammates know that, too.

DK Metcalf followed Bobby Wagner

Seahawks wide receiver DK Metcalf counts Wagner and Russell Wilson as his most influential mentors in his first three NFL seasons. Metcalf got a kick out of Wagner’s trash-talking at opponents during Seahawks games, among other things.

Metcalf feigned apathy Wednesday when asked about playing against his mentor.

“He’s wearing a different color jersey, so it’s going to be like I never knew him,” Metcalf said, suppressing a smile.

“We’ll talk after the game.”

What’s Wagner’s most impressive trait for teammates, for Metcalf?

“How smart he is and even though it’s year 10, 11 — or 30 — he still hasn’t lost a step,” Metcalf joked.

“He’s very smart. I’m pretty sure this is going to be the game that he circled, and he’s going to try, and prove something, and prove that he’s still got it.”

Oh, yes, Wagner has had this game circled on his calendar. Since March 8, in fact.

That was the infamous Seattle Tuesday the Seahawks decided to release Wagner, hours after they decided to trade Wilson to the Denver Broncos. Cutting Wagner saved the team more than $16 million against its salary cap for 2022.

Asked about the Seahawks surprising the NFL for being in first place for much of this season and remaining in playoff contention into December, Wagner said: “I did not pay any attention to them, to be honest.

“I was focused on the Rams, ‘cause that’s what my shirt says now, at this moment.”

Wagner let the world know he found out he was getting cut after 10 years as the Seahawks’ captain from Carroll, general manager John Schneider or anyone with the team — but on his phone, through internet reports.

“Crazy part about all this. I played there for 10 years & I didn’t even hear it from them that I wasn’t coming back,” Wagner posted online on his Twitter account three days after the Seahawks released him.

Carroll and Schneider publicly apologized for that a week later. They were trying to trade Wagner when the news of his release leaked.

“That’s on me. I own that,” the GM said March 18.

“I wish I could’ve handled things better in that regard, from a communication standpoint,” Schneider said. “I owe it to him, the organization owes it to him. “From a timing standpoint, I wish I would’ve handled things differently. ...

“Too much respect to have that happen.”

Schneider said Wagner representing himself, without an agent, through talks about his $20.35 million salary-cap charge in the final year of his Seattle contract for 2022 helped cause the “communication” issue.

Time heals

Wagner was asked Wednesday if he any hard feelings towards the Seahawks.

“I am a mature man,” he said. “And that happened a long time ago. So I’m focused on performing at my best ability against the team that I’m playing this week.”

About 8 1/2 months may have smoothed over some rough feelings. Yet what Wagner can’t possibly feel better about is the team he’s playing for now.

He has 90 tackles in 11 games, an average of just over eight stops per game in the Rams’ 3-4 scheme. He averaged nearly 11 tackles per game last season for Seattle, and 8 1/2 tackles per contest over his 10 seasons and 162 regular-season games as the middle linebacker in the Seahawks’ 4-3 defense.

His new team used to be the defending Super Bowl-champion Rams. They are 3-8. All-World defensive tackle Aaron Donald, a Seahawks wrecker, is out potentially for the rest of the season with a high-ankle sprain. Quarterback Matthew Stafford is out following concussion issues. Undrafted Bryce Perkins may be making his second consecutive and second career start Sunday.

L.A. is without Super Bowl MVP Cooper Kupp. The wide receiver is on injured reserve after surgery for a high-ankle sprain. Four of the linebackers Wagner plays next to are hurt.

“This has certainly not been ideal or anything that I think he would anticipate,” coach Sean McVay said of Wagner and his first season with the Rams.

More than a player, Metcalf and Seattle defensive coordinator Clint Hurtt, the team’s defensive line coach when Wagner played for the team, say they know Wagner the Ram is the same person he was as a Seahawk.

“I watched him on how he was such a professional with how he loved the game, and how he took care of his body, and how he studied all the time when everybody left the facility,” Metcalf said. “He was still up here studying.

“So, just how to be a professional was one thing that I learned from him.”

Hurtt calls Wagner “obviously, (an) incredible leader.”

“The thing about Bobby that is always so impressive to me is just first-class,” Hurtt said. “And everybody talks about Hall of Fame, and I agree with that, too, but a Hall of Fame person. His leadership style, ability to galvanize and bring everybody together, the relationship he has with his teammates...his way of leadership is a great one, because he brings guys together.

“So, him as an individual and as a person, his leadership style is outstanding.

“I think the world of him.”

The man who replaced Wagner in Seattle after years as his understudy also reveres Wagner for more than football.

“He taught me the power of good habits and the discipline that you have in your life,” Seahawks linebacker Cody Barton said, “how it translates from on the field to off of the field, and vice versa.”

So, yes, the Seahawks miss Wagner. They always were going to, no matter how these seasons had gone.

It’s the cold nature and business of the NFL.

“It kind of speaks for itself,” Barton said of playing against Wagner Sunday, instead of with him again.

“It’s just that you never know.”