With game--season?--on line Russell Wilson makes the winning play, Aaron Rodgers does not
Russell Wilson has his contract expiring after next year.
Aaron Rodgers, five years older than Wilson with the same number of Super Bowl rings (one), set the market Wilson and his agent will use next year as a benchmark in negotiations with the Seahawks. In August he got $134 million for four years from the Packers, $33.5 million per year.
There’s been talk across the Pacific Northwest this fall that based on the first nine games of this season, Wilson does not deserve $30-plus million per year from Seattle.
Make that the first nine games plus one quarter. After Wilson’s 12 yards passing and two overthrows that would have been touchdowns in the first period Thursday night, the fans at CenturyLink Field were booing him. The Seahawks were down 14-3 to Rodgers’ Packers.
They weren’t booing at the end.
Forget the mere numbers from the Seahawks’ huge, 27-24 rally past Green Bay: Wilson’s 21-for-31 night with 225 yards, three sacks and two touchdowns versus Rodgers’ 21 for 30 for 332 yards, five sacks and two scores. Rodgers got 214 of his yards passing in the first half, after which Green Bay led 21-17.
In the fourth quarter, in winning time, it was Wilson who made the winning plays.
And it was Rodgers, the two-time NFL MVP, who made an incredible, losing one.
Wilson looks a lot more worthy of Rodgers’ $30-plus million per year this morning, eh?
“Man,” 11-year veteran left tackle Duane Brown said of Wilson, shaking his head, “he’s incredible. Incredible.
“I mean, you watch him his whole career, and he’s always finding a way to make plays. And he did tonight, in crunch time.”
Wilson, his offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer and his tight end Ed Dickson won the game before the game-winning play.
They simply out-smarted the Packers.
In the three short days between last weekend’s five-point loss at the Rams and Thursday’s game, Schottenheimer worked Wilson and his veteran tight end in his first season with Seattle on a slot-formation play to exploit a Green Bay double blitz they’d seen coming off the offense’s left edge. They planned for Green Bay cornerback Josh Jackson and linebacker Clay Matthews to storm free off the end, and leave middle linebacker Blake Martinez responsible with dropping and sliding hard from left center to right for a difficult cover behind Matthews’ blitz. Schottenheimer drew up a formation that put Dickson in the short left slot a few yards wider than his normal tight on left end. That would make Martinez’s job harder in covering him from the other hash mark. If Matthews blitzes, Dickson was to run a quick go route behind where he just vacated. If Matthews fakes and stays, Dickson was to run a drag route across the field away from him and past Martinez.
As Brown said after Thursday’s game, the Packers rarely blitzed Seattle. It looked like the game may end with Schottenheimer’s installed play going for naught. But with 5:11 to go and the Seahawks facing third and 9 at the Green Bay 15 down 24-20, the Packers blitzed. Wilson and Dickson noticed the exact blitz look from the Packers they’d been waiting for.
Wilson looked at Dickson, who looked at Wilson, who could not wait to get the shotgun snap from center Justin Britt. The quarterback screamed and smacked his hands together urgently.
Britt finally snapped it. On cue, Jackson and Matthews crashed in off Seattle’s left edge. Wilson took one step after he got the ball and fired a dart to Dickson, who ran that simple seam route straight down the field. It was refreshingly simple, an old-school “pop” pass to the tight end. And it was sumblime. As designed, Wilson’s pass arrived too quickly for Martinez to get there in time. Dickson easily caught the pass and ran free for the go-ahead touchdown.
“It was one of the looks that we were working on, you’re right,” coach Pete Carroll said when I asked him about the preparation for that play.
“Russ’s timing and Ed’s timing was just perfect. Ed had to peek over his shoulder on that like he was coming out hot because he didn’t know whether it was a blitz or not. And Russ saw it, he saw it, and they hit it and it was just a great veteran move by Ed Dickson. A beautiful play.”
Yes, it was. The kind of play a rookie tight end—heck, a fourth-year tight end—probably doesn’t recognize and execute.
It was 35 years of combined NFL experience creating a win: Schottenheimer’s 19 years as an assitant coach and coordinator in the league, Wilson’s seven seasons and Dickson’s nine, with Baltimore, Carolina and now this first one with Seattle.
And it was a play the Seahawks wouldn’t have made even a month ago. Dickson missed the first six games with groin and quadriceps injuries in his leg.
His savvy recognition Thursday revived the season for Seattle (5-5).
“Pre-snap, you’ve got to see everything,” Dickson said. “My route could have gone across the field, or it could have gone vertical. So the void was vertical. I took off vertical. Russ put in a pretty good ball right there. By then (for Martinez) it was too late. Russ put a hot ball out there, and got a chance to score a touchdown.”
Wilson also said of the exact play at the exact right time: “We got a lot of work on it during practice and everything else.
“Ed made a vet play, and we were able to see what we were trying to do.”
I asked Dickson how excited he got in the seconds Wilson was demanding the snap to get the play started before the Packers could retreat out of the blitz or change their call.
He laughed.
“You’ve just got to focus at that moment, because, you know, I’ve seen it too many times and you don’t make the play because you are overanxious,” he said. “So I get some of the credit, but a lot of the credit goes out to Russ, and the O-line for giving him time.
“I work all week to get my opportunities. And it’s all about opportunity.”
Rodgers had his chance, too.
On third and 2 from the Green Bay 33 with 4:23 left and the Packers now down 27-24, Rodgers had rookie wide receiver Marquez Valdes-Scantling wide open on a simple 2-yard out route to his route. For one of the few times in the second half, in which Seattle got four of its five sacks of him, Rodgers had plenty of time to throw. It was a quick drop and easy flip of a pass, even for a high-school quarterback.
Amazingly, inexplicably, Rodgers tossed a wild lawn dart. It stuck in the turf a yard in front of Valdes-Scantling’s feet. Incomplete instead of first down.
Carroll said the pass had to have been tipped by a Seahawk defensive lineman at the line. That’s how off the throw was. But, no, no one touched it—but Rodgers.
Packers coach Mike McCarthy regrettably decided to punt on fourth and 2 with 4 minutes left, despite having just one time out. The Seahawks’ offense then stayed on the ground, Mike Davis got a first down, and Seattle ran out the clock for the huge win.
With the game on the line, the best quarterback of this era, one of the best in any era, the highest-paid one at $134 million, looked like Trevone Boykin.
“The ball just stuck to my hand and went in the dirt. Frustrating,” Rodgers said. “Obviously, I’ve done that (pass) a hundred times and probably will never do that again. It was a gimmie, a gimmie out there.
“Stuck to my hand.”
And in his craw.
McCarthy’s decision to punt was almost as dubious.
The Packers coach said he gave consideration to going for it.
“Definitely,” McCarthy said. “There was definitely consideration, but we had just the one time out and the ability to stop the clock with 2 minutes left. We played the numbers. We did consider taking a timeout and going for it on fourth and 2.”
In the end, he didn’t.
Rodgers didn’t.
And Wilson did.
“There’s a lot more to do,” Wilson said. “We have our heads down. We are right in the midst of the fire, right in the midst of the storm, right where we want to be.
“We just believe that we have everything we need. ...We’re going to make the best of it.”
This story was originally published November 16, 2018 at 7:32 AM.
