Russell Wilson is a game manager. If a team has a great defense, Wilson can hand off, limit turnovers, move the chains and do all the little, if unremarkable, things that need to be done to help his team to victory. That’s a game manager.
Game manager is in Wilson’s skill set. It might not be a flashy title, and many use “game manager” as a sort of quarterback slur, but the Seahawks made the playoffs as a wildcard team in 2012 with Wilson under center as a rookie. A year later they won the Super Bowl with Wilson running a conservative offense while the Seahawk defense tore opponents apart. That design almost led to back-to-back championships before Wilson threw an interception at the goal line on Seattle’s final possession in last year’s Super Bowl. Throwing a game-ending interception when a handoff would have been the better call wasn’t a very “game manager” thing to do. Or it was exactly what was to be expected when a guy with limited abilities tries to be the hero.
At that moment the debate began. Was Wilson not a top-tier quarterback? Could he only have success on a team with a dominant defense? Were the Seahawks about to give $87.5m to a guy who might just be a more mobile Trent Dilfer?
And then the 2015 season opened and Wilson’s career seemed to take an even more Dilferian turn. An ugly 2-4 start turned into an almost as bad 4-5 first half with Wilson throwing seven interceptions to just 10 touchdowns through nine games. The Seattle defense wasn’t what it was the last two years and it appeared Seattle’s supposed franchise quarterback was just a guy. A game manager without a defense. An emperor without clothes.
Around this time, someone I know quite well even wrote of the Seahawks QB: “Russell Wilson … has [a] ring. But even with his new, huge contract and the addition of Jimmy Graham, he’s looking more like a skilled manager – both at game managing and brand managing – than a generational talent. Wilson still hasn’t won a game in his career when the Seattle defense gives up more than 24 points.”
Well, Wilson sure managed to make that guy look stupid. In his last four starts, all Seattle victories in which they have averaged 35 points per game, Wilson has thrown 16 touchdowns, zero interceptions and completed 75% of his passes.
Russell Wilson is still a game manager. His defense isn’t as good as it used to be and he has zero offensive weapons around him, so he’s running a dominant offense all by himself. Seattle still needs him to manage the game, the game has just changed. Maybe it took Wilson a couple months to figure out what was needed from him now for Seattle to win, but he’s managing it all quite nicely now, don’t you think?
Any lingering comparisons of Wilson to second-rate quarterbacks or foolishness about Trent Dilfer is gone. Wilson has played himself into discussions with names like Brady, Manning and Rodgers.
4 straight games w 3+TD/0INT: Tom Brady 17 TD/0 INT in '07 Russell Wilson 16 TD/0 P Manning 14 TD/0 in '13-'14 Rodgers 13 TD/0 in '13
— this is a good tweet (@KennethArthuRS) December 14, 2015
Perhaps most remarkable about Wilson’s 2015 emergence is how it’s flipped the caveats that have followed him his whole NFL career. If he supposedly won before thanks to leaning on the Seattle defense and Marshawn Lynch, that sure isn’t happening now. The Seahawks defense isn’t the NFL’s No1 any more and Beastmode has been deactivated for the year. Thomas Rawls is now out for the year, too. As is Jimmy Graham. In week 15, Wilson’s weapons will be Fred Jackson, Bryce Brown, Doug Baldwin, Jermaine Kearse and Luke Willson. That might be the worst collection of skill players in the NFL – save what Cleveland runs out there every week, of course. If it wasn’t for Wilson, Pete Carroll might be climbing on top of lockers to jump to his death, not to wildly celebrate victories.
Cam Newton seems to have had the NFL MVP locked up weeks ago, but Wilson is making a late push and trumps the Carolina quarterback in most statistical categories.
QB rating: Wilson’s NFL-best 110.0 vs. 96.9 for Newton.
Completion percentage: 68.8 vs. 59.1.
Passing yards: 3,289 vs. 3,062.
Interceptions: 7 vs. 10.
Offensive weapons: Uhhhhhh ... vs. Greg Olsen and Jonathan Stewart.
Of course, Newton’s 13-0 – and possibly 16-0 record – compared to Wilson’s 8-5 will probably be what ultimately swings the vote. People’s minds were made up a while ago and not much can change that now. It’s kind of been the story of Wilson’s football career. He was the short guy who played at NC State and Wisconsin and was just a third round pick. He couldn’t be that good, right? He was probably just getting by thanks to Seattle’s defense.
But take Wilson’s stats – in college and the pros – and Super Bowl ring and hand them to a 6ft 3in guy who was pre-marketed by a brand name college program like USC or Notre Dame. There wouldn’t be enough hype to give the guy. But Wilson is small so he’s had to prove himself, while someone like Matt Ryan – who looks like someone who would play a quarterback in a movie – gets the benefit of the doubt for a decade.
Yet someone who understands branding as much as Wilson knows that building a brand takes time. And “nano bubbles” and pop star celibacy aside, the brand Wilson is slowly building is that of a great quarterback. Maybe this is the year everyone, myself included, realizes that.
I’ll go back to what a I wrote at the top of this column, but with a small tweak.
Russell Wilson is a game manager. If a team doesn’t have a great defense or any skilled offensive players, Wilson can just take over, and do everything that needs to be done to help his team to victory. That’s a game manager.
