Pete Carroll excited by Russell Wilson’s growth
Sep 4, 2014, 5:14 PM | Updated: 5:18 pm
BY
Former Seattle Sports Lead Editor
Seattle’s season opener against Green Bay pits two of the NFL’s best quarterbacks, one entering his 10th season and another who only seems like he’s been in the league that long.
So poised, mature – and not to mention accomplished – is Russell Wilson that it’s easy to sometimes forget that his NFL career is only two years old. And as Wilson enters Year 3, coach Pete Carroll says Seattle’s quarterback is becoming more comfortable.
“Russell is just really benefiting from the time in the same system and the same language, the same players,” he told KIRO Radio 97.3 FM Thursday. “He’s really seeing things well and hopefully that will be part of the start of the season.”
No other starting quarterback in the Super Bowl era has more wins in his first two seasons than Wilson, who has a 28-9 career record when taking the postseason into account. But for all that Wilson has accomplished so far, there’s still a great deal of room to grow.
Where has that growth been evident?
“I think it’s just his comfort with everything that it calls for to play this position,” Carroll said. “It’s so challenging, it’s so hard and he works so hard at it, but it just takes time to settle into the rhythm of what he needs to see and analyze, the sense of where the plays are supposed to go, (where) his reads are supposed to take him. It just takes time to get enough turns where you really can own it. And he’s not there yet, but he’s way better than he’s been and he’s real excited about it – we all are – and we’ve seen the benefits.”
Wilson’s preseason – for what it’s worth – was phenomenal. He finished with a 78.6 completion rate, six total touchdowns, zero interceptions and a 133.8 QB rating.
“He can play at a real high clip,” Carroll said. “You’ve seen him in this preseason – which isn’t a great indicator but it’s a good one – and he’s been able to play at a really high level and his completion percentage is way up, his efficiency, his red-zone and third-down numbers, all of that stuff that has to do with the excellence at that position, it’s really at a high level.
“So we’ll feel as good as you can going into the opener, and really now the games begin.”
