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Brady HendersonESPN
RENTON, Wash. — Veteran linebacker K.J. Wright signed a ceremonial one-day contract Wednesday to retire as a member of the Seattle Seahawks, the team announced.
Wright’s retirement ends an 11-year playing career that included 10 seasons as a starter on the famed defenses that helped lead the Seahawks through the most successful stretch in franchise history, which included a victory in Super Bowl XLVIII and a near repeat the next year.
Wright spent 2021 with the Las Vegas Raiders and was interested in playing a 12th NFL season only if it was with the Seahawks, but they’ve been intent on going with younger players in the middle of their revamped defense.
So Wright, who turned 33 on Saturday, will officially end his career in the same place it began in 2011. He rose from a fourth-round pick with a lanky build to one of the key — even if less heralded — members of Seattle’s Legion of Boom defense. Wright’s résumé includes one Pro Bowl (after the 2016 season) and the No. 3 spot on the franchise’s career tackles list.
The story on the Seahawks’ website announcing Wright’s retirement showed him overcome with emotion while signing his one-day contract.
“It was emotional for all of us,” Seattle coach Pete Carroll said. “It was a big deal for K.J. to finally put his name on the dotted line for the last time. There was a moment there where we were looking at 11 seasons and 230 games and all the years that he played. He was just trying to suck it up and absorb it and … he just got emotional about it like you’d think he should and would.”
Wright won a starting job at middle linebacker as a rookie, then spent much of the rest of his Seattle tenure on the weakside, moving there after the Seahawks drafted Bobby Wagner in 2012. Those two formed arguably the NFL’s best inside linebacker duo of the past decade. Wright made another move to the strong side early in the 2020 season and played some of the best football of his career at age 31, but he wasn’t re-signed the next offseason as the Seahawks decided to go younger at inside linebacker.
Wright recorded 51 tackles in 17 games (eight starts) last season while playing on a one-year deal with the Raiders. He said on the “Half-Forgotten History” podcast earlier this offseason that he wanted to “go back home” and play for the Seahawks. He wasn’t interested in playing anywhere else, not wanting to move his wife and three children from their Seattle-area home or be away from them again like he was last season in Las Vegas.
But with their youth movement continuing this offseason — Seattle releasing Wagner and inserting Cody Barton into the starting lineup alongside Jordyn Brooks — no on-field reunion was to be.
Wright finishes his career with 992 tackles, 13.5 sacks and 6 interceptions in 161 regular-season games. His 934 tackles with the Seahawks (by the team’s count) ranks third in franchise history behind Eugene Robinson at No. 2 and Wagner at No. 1.