Russell Wilson wins even when he’s far less than spectacular

Russell Wilson made several big mistakes in the Seahawks huge overtime win over the 49ers. In the end, he was still Mr. Unlimited.

The Seahawks played an amazing game against their NFC division rival 49ers. Just because it was amazing doesn’t mean it was all good. The Seahawks biggest star didn’t exactly play his best game in San Francisco. In fact, he made some very uncharacteristically bad plays. But in the end, Russell Wilson proved that even if he isn’t spectacular, he’s still the best player in the league.

This was just the second game of the season that Wilson didn’t earn a passer rating over 100.0. The Niners defense was as good as advertised. All credit to them, they had an awful lotto do with Number Three’s sub-par performance. Their pass rush was especially nasty, as they sacked Wilson five times and hit him another seven.

DangeRuss finished the game 24 of 34 for 232 yards, with one touchdown and his second interception of the season. It says a lot about his usual level of play this year when a passer rating of 86.9 constitutes a bad game. These weren’t unforced errors, either. Wilson was on the run for most of the game.

Seattle Seahawks

That doesn’t excuse a series of poor throws he made on the Seahawks first drive in overtime. On his second attempt of the drive, Wilson targeted Seattle’s newest skyscraper, DK Metcalf. Big target, should be an easy completion, especially as Niners corner Emmanuel Moseley is at least five inches shorter than Metcalf. So does Russell Wilson throw the ball about eight feet up, where only Metcalf can get it? Nope. The ball reaches receiver and defender at about seven feet, easily within range of the 5’11” Moseley.

On the very next play Wilson completed a pass to Josh Gordon, the newest member of the Hawks. This time the ball was low, about two feet off the ground. Happily Gordon made the catch, his second of the night. As with the pass to Metcalf, Wilson was off-target. It didn’t cost a reception in this instance, but Gordon probably could have picked up more yards if he hadn’t had to adjust to the ball.

Wilson missed his next pass then escaped a mad pass rush, part of his wizardry. For some arcane reason,the refs blew the whistle and said that he was in the grasp, so credited the 49ers with a sack, even though Wilson escaped the “grasp” of Arik Armstead and picked up about five yards. It would be great if the NFL would hand this out to all officials: Russell Wilson is never in the grasp until he’s completely on the ground.

Back to his wizardry. It’s third and 16, but this is Mr. Unlimited we’re talking about. Wilson just shrugged, said “Okay, Boomer,” and hit Malik Turner for a 28-yard gain. Two plays later, the Seahawks are at the 49ers five-yard line, second and goal. DangeRuss sets his sights on tight end Jacob Hollister, who’d already had a huge game. For the third time on the drive, Wilson threw the ball short and low. It was easy pickings for linebacker Dre Greenlaw, who raced all the way to the Hawks 49-yard line.

Happily for us, the Niners drive stalled at the 29, and their walk-on kicker missed what would have been the game-winner. The Hawks went three and out, but the Niners returned the favor and only managed to take 14 seconds off the clock. Their last chance was broken up on a spectacular play by Shaquill Griffin, but that’s a topic for another time. We’re back to Mr. Unlimited now.

This time, the DangeRuss one was back on target. He drove the team to the 49ers 24-yard line and handed the game to Jason Myers. Myers redeemed himself not once, but twice, as the Niners tried to ice him by calling timeout about two nanoseconds before the snap. Myers drilled both kicks, just like a Pro Bowler should.

Wilson was far from his best in this game when you look at the stat sheet. He certainly wasn’t at his best on the Hawks first drive in overtime, either. But in the end, he was Russell Wilson, and that’s nearly always been enough for the Seahawks to take the win.