Russell Wilson appreciates Chris Carson, Doug Baldwin, shares regrets from first Seahawks years
Russell Wilson has no regrets about the two top weapons he has in, and coming back to, the Seahawks offense.
“Chris Carson is a superstar waiting to really break out,” Wilson said Thursday of Seattle’s running back.
Carson’s career highs of 102 yards on 32 carries in last weekend’s win over Dallas finally fulfilled Seattle’s promise to run the ball more this season.
“There’s not many people who can do what he can do,” Wilson said of his second-year runner.
After two mysterious games of not using Carson (13 carries total in the first two games, losses at Denver and at Chicago), Seattle appears to have Carson back in the middle of the offense for Sunday’s NFC West test at Arizona (0-3).
And now Wilson is getting his top receiver back, too. Doug Baldwin returned to practice Wednesday and Thursday for the first times since he partially tore the medial collateral ligament in his right knee Sept. 9 in the first half of the loss to the Broncos.
Coach Pete Carroll has yet to definitively say Baldwin will play Sunday against the Cardinals. But it sure looked and sounded Thursday like he will.
“Doug looks great,” Wilson said. “He’s a star receiver in the National Football League. He can do a lot of great things for us. To see Doug out there — I don’t know if he’s going to play this weekend, that’s Coach and Doug and everybody, the trainers and everybody else — but he’s really getting there, that’s for sure.”
The Pro Bowl wide receiver said Thursday “I’m ready to go” after missing his first two games since 2012, his second season in the NFL with Seattle.
“I’m still a little frustrated, because I feel like I am still being held back a little bit,” Baldwin said. “But I understand why: precautionary reasons. But I’m chomping at the bit. I’m ready to go. This is what I do. So I’m excited to get back out there.”
So all signs are good for Wilson to be more fully equipped on offense at Arizona than he and the Seahawks have been in three weeks.
In his weekly press conference at team headquarters, Wilson explained he does have one regret, though, from his first years in the NFL, 2012 and ‘13. He was the Seahawks’ starter from game one of his career and by the end of the 2014 season was the first NFL quarterback to start two Super Bowls within his first three seasons.
“I wish when I was younger, my first two years or so, I think just being a little bit more outgoing, I guess, just personally,” the 29-year-old Wilson said, in a rare moment of public introspection amid his usually programmed, team-centric comments. “When you are trying to learn everything, trying to understand everything, you have this big, heavy weight dropped on your shoulders, you know. You have to go for it. Especially with the caliber of the team that we had... the ultimate goal was to win it all...
“My first few years in my life in the National Football League, that was pretty strict: just, just football. And I think that as life changes and things happen — I have kids now, and everything else — you find a beautiful balance of trying to handle all that. I think that’s been the best thing for me, in a positive, just to understand that and grow in that way.
“You are in the building so much. It’s just a chance to breathe, I guess,” Wilson said. “I think now, with two kids at home... life changes. I try to change more diapers nowadays. I try to focus on trying to spend more time in the mornings. Sometimes Friday and Saturday mornings are my best mornings, Tuesdays (the players’ normal off days) are the best days because I get to focus on my kids a little bit more than just football.”
Tuesday are also the days Wilson continues to thrill patients and family at Seattle Children’s hospital. He and his wife Ciara did it again this Tuesday, as they have for years.
“You do everything focused on just football. And I think that’s a good balance you have to have, in life, to have kids and everything else,” Wilson said. “That’s the thing I think I have grown in the most, is just to being grateful for time.”
His message: Nearing 30 years old, seven seasons into his career, married with two young kids and two years remaining on his $87.6 million contract that ends after the 2019 season, Wilson has a perspective that’s grown beyond converting third downs and “staying on schedule” with down and distance during football games.
“You get better at life,” Wilson said. “You get better at your position, at your job. You get better at being a dad. You get better at being a husband. You try to learn things. And you just try to get better. That’s just my competitive mindset in that way.”
This story was originally published September 27, 2018 at 3:22 PM.