Did you catch the Seahawks game tonight against the '49ers? Have
you been paying attention to them the last few weeks? If you have you have seen
the emergence of Russell
Wilson and the Seattle Seahawks as a top flight NFL team, capable of
beating anyone and legitimately justifying any Super Bowl dreams Seahawk fans
care to concoct. And to those of you who still harbor any doubts about Wilson
being an NFL quarterback because of his relatively short stature (Wilson is
just under 5'11'' when the prototypical NFL QB is 6'3" at least) , he is,
I can assure you, the real deal! Before he is through with his career here in
Seattle this kid will lead us to the Promised Land and possibly multiple times.
He is that good.
I am not given to raving about professional athletes. When it
comes to football my quarterback standards were set by years of watching
players like Johnny Unitas, Bart Starr, Sonny Jurgensen and Fran
Tarkenton. Very few quarterbacks down through the years have measured
up. Several, like Brett Favre, John Elway, Joe Montana, Peyton
Manning and Tom Brady come to mind over the last 30 years, which isn’t
many. So, for a guy like me, what I see going on in the NFL right now is
special. There are currently three rookie quarterbacks playing who are tearing
up the league, something that has never occurred in a sport and a position with
a heavy premium on experience. The 3 are Andrew
Luck (Colts), Robert
Griffin III (Redskins)
and our own Wilson. With today's games Luck has just passed for more yards than
any rookie quarterback in history and has the Colts in the playoffs and Griffin
has resurrected the Redskins, has them playing for the NFC East title next week
against Dallas, is completing passes at a 66% clip and has thrown a grand total
of 4 interceptions thus far this season while leading the league in QB rating.
He has also rushed for 750 yards.
And then there is Russell Wilson. Over the last half of this
season he leads the league in quarterback rating and has thrown 15 touchdowns
against just 2 interceptions. He has 25 Touchdown passes this year and if he
throws 2 more in next week's final game he will have surpassed Peyton Manning's
rookie record for touchdowns in a season. With tonight's blowout 42-13 victory
over the 49ers he has the Seahawks on a 4 game winning streak, the last 3 by a
combined score of 150-30. You have to go back into the 1940s to find an
equivalent domination by one team across a 3 game period. And while the first
two of these blow outs came against teams going nowhere this season (Arizona
and Buffalo) tonight's win at the "Clink" (Century Link
Stadium) was against the NFC West leading San Francisco 49ers, the team that
just last week had flown across country and beaten Tom Brady and the
Patriots in their own house. In tonight's game in rainy Seattle Wilson had 15
completions out of 21 attempts for 170 yards and 4 touchdowns. He ran the 49er
defensive linemen ragged when he had to leave the pocket. There was one play in
the second half in which he eluded at least 4 defensive linemen trying to sack
him while running about 50 yards to gain 4 yards in the end. It was the best imitation
of Fran Tarkenton I have seen since...well...the “Frantic Man” himself was
driving opposing defenses nuts for the Vikings in the mid '60s. He is also very
accurate as a passer. He is completing nearly 2/3rds of his passes on the
season and tonight made some passes into some very tight windows…Doug Baldwin’s
2 touchdowns come to mind. The second of these was a laser beam throw just
beyond the defender’s reach into Baldwin’s hands; an amazing throw.
But there is something else about Russell Wilson. It is what
football people call "intangibles". The word "intangible"
means “incapable of being perceived by the sense of touch…not having
physical presence”. That definitely describes Wilson from what I have
seen. He is buoyant, but not flamboyant. Things just have a tendency to go
right around this kid. He lifts the people around him up. They become more
confident and they play better around him. He is also unflappable under
pressure and, according to his own description, makes a point of staying in the
“now” and not worrying about what has just happened in the game, good or bad. A few days ago on ESPN I caught an interview
with NFL analyst Mark Schlereth as he was talking about Wilson. Noting Wilson’s
remarkable poise under pressure for one so young in the NFL, Schlereth referred
to Wilson as “an old soul” implying that he had NFL wisdom beyond his NFL
years. It was an apt description. The “intangible’ qualities possessed by
Russell Wilson are the same qualities possessed by all truly great players in
team sports and we in Seattle are very fortunate to have such a player as our
Seahawk quarterback. Trust me…they don’t show up very often.
Wilson is even weaving
his spell on jaded old Hawk fans like me, who have seen it all and had our hearts
broken again and again. He has made football fun again and for the first time
in a long time I can say with confidence… look out Promised Land (aka Super Bowl) …here
come Russell Wilson and the Seahawks!
Mark Arnold
23 December, 2012
Copyright©2012 by Mark Arnold
All Rights Reserved
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