Head and the heart: Why Russell Wilson coming back to Seahawks makes zero sense

Seahawks need to look toward the future and not the past

Sure, Wilson's raw numbers are much better in 2023. It is easy to point out his 26 touchdown passes and just 8 interceptions with a quarterback rating of 98.0, seventh-best in the league. But there are also several reasons Sean Payton wants to move on from Wilson. He still takes far too many bad sacks while holding on to the ball too long and Wilson is still horrible in terms of clock management.

In Seattle, he often waited until the very last seconds on the play clock before snapping the ball. He might do that worse in Denver. Doing that puts more pressure on the offense than the defense because the defense is simply reacting to what the offense does no matter when the ball is snapped.

There is also overall QBR incorporating such things as throwing distance, sacks, fumbles, designed runs, and scrambles. Regarding QBR, Wilson falls from seventh in raw passer rating to 21st. Geno Smith, who ranks 14th in the league in QBR, has a better QBR in 2023 (57.7) than does Wilson (50.6).

Wilson was far from perfect in Seattle and those issues, such as holding on to the ball too long, are still part of his play. The simple fact is that the Seahawks won't be better with Wilson and would most likely be paying him far too much to not offer any improvement for the team overall. While Russell Wilson does bring up memories of a nice Seahawks past, the team needs to look toward a Wilson-less future and draft a quarterback who can play a year behind Smith before taking over.

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