Is Russell Wilson the NFL’s 5th best QB?
By Dan Viens
SI.com ranked Russell Wilson as the 5th best QB in the NFL. Did they get it right?
It’s incredible how 7 games can shape the perception of a football player. Through Russell Wilson’s first 67 career games he was labeled by most national pundits, analysts and “experts” as a game manager or system quarterback.
All that changed between weeks 10 and 17 of the 2015 season.1,900 yards and 24 TD tosses later and suddenly our hometown signal-caller and captain has catapulted himself into the realm of the elusive “elite” category.
Last year, it seemed most talking (or writing) heads pegged Wilson in the 10-15 range. But Don Banks of SI.com just ranked his Top 10 Best NFL QB’s, and has Wilson sitting squarely in the middle at 5th overall, behind only the likes of Rodgers, Brady, Newton, and Roethlisberger.
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Pretty heady company.
Here’s the full list of Bank’s Top 10:
- Aaron Rodgers, Green Bay
- Tom Brady, New England
- Cam Newton , Carolina
- Ben Roethlisberger, Pittsburgh
- Russell Wilson, Seattle
- Drew Brees, New Orleans
- Carson Palmer, Arizona
- Andrew Luck, Indianapolis
- Andy Dalton, Cincinnati
- Philip Rivers, San Diego
Here’s a sample of what Banks has to say about how highly he views Wilson: “A game manager, huh? Thankfully some perceptions die of natural causes. Wilson emerged as a playmaking machine in the second half of last season, doing it all for a Seattle team that needed its quarterback to carry the load without a healthy Marshawn Lynch.”
Did Banks get it right here? I think he did. Luck is the one guy on this list that some NFL execs might move a little higher based on talent alone, but an injury-riddled and erratic 2015 leaves him having to prove himself, even with his new massive contract. Brees, Palmer and Rivers are all in the twilight of their illustrious careers, but only Brees has a Super Bowl ring to match Wilson. Meanwhile, Dalton should feel fortunate he’s on the list at all.
All those years of waiting and hoping for a franchise quarterback in Seattle, and we end up finding him in the 3rd round, after the rest of the league dismissed him as backup material because he didn’t fit the traditional physical mold NFL teams tend to pursue.
To put this list into even greater perspective, Wilson is the 2nd youngest of the Top 5 just a few months behind Newton.
Could we one day see him at the very top of lists like this?
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That’s a concept that seems a lot more realistic now than it ever did when Wilson was slinging balls around in North Carolina and Wisconsin, just hoping to get a shot at the NFL when his college days were done.