For the first time in his 150 career starts as a member of the Seattle Seahawks, quarterback Russell Wilson failed to lead his offense to any points. It came via an ugly 17-0 road loss to the Green Bay Packers in Week 10.
One can question whether Wilson was ready to return from the finger injury he suffered back in Week 5. But the Super Bowl quarterback isn’t making excuses.
“The finger felt fine. The problem with tonight was had two bad plays. I’ve got to play better. And that was on me. There were those two plays. That was really the game,”Wilson told reporters after the game.
By virtue of this ugly loss, Seattle now finds itself at 3-6 on the season and in last place in the NFC West (pending outcome of Monday’s Rams-49ers game). It’s Seattle’s worst nine-game start since back in 2011 — one year before Russell Wilson joined the team. The quarterback also had two interceptions against zero touchdowns in one of the worst performances of his career.
For the Seahawks, the issue is much larger than one game. This 3-6 start comes after an off-season filled with drama between Wilson and the organization and a half-hearted trade request on the part of the future Hall of Fame quarterback.
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Defining moment for Russell Wilson, Seattle Seahawks
Despite boasting a 3-6 record, Seattle finds itself just one game behind the Carolina Panthers in the loss column for the seventh and final playoff spot in the NFC. It is not yet a lost season in the Pacific Northwest. But continued struggles will lead to that eventuality.
Seattle must now take on the first-place Arizona Cardinals in Week 11 before heading to D.C. to take on a Washington Football Team that’s coming off an upset win over the defending champion Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Sunday.
A loss in either one of these games will likely send Seattle out of playoff contention. As for the Week 11 outing against Arizona, there’s a good chance Kyler Murray will return for the Cards after missing the past two games with an ankle injury. It also represents the first of two games against the Cardinals over the final month and half of the season with Seattle having to travel to the desert in Week 18.
What’s the moral of this story? Winning cures all ills. It can help a star player look past the organization-wide issues that he sees behind the scenes. Another lost season, if it were to happen, would change the tone big time between Mr. Wilson and his Seattle Seahawks.
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There’s widespread issues with the Seattle Seahawks
Sunday’s shutout loss to Green Bay brought together the issues that we’ve seen from Seattle under Pete Carroll in recent seasons. Making his first appearance since Week 5, Wilson was sacked three times by Green Bay’s stout defensive front. The star quarterback was also hit a total of five times.
It was several months ago that Russell Wilson took to the media to vent frustration over being hit too much.
“Like any player, you never want to get hit. That’s the reality of playing this position. Ask any quarterback who wants to play this game. I think that the reality is I’ve definitely been hit. I’ve been sacked almost 400 times, so we’ve got to get better,” Wilson told reporters back in February. “I’m frustrated (about) getting hit too much. I’m frustrated with that part of it. At the end of the day, you want to win.”
There’s a reason for this. Since entering the NFL back in 2012, Wilson has been sacked a league-high 410 times. For comparison’s sake, Aaron Rodgers has been sakced just 325 times during that span. Tom Brady? A total of 257 times.
Reality tells us that Seahawks general manager John Schneider has failed to exhaust the necessary draft capital and cash on the offensive line. Consider this. Seattle has used only one first-round pick on an offensive lineman since Wilson joined the team a decade ago. That’s a travesty. And it speaks to larger issues in Seattle right now.
The grass can be greener on the other side for Russell Wilson
Given how much the Seattle Seahawks have regressed in recent seasons, no one would blame Wilson for keeping his eye on other teams. While the Super Bowl signal caller did not specifically request a trade this past off-season, he did give Seattle a list of teams he’d prefer to be traded to. Said list included the Dallas Cowboys, New Orleans Saints, Las Vegas Raiders and Chicago Bears.
Should Wilson decide that 10 seasons is enough in Seattle, he could expand that list of teams when March comes calling. For now, the New Orleans Saints could make sense as the most-ideal scenario given their situation at quarterback and the fact that general manager Mickey Loomis actually isn’t afraid to invest on the offensive line.
Either way we spin it, we could be looking at the final couple handfuls of games with Russell Wilson sporting a Seattle Seahawks uniform. That’s what makes the next couple weeks a defining moment for the organization.