Russell Wilson Must Be Held Accountable For Seahawks Second Half Meltdown
During the first eight weeks of the 2020 season, the "Let Russ Cook" movement couldn't have possibly kicked off better than it did for Russell Wilson and the Seahawks.
Opening the season as one of the NFL's last two undefeated teams along with Pittsburgh before an overtime loss in Arizona, Seattle averaged 34.2 points per game in its first seven games, overcoming a struggling defense to consistently win shootouts. Steering the league's most explosive aerial attack, Wilson was on pace to threaten Peyton Manning's single-season record with 26 passing touchdowns, a 71 percent completion rate, and over 2,100 passing yards.
"He just was smoking early, we were just on fire," coach Pete Carroll reflected on Monday. "We scored all those points early in the season and they really couldn't slow us down. It was almost lost that it was so consistently good."
But starting in Week 9, everything changed for Wilson and the Seahawks. Though they managed to still hit 34 points in a loss to the Bills, the star quarterback threw two costly interceptions and lost two fumbles. The next week, this time in a road loss to the Rams, he again was picked off twice and lost a critical fumble as the Seahawks scored a season-low 16 points.
With the exception of a four-touchdown outing against the Jets in Week 14, Wilson never came anywhere close to approaching his torrid play from earlier in the season. The Seahawks kept finding ways to win thanks to a rejuvenated defense that made a historic turn in the final two months, allowing them to finish with a 6-1 record in the final seven games in spite of their star quarterback's uncharacteristically dismal play.
After scoring 20 or fewer points in three of those last five games, everything came to a head in Seattle's Wild Card defeat to the aforementioned Los Angeles Rams on Saturday. Wilson turned in arguably the worst game of his nine-year career, throwing a pick-six to cornerback Darious Williams, completing just 41 percent of his 27 pass attempts, and posting a horrid 17.7 QBR.
Not all of the blame for Seattle's early postseason exits falls on Wilson's shoulders. He was under duress from Aaron Donald and a fierce defensive line dominating the Seahawks' offensive line all afternoon, receivers dropped a couple of passes, penalties kept setting the offense behind the sticks, and the interception by Williams wasn't at all his fault.
However, as one of the NFL's highest-paid players, the buck stops with Wilson. Whether it was a result of lowered confidence, Carroll meddling with the offense too much in an effort to limit turnovers, defensive scheming getting the best of him, or a combination of the three, he simply wasn't close to good enough down the stretch for the Seahawks to make noise in the postseason.
Just how ordinary was Wilson in the second half? With the exception of his outing against the Jets, he threw just eight touchdown passes in the other seven games, or barely more than one per game. Comparing his last eight games to his first eight, his yards per attempt dipped from 8.5 to 6.4, his passer rating plunged nearly 30 points, and his completion rate fell five percent.
"As we got down the stretch, the games got hard," Carroll explained. "We tightened down some to make sure we kept the games in control knowing who we were playing against, the styles of teams we were playing... You saw our style of play really got minimized some that we can't let happen."
Through it all, Carroll believed Wilson would turn things around. His confidence in the seven-time Pro Bowler never wavered and he subscribed to the idea playing several elite defenses coupled with more conservative game plans impacted his production over the final couple months.
As if his statistical regression wasn't enough, on tape, Wilson looked like a shell of himself. Likely as a result of his interception issues earlier in the season, he overcompensated by becoming gun-shy in the pocket. Receivers would come open in the short-to-intermediate game and he wouldn't unload the football, instead hesitating and often double clutching, allowing time for the pass rush to get to him.
Taking a page from Sam Darnold's book, Wilson also seemed to be seeing ghosts at times, failing to keep his eyes downfield and bailing the pocket before he needed to. Bringing back a habit from earlier in his career, he was often imagining pressure, putting both his line and receivers in tough spots by improvising when he did not have to.
Set to begin preparation for his 10th NFL season, the 32-year old Wilson isn't broken. There have been glimpses of his former self, including a 51-yard bomb to Metcalf for a touchdown in Saturday's defeat.
But after typically being one of the best in the business at bouncing back from tough games, Wilson must hit the reset button. Consulting with Carroll and offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer, the trio will need to comb back through the tape to figure out what went wrong for the star signal caller and a Seahawks offense that ran into a brick wall, ultimately costing the team in the playoffs.
Personnel-wise, with minimal cap space and draft capital to work with, Seattle will also have to find a way to continue improving the roster around Wilson as well. This may start up front continuing to replenish an offensive line that struggled towards the end of the season and needs a long-term solution at left guard and potentially left tackle.
Carroll also believes leaning more on the running game would go a long ways towards helping Wilson return to form by taking some of the burden off his shoulders and forcing opponents to abandon the two-deep safety looks that gave Seattle problems in the second half.
"I know the fans aren't real jacked about hearing that, but Russ knows it too. We need to be able to knock those guys into the scheme we want to throw at, which was happening more at the beginning of the season, so we took advantage of that."
No matter what general manager John Schneider, Carroll, and the front office do, however, Wilson must be held accountable for his role in the team failing to meet expectations. After a historic start, he picked the worst time imaginable to fall into the first real prolonged slump of his career and for the team to have any chance at getting back to a Super Bowl, he needs to do some soul-searching this offseason to find himself once again.
