3 keys for success for Seahawks versus Russell Wilson and the Broncos
By Lee Vowell
After a tumultuous offseason for the Seahawks, the season finally gets underway on Monday. Here are three ways Seattle can beat Russell Wilson and the Broncos.
Week 1 is here! Real Seahawks football in 2022, finally. The weird thing is the team is starting against former quarterback Russell Wilson.
How 12s react to Wilson running on the field will be fun to watch. Plus, even if you aren’t at the game you could tweet your reaction to seeing Wilson is another team’s jersey. Being a fan is a communal thing, of course.
But how can the Seahawks beat the Broncos and possibly kick off a surprisingly successful 2022 season? Here are three ways.
The Seahawks need to do these three things to beat Russell Wilson and the Broncos
Get constant pressure on Russell Wilson
The same thing I am writing here could be repeated every week, of course, but in Week 1 getting pressure early on Wilson and continuing that throughout the entire game is very important for several reasons.
The first reason is the most obvious. Seattle’s interior rush defense along the defensive line should be good enough to stop most teams from simply picking up chunk yards on the ground and keeping control of the clock. The issue last year with teams staying on the field against the Seahawks was giving up first downs on third downs when opposing quarterbacks simply had to toss the ball in the middle of the field for an easy conversion. The run defense was good.
So, this should mean that Wilson throws the ball more and heck, he probably wants to prove how good he is doing so in Week1 anyway. So if Seattle can get early pressure, Wilson could be forced into an early turnover and Seattle needs to prove to itself early that it can win the game.
The second is that while there is quite a bit of potential with the Seahawks pass rush, there are also so many young guys for Seattle that maybe they aren’t even sure what they are capable of. If Seattle can build its confidence by getting early hits on Wilson, they will learn to trust themselves and create havoc throughout the entire game.
12s know that Wilson holds on to the ball too long many times so if the game is close in the fourth quarter and he has taken a bit of a beating, he could force a pass that ends up in the hands of a Seattle player and Seattle could seal the victory.