The dysfunction and discontent surrounding the Seahawks will remain the story for the rest of the season (unless they make a miracle run to the Super Bowl), and two pieces of news have fed it this week.

First was Jamal Adams’ season-ending surgery, which put the red spotlight back on Seattle’s desperate move to get Adams last year as Pete Carroll and John Schneider tried to find an impact defender. Then came a report that Russell Wilson may be amenable to expanding his trade options to include the New York Giants and Denver Broncos.

Wilson’s friend, Jake Heaps of 710 ESPN, debunked the report, which also included the Saints – a team we already know Wilson would waive his no-trade clause for.

Wilson then reiterated it did not come from him.

“That’s not in my head right now at all. I didn’t say that,” Wilson said. Of course, we all know who the likely culprit is: Wilson’s agent, Mark Rodgers. After all, he is the one who leaked four acceptable trade destinations last offseason. He seems to want Wilson out of Seattle, even if Wilson always says the opposite.

This time, the QB said, “I’m focused on what we’re doing here. I love Seattle. … I love this place; I love this space. I love where my mind’s at; I love where our team’s at. I think we could be better on this journey, but we can go as far as we want to go in the next five weeks plus. That’s where my head is. So it’s a non-story.”

Until the Seahawks lose one more game anyway.

Wilson repeated he would like to play in Seattle for 20 years. “Will that happen? I don’t know. But that’s my prayer. That’s my hope. All that stuff is in the future; that stuff is down the road.”

That is all consistent with what Wilson has always said: He wants to stay in Seattle his entire career, but he acknowledges that might not happen. Whether the Giants or Broncos will end up on his list of approved trade destinations remains to be seen, but we all know there is no guarantee that he will remain in Seattle. He knows it, too.

We’re on record now as having decided it is time to trade him, and we’re simply hoping he will rebuild his value so some team might offer three first-rounders and more for him again, as Chicago reportedly did in 2020.

Speaking of trades involving multiple first-round picks, Adams’ season-ending injury has renewed the criticism of Carroll and Schneider for giving up so much for Adams last year.

As a reminder, they sent the Jets two first-round picks, a third-rounder and Bradley McDougald for Adams and a 2022 fourth-rounder. That deal essentially guaranteed they would also pay Adams, which they did in August when they gave him a $70 million contract.

They certainly could not have foreseen the position they are in right now, sitting in the fifth overall draft spot. They expected to continue to draft in the late 20s.

We won’t disagree with anyone who hated the trade. It was a major overpay for even a healthy All-Pro, as we said at the time. But Adams has not been healthy in either season with Seattle, and plenty of people are calling it one of Seattle’s all-time bust trades (compounded by the big extension).

We waited to judge the deal until seeing Adams play this season. We wanted to see how he did after a full year in Carroll’s defense.

After a rough start in which he reportedly asked to be used differently, he had settled in and played well over the past month. But now he’s done – and we’ll have to wait until 2023 to make the final judgment.

The irony of Adams having his season cut short by another injury (to the same bad shoulder) is that Carroll said they were trying to keep him healthy by not banging him into offensive linemen with endless blitzes (we had said this was what they needed to do).

“We rushed him from all different angles. He was all over the place,” Carroll said Wednesday. “We found that that wasn’t the right thing to do. Just wasting (him) and running into an offensive lineman? It wasn’t the right thing.”

Publicly, Carroll defends the mammoth overpay for Adams. But privately he has to be very disappointed that the safety has not been able to stay healthy and give enough return on the investment (in picks and cash) they have made, which is the biggest in the Carroll era.

Whether fans like it or not, Seattle clearly considers Adams a core defender. But he’s going to have to stay healthy and prove it, or he will indeed go down as Schneider’s worst trade/extension (trumping even the Percy Harvin debacle).