Russell Wilson left the Seattle Seahawks in the offseason before the 2022 season. He remains relevant to Seattle, though, because he is the best quarterback in franchise history. Not only is Wilson's name still important for the Seahawks, but it needs to be.
He helped bring the franchise its first Super Bowl victory and was at the helm of Seattle's offense for 10 seasons. He helped change the course of the franchise. That is, until he thought he became bigger than the team and tried to get John Schneider and Pete Carroll fired.
But while Wilson created a lot of explosive plays and great memories for Seattle, he was never a perfect quarterback. NFL expert and former Denver Broncos great, Mark Schlereth, recently pointed out exactly why Wilson tended to struggle with the Seahawks and after he left.
NFL analyst believes former Seahawks QB Russell Wilson should be released by the NY Giants
Only, Schlereth was not talking about Wilson's Seahawks day, but talking about why the quarterback's new team, the New York Giants (Wilson's fourth team in five seasons), should release Wilson before the 2025 season. 12s can likely understand every aspect of what Schlereth said on an episode of FS1's Breakfast Ball.
He said, "The Giants should cut Russell Wilson and start Jaxson Dart. I’ll take this from the perspective of what went down in Denver just a year ago. In Denver, they had Russell Wilson. They moved on from Russell Wilson. Russell, he has a propensity to take way too many sacks, not throw the ball in the middle of the football field, (and) all these different things."
Whatever happened with Wilson in Denver was a mess. The Seahawks benefited from the trade because of all the draft choices Seattle received in the deal. Schlereth covers the Broncos specifically and appeared to learn what Seahawks fans already knew: Wilson was unable or unwilling to fix years-long issues.
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Those included holding on to the ball far too long, trying to create an explosive play when a safe one might do. The quarterback too often looked for the big play when his team simply needed to eat clock and be more efficient.
Wilson also refused to consistently throw into the middle of the field, because of his relatively short height, one was correct to question whether the quarterback was able to see in that part of the field. Many times, a check down to a running back or tight end would have been the wise move, and Wilson passed on that too often.
One aspect that Schlereth did not point out that Wilson struggled with in Seattle was a degradation of quality play in the second half of the season. Had many seasons ended at the middle point of the year, Wilson might have been in line for NFL MVP votes. Instead, his play and the offense's execution were stunted in the second half. He never received an MVP vote with the Seahawks.
Whether Wilson should be released before he plays a down for the Giants seems iffy, though. Dart isn't as ready to play in the NFL as Bo Nix was for the Broncos last year, and doesn't have the same kind of offensive direction. New York likely needs Wilson, if only to save Dart from immediate failure.