Russell Wilson “man-crush” continues to blind local sports commentators to reality

The Seahawks “window of opportunity” of winning with Russell Wilson is much less than with a pure quarterback like Andrew Luck. The Seahawks are a team that coming into this season were a “quarterback away” from being a really good team. The Indianapolis Colts, on the other hand, were considered at best a 3-win team after essentially being blown apart in the off-season. Yet they are 7-4, and Luck is averaging over 290 yards passing per game. His upside as he matures and gains experience is potentially phenomenal. Conversely, we may actually be seeing the “best” of Wilson this year. More so than a pure passer, Wilson is the kind of quarterback who because of his limitations of height, relies more heavily on his running abilities; the upshot of this is that he is going to be run-down more quickly than a pure passer. Local commentators blame the play-calling for Wilson not passing the ball more; all that means is that he’s going to run more often than he does. 

The Seahawks in their current iteration don’t want a pure passer; if they did, the team would have insured that Matt Flynn would have been given every opportunity, and would have started him day one. But the offensive mentality of this team is essentially that of a college team. Pete Carroll was successful as a coach at USC, and seeks to duplicate that success at Seattle using the same system. Offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell is his right-hand man in this scheme; what offense is Bevell most familiar with? The run-dominated offense he played with under Barry Alvarez in Wisconsin; I remember Bevell running—not passing—for the deciding touchdown in the 1994 Rose Bowl against UCLA. Bevell never made it as a quarterback in the NFL, because that system didn’t require an NFL-ready quarterback, but one who could make “plays” with his feet and occasionally pass to at least one NFL-ready receiver. The only time Bevell deviated from that system as an offensive coordinator is when he essentially had no choice; Brett Favre was a Hall of Fame quarterback who happened to have his own ideas about how to play the game. Perhaps not coincidentally, 2009 was the only season that Bevell had a top-five offense in both yards and points scored. 

Bevell no doubt had a significant hand in the Seahawks’ drafting of Wilson; after all, Wilson is also familiar with the Wisconsin offensive system that Bevell is trying to recreate. As I pointed out yesterday, commentators who think that Wilson is the best player on the team are merely easily gulled. His stat line is always front-loaded, like a baseball player who goes 4 for 4 one game and 0 for 8 in two games; a .333 batting average is outstanding (fans around here can tell you that Ichiro’s stats were smoke and mirrors), but what does that really tell you about his effectiveness? Instead, all we hear about around here is Wilson and the “man-crush” mentality; the fact is that the best quarterbacks make the players around them look good--not the other way around. Instead, we are told that it is always someone else’s fault if the team falters. 

Fans need to ask themselves a simple question: Would they prefer a quarterback like Luck (or Flynn, for that matter), or Wilson, and why? The answer would expose the truth to those wearing the rose-colored glasses around here.