Russell Wilson is killing it in the best start of his career
The Seahawks are off to a fine start at 3-1. There’s no doubt it’s mostly because Russell Wilson is off to the absolute best start of his career.
Remember when people said that Russell Wilson was just a game manager? Early in his career, that was a constant criticism of Wilson. He didn’t throw enough passes. He didn’t throw enough touchdowns. He just wasn’t elite. When you have the second-highest career passer rating in NFL history, you’re more than a game manager. Wilson the “game manager” is currently off to the best start of his career.
You can still see misguided statements like this article, published just before the Seahawks obliterated the Broncos in the Super Bowl. The author confused aggregate stats, such as 5,000 yards passing, with excellence. The Seahawks were going to face one of the NFL’s greatest quarterbacks ever in Peyton Manning. After his incredible 55-touchdown season, Manning’s career passer rating was 97.2. Wilson’s career passer rating was 100.6 after his first two years.
If your team doesn’t ask you to throw 600 or even 700 passes a year, you’re not going to have the counting stats of quarterbacks in that position. You may not be flashy, but you can certainly be elite. And that is absolutely what Russell Wilson has been. He’s never had a more “elite” start to a season than he has in 2019.
His passer rating for the first four games of this season: 134.6, 131.0, 102.6, 114.3. Each of those game ratings is higher than his career rating coming into the year, 100.3. If you don’t buy into passer rating, that’s fine. DangeRuss has thrown eight touchdowns against zero interceptions in the first four games. He’s leading the league in completion percentage at 72.9 percent and is fourth in yards per attempt. He’s pretty good.
Wilson has had a few runs like this before, but never to start a season. He’s had three previous four-game series with a passer rating over 100. The first of these was in his rookie season. He had five straight games like this in 2015 in what had to be his best run so far. Starting with a home game against the Niners and closing by hosting the Browns, Russell Wilson threw 19 touchdown passes and zero interceptions over five games. Some game manager.
Next. Where DangeRuss ranks among NFC QBs. dark
He hasn’t quite matched that ridiculous level this season, but over the past three years, Wilson has gotten off to relatively slow starts. Clearly, he hit the afterburners as soon as he laced up his cleats to take on the Bengals. The fun thing is, we know he can play even better. The great thing is, he knows it too and is determined to do just that.