3 reasons Russell Wilson may have been so bad versus Packers

Russell Wilson had one of the worst games of his career on Sunday versus the Packers. But why exactly was Wilson so bad in week 10?

First off, though, the Seahawks are now 3-6 and they can still make the postseason because the NFC is so top-heavy with good teams. But Seattle certainly doesn’t look anything close to a playoff team. In fact, they don’t look like they could be next year either.

Secondly, if the Seahawks are to get back to a close to .500 record, it will be because Russell Wilson found his mojo again and the Seattle offense improves greatly. But that won’t fix Sunday’s awfulness.

Why Russell Wilson may have been so terrible against the Packers

Number one: Russell Wilson wasn’t healthy enough to play

Wilson clearly, as he should, takes pride in his health and his string of being healthy. For the first 9 years of his career, Wilson rarely missed a snap, let alone a game. Russell Wilson is the best quarterback in Seattle football history. But on Sunday, his pride got in the way of what was good for his team.

Yes, it was cold and that can affect a quarterback’s throws but one thing that makes Wilson special is his accuracy. On Sunday he was 20 of 40 with 2 terrible interceptions for 133 yards and several relatively short throws were thrown very high. Not a little high; a lot high. Wilson has big hands and that allows him to grip the ball well normally. But his injured right middle finger didn’t allow him to grip the ball as he normally would.

Before the game, 12s would have no idea how truly healthy Wilson was and if healthy he should have played. But he wasn’t healthy and the team should have known that. That is if Wilson let the team know how he was actually feeling.

Number two: The Seahawks play-calling simply isn’t good

Seattle’s offense has been inconsistent all season. Early in the year, it was good one half and then bad the next. This wasn’t a Russell Wilson issue mainly, it was a Shane Waldron issue. There was clearly some direction once the Seahawks had a halftime lead that in the second half Seattle would snap the ball closer to the play-clock hitting zero when in the first half they would snap it quicker.

But while Wilson was bad on Sunday, it was also unfair to him, or any other quarterback, to drop back to throw more than 40 times and run the ball on designed runs 11 times. Green Bay could fixate on Wilson passing and not having to worry about Seattle running even though Seattle averaged 4.7 yards a rush.

The Packers are 28th in the NFL in yards-allowed-per-rush (4.7) and had some success running but Seattle didn’t seem to know it needed to run more. Seattle hasn’t seemed to know exactly what they needed to do going into a game all year and that blame should go on Shane Waldron and not Russell Wilson.

Number three: The Packers were simply better than the Seahawks

Green Bay has a very good defense and ranks third in quarterback-rating-allowed in the NFL. Even a healthy Russell Wilson wouldn’t have gone crazy against them. A healthy Wilson would have likely put some points on the board but that doesn’t mean the Seahawks would have won. Seattle simply isn’t a very good football team right now and the Packers are.

The problem becomes what happens next year or the year after? What makes us think that the Seahawks will be a playoff team next year? Most of the players will likely be the same and the coaching staff too. We might be looking at a postseason drought for the next few years in Seattle.