Seahawks QB Russell Wilson has a point, in fact, he has several points
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Since 2012, Russell Wilson’s rookie season, only Drew Brees, Tom Brady, and Aaron Rodgers have thrown more touchdown passes than Wilson’s 267. 14 quarterbacks (including Andrew Luck, who has been retired since 2018) have thrown more interceptions than Wilson’s 81. 27 quarterbacks have thrown more pick-sixes than Wilson’s five, including eight quarterbacks who are no longer in the league. And of the quarterbacks who have played since 2012, only Brees and Rodgers have a higher passer rating than Wilson’s 101.7, As Brees is expected to officially retire before the 2021 season, that leaves one less quarterback in Wilson’s rarefied air.
At the same time, Wilson has attempted 4,335 passes, ranking eighth over that time. He’s completed 2,820 passes, which also ranks eighth. But only Rodgers has a higher touchdown rate than Wilson’s 6.2%, and only Rodgers, Brady, and Alex Smith have a lower interception rate than Wilson’s 1.87%.
By all measures, Wilson has been one of the most efficient and productive quarterbacks of his era, with far fewer opportunities to complete passes than the other top quarterbacks in that time. He has also done all of this with iffy receiver groups and offensive lines generally thrown together with wrong-headed half-measures, which is a primary reason that, since 2012, he leads the league in sacks by far with 394, and a sack rate of 8.3%. Think about that. Nearly one out of 10 times Wilson drops back to attempt a pass, he winds up on his butt.
This would seem to indicate a quarterback with rare tools, and a team that doesn’t quite understand them. That’s been the story in Seattle for a long time — the dichotomy between Wilson’s desire to “cook” and head coach Pete Carroll’s need to play fundamental football with as few variables as possible.
That schism has been coming to a head for a while, and now, it’s boiling over. In an excellently-reported piece by Michael-Shawn Dugar, Mike Sando and Jayson Jenks of The Athletic, breakdowns in communication between the franchise and the franchise quarterback regarding everything from the state of the offensive line to Wilson’s involvement in game-planning on a weekly basis were detailed after conversations with multiple sources. The article detailed Seattle’s interest in Patrick Mahomes and Josh Allen before each quarterback was drafted, and a potential trade of Wilson to the Browns in 2018 for Cleveland’s first-overall pick that had Wilson putting a no-trade clause in his next contract.
Of all the blockbusters in the piece, this passage about the relationship between Wilson and his coaches last season stood out, and for all the wrong reasons. This happened after a Week 9 loss to the Bills and a Week 10 loss to the Rams in which Carroll had started to shut down the more expansive parts of the passing game, Wilson started to get more rattled in and out of the pocket (a common issue over the last few seasons), and he threw two interceptions in each game. Now, it was on to prepare for the Arizona Cardinals, against whom Wilson had thrown three touchdowns and three interceptions in Week 7.
Before the Thursday night game against Arizona, Wilson met with his coaches. For some time, Wilson has sought — even pushed — for influence within the organization regarding scheme and personnel. In the meeting, he outlined his own ideas for how to fix the offense. His suggestions were dismissed, multiple sources told The Athletic — another reminder to Wilson that the Seahawks did not see him the same way he saw himself, as a player who had earned greater control over his situation, his future, his legacy.
He stormed out of the room.
Regardless of the circumstances, it is an insult of irreducible proportions to refuse to give a quarterback of Wilson’s caliber a hand in the construction and improvement of the offense. It’s also Not Very Smart.
In 2015, I spoke with Bruce Arians when he was the Cardinals’ head coach about how he handles game-planning with Carson Palmer, who was then Arizona’s starter.
“I think the one thing we always have done with all our quarterbacks is they’ve really called the game,” Arians told me. “Friday, we’ll sit down and pick out his 15–20 favorite first-and-10 plays. Saturday night before the game, we’ll sit down and go through the entire third down package and let him pick the plays, the ones he’s most comfortable with. I can call what I think is the greatest play, but if he’s not comfortable with it, it’s probably not going to work. My job is to talk him into running those once he sees the picture on the sideline. He’s a veteran guy who works extremely hard, and you just, as a coach, try to put him into a position to be comfortable and successful.”
Comfortable and successful. Not out of sorts with his own offense and pissed off enough to storm out of the room. Arians, who had to adjust to a new quarterback in 2020 and bring in all the stuff that has helped make Tom Brady great over time while welding Brady’s current skill set to his preferred offense (which worked out pretty well in the end), would likely say the same thing today.
After Wilson completed just 11 of 27 passes for 174 yards, two touchdowns, and one interception in Seattle’s 30-20 wild-card loss to the Rams on January 9, Carroll was succinct about the situation.
“I told these guys I have no place in my brain for this outcome. We were planning on winning and moving on and getting going and playing really good football and doing the stuff we need to do to win.”
And on Wilson’s play?
“I thought it was really hard. I thought it was really hard. They make the fantastic interception for a touchdown, which is a great play by the kid [Rams cornerback Darious Williams, who returned Wilson’s one interception 42 yards for a touchdown]. He took a shot and got it, and that was a big play in this game as it kind of loomed the whole time, that seven points. That’s no mistake on Russ’s part at all, that’s just a great play by them.
“But, it was hard. When you get rushed like that, get sacked five times, against that group, it’s just tough. This is no surprise; this is how they’ve played against other people. We needed to keep this game like we played them last time, where we kept it down, where they scored 9 points and we found a way to score 20. Like I’m saying, and maybe I’m not saying it very clearly, but Russ, it was really hard on him. The pressure was hard, the coverage is good, and we weren’t able to function clean enough. A couple of times we had penalties and situations and we got backed up, we had first and 25 a couple times, it seemed like. Those are, like, impossible situations against this defense. He was up against it all day.”
So at least then, there seemed to be a point of understanding that it wasn’t all Wilson’s fault. But it’s still odd to see Seattle’s coaches at odds with this particular quarterback — a guy who’s never missed a game despite getting bashed around more than any other quarterback in his era. A quarterback who, when the Seahawks’ offensive line and running game were at their worst in 2017, was responsible for 37 touchdowns — 34 passing and three rushing — and that accounted for all but one of the team’s touchdowns all season. That was the year Wilson led the league in touchdown passes, by the way. A guy who has done more with less than any other quarterback while Wilson’s been in the NFL… and a quarterback who’s done more for Carroll than just about any other quarterback could hope to do under the same circumstances.
After the loss that ended his season, Wilson had this to say about the difference between Seattle’s offense in the first and second halves of the season.
“I think that we started running it really well for a little bit there, and so I think that was part of it. And the games just — I think for us we were able to — early in the season we were able to get the deep shots and stuff like that early on. I think that as well as — I think our tempo, our pace and stuff, getting in and out and all that, we kind of lost that a little bit I think along the way.
“I think that’s something that we do really, really well, and so to keep that tempo and pace I think is something that’s — I’m going to really try to study a lot this off-season and see how do we continue to put our foot on the gas and everything else along the way. I think that’ll help us a little bit. You know, I think also, too, is like I said, I think that some of our guys got dinged up along the way up front. I think that the first five games you look at, the first five or six games or so we had all our guys up front.
“Today was really the first time we’ve played with everybody in while. I think they did a good job getting to me and trying to — pressuring and stuff like that. You know, I had to move around.”
At this point, there are varying degrees of rumors about Wilson’s future with the team. He may have been planning a “graceful exit” for a while now, despite the fact that his current contract, a four-year, $140 million extension he signed before the 2019 season, runs through the 2023 season and makes any trade pretty prohibitive from a salary cap perspective.
But that’s the numbers and the brass tacks, and the current situation. In truth, it never should have come this far, and to whatever extent Russell Wilson is responsible for his professional maladies, Seattle’s coaching staff is 10 times more responsible with their refusal to shift their paradigms and accept what their team is, as opposed to what they want it to be.
The Seattle Seahawks are a team that is led and defined by its quarterback as few others are. Removing Wilson from the picture doesn’t solve the problem; it simply creates far more as the front office would have to try and replace the one piece that has held this eroding franchise together over the last few seasons.
It is time for Pete Carroll and everyone in his ear to realize this, rebuild the relationship, and stop screwing around with one of the most important players in franchise history.
