Russell Wilson Remains in Funk, Seahawks Falter in Shocking Loss to Giants
During the first five games of the 2020 season, Russell Wilson stood atop the MVP rankings on a sizzling pace to top Peyton Manning's single-season touchdown record. Though only eight weeks have passed since then, unfortunately, it feels like a lifetime ago for a sputtering Seahawks offense.
Entering Sunday with a prime chance to extend its lead in the NFC West and stay in the hunt for the NFC's top seed, Seattle's star quarterback has picked the worst time to endure arguably the worst slump of his nine-year career. Entering Sunday's Week 13 matchup against the New York Giants, he had thrown only five touchdowns compared to four interceptions over the previous four games.
Once again struggling to get the football out of his hands and finding himself swarmed by oncoming pass rushers behind a banged-up offensive line, Wilson slogged through a 263-yard performance in a brutal 17-12 loss to the Giants. He completed 62 percent of his passes, but was limited to just 6.1 yards per attempt and was sacked five times, with several of those setting his team well behind the sticks and playing a critical role in another dismal 4 for 13 showing on third down.
"I'm really surprised this is how we looked against this game plan they had," coach Pete Carroll remarked after the game, deflecting the blame from Wilson to an extent. "I thought we could do a lot of stuff and it didn't happen for us. I need to see why and really break it down. I can't tell you right now."
New York obviously deserves plenty of credit for a fantastic game plan and executing it to near-perfection. Aside from allowing Chris Carson to reel in a touchdown reception midway through the fourth quarter, they limited the Seahawks downfield passing attack, giving up just three receptions of 20-plus yards.
Up front, defensive coordinator Patrick Graham did a superb job mixing up blitzes and stunts to confuse Wilson as well as an offensive line missing two starters for big chunks of the game. Blitzers got home when the Giants sent them and the edge defenders always seemed to know when a play action boot was coming.
"We just gotta be better, we gotta be cleaner. It starts with me," Wilson stated. "I've gotta continue to find ways to get the ball to continue to get the ball to our guys and let them do their thing."
In several ways, as exhibited on Sunday, bad habits have come back to the forefront in recent weeks, with Wilson hurting his team in the process by absorbing huge losses on sacks. Acting like it was 2012 all over again, he tried to spin away from pass rushers to extend plays rather than throw the football away. Even on the final decisive 4th and 18, he was eager to exit the pocket when defenders weren't necessarily threatening him, another sign he's not comfortable "feeling" the rush right now.
Even more disconcerting, while he didn't think he was "indecisive" on Sunday, since committing a flurry of turnovers in losses to the Rams and Bills last month, Wilson has looked gun shy out on the field. An argument can be made that the efforts to be more cautious with the football have ultimately been taken too far, grounding the passing attack as a whole and putting his offensive line in an impossible situation trying to keep him upright. Ironically, in one of those situations, double-clutching led to an interception on a pass that bounced off Chris Carson's helmet.
"Throwing the ball was a struggle," Carroll commented. "We took some monster losses in the sacks that just—the whole drive is totally challenged from there on. They weren't like six or eight-yard sacks, they were like 20s, and so unfortunately, all of those situations just kept us from getting any momentum at all and we never got moving."
Looking back, this will be a difficult loss for Seattle to overcome, at least in terms of winning a division title. Any chances of snagging the top seed in the conference seem all but gone, even if it's still mathematically possible.
When Carroll and his staff review the film, they will certainly be frustrated by lapses defending the run in the third quarter that allowed the Giants to quickly turn a five-point deficit into a nine-point lead with back-to-back touchdown drives. The inability to corral a blocked punt by safety Ryan Neal in the end zone and turn it into a touchdown late in the second quarter will also be tough to swallow. There's plenty of blame to pass around.
But at the end of the day, this devastating loss falls on Wilson. When you're a $35 million per year quarterback who has been hyped up for MVP honors most of the season, that's more than fair. Such criticism comes with the territory.
Reading Carroll's body language post-game, it seems he's not sure how to approach this situation. The ever-reliable Wilson has had a few mini-slumps in his career, but they've never been to this magnitude. What makes it worse is that the Seahawks defense has finally started playing closer to their potential and this was supposed to help take some of the pressure off of him. Instead, another strong effort giving up less than 20 points was wasted and a must-needed win slipped away.
With four games left to play, Carroll and Wilson better figure out how to get him untracked in this critical time for both the player and the team. While it isn't the time to hit the panic button just yet and a favorable schedule still awaits, another quick playoff exit awaits if things don't change quickly.
