Russell Wilson wasn’t quite himself against Oakland
Nov 3, 2014, 9:21 AM | Updated: 10:17 am
Russell Wilson's 48.6-percent completion rate Sunday against Oakland was his lowest of the season. (AP)
(AP)
BY
Former Seattle Sports Host
The Seahawks didn’t win Sunday’s game in spite of Russell Wilson.
Seattle’s quarterback wasn’t quite that bad against the Raiders.
But the Seahawks didn’t win the game because of him, either, which stands in sharp contrast to the team’s three most recent victories in which Wilson out-dueled Peyton Manning in an overtime game, rushed for 100 yards on Monday night against Washington and guided Seattle on a game-winning touchdown drive in Carolina.
On Sunday against Oakland, Wilson played a game that could be summarized by a sound: meh.
“It was hard for him,” coach Pete Carroll said afterward. “I spent some time talking to him. It was hard to get in rhythm, and he never really felt it throughout the course of the game.”
It’s not that Wilson was bad. He passed for 179 yards, which was more than he threw for against Dallas. He was nearly picked off twice by D.J. Hayden, the first ball dropped by the Raiders cornerback and the second coming on a play that was initially ruled to be an interception but was overturned on replay review.
Mostly, it was Wilson’s accuracy. He was 17 for 35 for a 48.6-percent completion rate, his lowest of the season. In fact, there have only been five games in Wilson’s NFL career in which he has had a lower completion percentage, and the Seahawks lost three of those five games.
Wilson was blunt in his self-assessment afterward.
“I didn’t think I played well at all for whatever reason,” he said. “And usually, I know why.”
But after Sunday’s game, he wasn’t quite sure.
“For whatever I was trying to do, it just wasn’t working,” Wilson said.
If there’s a bright side to that, it’s that Seattle isn’t so utterly dependent on its quarterback that it needs his best effort to win every game. After all, Seattle beat San Francisco last season at home in Week 2, a game where Wilson completed just eight of 19 pass attempts.
The reality in this injury-plagued season is that the Seahawks needed to recover an onside kick in the final 2 minutes to clinch a game at home against a winless Raiders team, showing that the way Seattle is playing as a team right now doesn’t leave the quarterback all that much margin for error.
“He wasn’t as sharp as he’s been,” Carroll said of Wilson’s game.
Seattle will need Wilson to be on point through the second half of the season.
