Seahawks 2018 report cards: Russell Wilson was really good again

The Seahawks face an offseason with fewer questions than last year. But how did some Seattle players grade in 2018? Here are thoughts on Russell Wilson.

Russell Wilson is an elite quarterback for the Seahawks. He doesn’t play like other quarterbacks really, but that makes him even more special. The biggest complaint with Wilson’s 2018 season is that Seattle didn’t use him enough.

The fault for this is not on Wilson, of course, but with Brian Schottenheimer. This is not one of those articles being negative about Schottenheimer, however. There are plenty of those already and I wrote one of them. Schottenheimer had a system that was purposely designed to limit the impacts Wilson received and yet still control the football by running. Mostly, that worked.

Wilson wasn’t perfect, of course. He threw two bad interceptions that were returned for touchdowns, one against the Chargers and one against the Bears. Seattle’s quarterback also held on to the ball too long early in the season and took too many sacks.

An argument could be made that Schottenheimer’s system worked well for Wilson, however. While throwing his fewest passes (427) since 2013 and rushing his fewest times ever (67), Wilson still was as productive, if not more so, than at any other point in his career. Wilson threw a career-high 35 touchdown passes and his second-lowest interception rate (1.6%).

Wilson did get sacked 51 times, but 18 of those came in three different games with two of those games coming in the first two weeks of the season. For most of the year, Wilson held on to the ball less and formed a great rapport with Tyler Lockett. Lockett and Wilson finished with a perfect passer-rating of 158.3 when Wilson targeted the receiver. This is a relationship that should continue for the next several seasons.

Wilson also had his highest quarterback-rating of his career at 110.9 and had his highest touchdown percentage too at 8.2%. Wilson may not have been at his flashiest but he was at his most efficient. And without Wilson, the Seahawks may not have won seven games. Wilson is elite, no matter what anyone says.

Grade: A-