Joe Nicholson-USA TODAY Sports
Russell Wilson was a man on a mission in 2013. Besides having a stellar rookie season statistics-wise, the former Wisconsin Badgers quarterback led the Seattle Seahawks to a playoff win, just a couple away from a Super Bowl appearance.
Wilson has taken this team and turned them into serious title contenders. In fact, if it wasn’t for their tough division, Seattle would be a lock to win the NFC West.
Seattle could be one of those teams to come out of the division and make a surprisingly-deep run in the playoffs. However, is Wilson the guy they need for the job? Sure, he led them to an 11-win regular season and had an overall solid performance as a rookie, but the signal-caller may have experienced just some first-year magic.
He had a stellar completion percentage along with an impressive 26 touchdowns. For a rookie to come into the league and complete 64 percent of his passes throughout the season while throwing for that many touchdowns is nothing short of impressive.
On the other hand, he threw for just 3,118 yards, which is less than 200 yards per game. To be a solid NFL quarterback, numbers like that need to improve. The only reason his completion percentage was so high was because he threw primarily short drop-off passes. In fact, his longest pass of the season was 67 yards, but not very many rivaled that number.
His rookie year may have been a fluke or misleading because of the high amount of short passes he threw. Averaging just 7.93 yards per completion. I’m not saying that his season was a fluke because he didn’t throw many long balls, but it may not even be part of his repertoire. What happens if the Seahawks need a long pass to win a crucial game? Do they switch quarterbacks to give them long-ball capability?
Should they just rely on a miracle blown call like the one that resulted when Russell Wilson threw the “Fail Mary” against the Green Bay Packers?
I’m not saying Wilson has no potential, because he does, but for his size, he may have overachieved a bit in 2012.
Connor Muldowney is a columnist for www.RantSports.com. Follow him on Twitter @Connormuldowney, “Like” him on Facebook or add him to your network on Google.
