RENTON — When the Seattle Seahawks played in St. Louis earlier this season, Rams coach Jeff Fisher made an absurdly bold call late in the game, calling for a fake punt from inside their own 20 while clinging to a two-point lead.
Fail to convert on that fourth-and-three from their own 18-yard line, and the Rams are handing the ball to the Seahawks in range of the game-winning field goal. But Fisher figured the risk was worth it for one reason.
“I don’t think we stopped them any in the second half,” Fisher said on a conference call with Seattle-area media.
Though it came in a loss, that game showed how Russell Wilson can be so dangerous that he forces opposing coaches to make extremely risky decisions.
Wilson passed for 313 yards and two touchdowns that day while rushing for 106 yards and another score, making him the first quarterback in NFL history to have a 300/100 game, and the Seahawks nearly overcame an 18-point deficit by scoring three second-half touchdowns on drives of 82, 91 and 80 yards, leading the Rams to decide a fake punt was safer than taking their chances with Wilson one more time.
Wilson had a similar dominant performance last weekend in Arizona, this time in a victory, passing for 329 yards and a score while rushing for 88 and a touchdown. That’s twice this season he has passed for at least 300 yards and rushed for at least 85, making him the only NFL quarterback to do that in a career.
Following Wilson’s latest virtuoso performance, his name was again being brought up by national media outlets as an MVP candidate — not so much by people saying he’ll win it, but that he should at least be in the discussion. Yet on Wednesday when Pro Bowl selections were announced, Wilson wasn’t among the six quarterbacks listed.
And in a way, it’s pretty fitting that Wilson can all at once be an MVP candidate and a Pro Bowl snub. When you look at Wilson’s passing yardage totals or touchdown numbers, they don’t rank among the NFL leaders. But when you actually watch Wilson play on a regular basis, you begin to understand just how good he is and just how valuable he is, even to a team with the NFL’s best defense.
“The best way to describe it is that he’s an extra player on offense,” Fisher said. “They’re playing with 12 and that’s hard to defend.”
Wilson always has been elusive, frustrating pass-rushers who think they have a sack, only to end up face down in the turf as Wilson runs away. But this season, more than ever, he is taking off and running with considerable success. With 842 rushing yards and six touchdowns to go along with his 3,236 passing yards and 20 TD passes, Wilson does account for as many yards as many of the game’s top passers. If he gets 264 more passing yards and 58 rushing yards against the Rams on Sunday, he would be the first quarterback in NFL history with 3,500 passing yards and 900 rushing yards.
“It’s big,” offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell said of the threat Wilson presents with his legs. “There are some things that we kind of take for granted sometimes that we don’t think a defense can do, or are willing to do. It’s an advantage for us; it’s having an extra guy, an extra player, and they have to defend him as well. They have to decide how they want to run their pressures, how they want to run their coverages. We present problems that other teams don’t.”
And now more than ever, Wilson is taking advantage with his arm of the mismatches his and Marshawn Lynch’s running threats present. This season, Wilson and his coaches put an emphasis on, especially in recent weeks, the quick timing passes that were not always a consistent part of the offense. And as Wilson matures and learns the game, he’s also improving at recognizing what a defense is throwing at him and he’s taking advantage of it to hit big throws, which he did repeatedly in Arizona.
“I think throughout the season you just continue to learn, continue to try to grow,” Wilson said, “‘How can I get the ball out of my hands?’ That’s been my goal the whole year ever since preseason and going on is how quick I can get the ball out of my hands. That’s what all the great quarterbacks do. I think that in terms of Tom Brady, Drew Brees, and Peyton Manning, so I’m trying to learn that way, I’m trying to grow in that fashion.
“There’s a happy medium for me — there’s the big-play mentality, and also the scramble ability mentality where if it’s not there, I believe I can make a play, but also, I don’t have to do that the whole game. I think wearing out the defense in terms of getting the ball out and letting our guys make the plays has been a great thing for us.”
Wilson arguably should have been picked for the Pro Bowl, though he isn’t quite the league MVP. However, in the gray area in between, his game is undeniably effective, especially if you actually watch him and don’t just look at the stats.
I’m not a big believer in using quarterback wins as a stat, because if you do that, Wilson “lost” the Rams game earlier despite a brilliant performance, when in fact it was Seattle’s special teams that let them down. And by that measure, he has “won” the Giants game this season while throwing two interceptions, no touchdowns and completing 58.8 percent of his passes. Yet quarterbacks do have more influence on the game than any other player. It’s hardly a coincidence that the Seahawks are 35-12 the past three seasons with Wilson as their starter, and have been in every single game of his career into the fourth quarter, never losing by double digits the past three seasons.
Wilson isn’t a perfect quarterback, and that’s OK. He’ll improve. For now, MVP candidate or not, Pro Bowl player or not, he is for the third consecutive year doing spectacular things while leading Seattle’s offense. So spectacular, in fact, that Fisher is liable to try something crazy again this weekend to keep Seattle’s “extra player” off the field.
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