Russell Wilson ‘trying to break away. I want to be the best in the world to ever do this’
Let Russ...Proclaim.
On the eve of facing what he calls one of the best coaches and defensive minds in football history in Bill Belichick, the Seahawks’ quarterback is declaring a singular goal.
To be the best ever.
Wilson was asked Thursday if he talked in the offseason to coach Pete Carroll and play caller Brian Schottenheimer about becoming more involved earlier in Seahawks games this season throwing the ball more. He did that last week while shredding the Atlanta Falcons in Seattle’s opener, leaving the “Let Russ Cook” crowd baked.
Wilson laughed at the mere mention of “Let Russ Cook.”
“I come to play this game to be the best in the world. That’s just the bottom line,” Wilson said. “I don’t wake up to try to be anything different.
“So, for me, I’ve always had those talks, ever since I got here, really, to be honest with you. And I think it’s just been a steady process.
“But I think right now going into year nine (of his career), I’m trying to break away, you know what I mean? I want to be the best in the world to ever do this. I’ve got a lot of great players ahead of me. I think about guys like Peyton Manning. I think about guys like Tom Brady and Drew Brees and all guys that I’ve gotten to be pretty close to, to be honest with you. And then you’ve got guys like Joe Montana.
“I want to be remembered. I want to be remembered. And I want to be able to leave a legacy that people can’t ever forget.”
There is a clear shift this season in Wilson in terms of his willingness to publicly proclaim his highest, grandest goals—in football, in his family life, in social and racial justice.
The 31-year-old Super Bowl winner, six-time Pro Bowl quarterback, winningest QB for the first seven seasons of a career, the highest-rated road passer in NFL history doesn’t have a new mindset. He’s said before he seeks and works to be greatest ever. But his blunt, repeated assertions of it this year represent a newer, higher gear, at least publicly.
Respect for the Patriots
Wilson also has obvious respect for Belichick.
“He’s definitely a Hall-of-Fame coach, and arguably the best do ever do it, potentially,” Wilson said Thursday of the coach for six Super Bowl champions during his 21 seasons leading New England.
Belichick agrees Wilson is one of the best there is at playing.
Thursday, the Patriots coach told New England media: “Honestly, I think he’s in a way underrated by the media or the fans, I don’t know. But I don’t really see anybody better than this player.
“This guy is a tremendous player.”
When he was asked Monday by Seattle-area media what difficulties he has preparing his Patriots defense for a good quarterback such as Wilson, Belichick said: “He’s more than a good quarterback.
“He’s one of the top players in the league and has been for his entire career. He’s just a tremendous player, obviously a tremendous person. He’s just really good at everything and you have to defend the whole field with him. He’s very dangerous in the pocket and out of the pocket. He is a great deep ball passer, has excellent vision, super competitive, hard to tackle. He’s a great football player.
“I respect a lot of players—all the players really—but he’s certainly at the top of the list of the people we compete against. He’s tough.”
The home opener for Seattle (1-0) against New England (1-0) Sunday night at empty CenturyLink Field will be the fourth time Wilson has attacked a Patriots defense coached by Belichick. Wilson is 2-1 against Belichick’s Patriots.
The one loss was epic, the worst play of Wilson’s otherwise wondrous career: his goal-line interception to Malcolm Butler in the final seconds to deny the Seahawks, Wilson and coach Pete Carroll their second consecutive Super Bowl title and give New England another title. That was Super Bowl 49 in February 2015.
Mutual respect
Their last meeting was what Belichick this week called “as competitive a game, as I think, as we’ve ever played in our stadium.” That was November 2016 in Foxborough, Massachusetts, in a Sunday night thriller. Wilson’s third touchdown pass of that night to Doug Baldwin, an exquisitely timed and thrown ball well before Baldwin was looking for it in the end zone, with 4 1/2 minutes left became the winning points in Seattle’s startling, 31-24 victory at Gillette Stadium.
The final play of that game was Tom Brady’s pass on fourth down from the 1-yard line to Rob Gronkowski. It sailed incomplete while Kam Chancellor ran with, leaped with and covered the hulking tight end.
“We’ve had a lot of trouble then every time we played them, and of course they beat us here in 2016,” Belichick said. “It came down to final play, but they hung up a lot of points on us, like 30 something points. ...
“He’s very, very resourceful,” Belichick said of Wilson, “and has the ability to do so many things that if you take one thing away from him, he can still kill you doing other things. That’s the mark of a great player and he can make the other players around him better. He consistently does that with all of them.
“He’s problem number one.”
Wilson joked that the talk entering Sunday night’s national-showcase game about him and new Patriots quarterback Cam Newton, in his second game as Brady’s replacement, has been on the wrong two guys.
“Everybody’s talking about me and Cam. I’m thinking about Coach Carroll and Coach Belichick, two of the oldest guys in the game, 69 and 68,” Wilson said, chuckling. “So that’s the interesting match-up here.
“Coach Belichick does a great job of just scheming,” Wilson said. “It’s a numbers game for him. They want to find out the match-ups and everything else. They want to play man to man. They want to play aggressive, but yet also understand that they are going to mix their personel (on defense) and everything else. They want to play nickel, dime and quarters (coverages in the secondary).”
That secondary is the opposite of Wilson’s task last week at Atlanta.
The Falcons’ defensive backs were a weakness Wilson, Schottenheimer and Seattle exploited with eight pass calls in the first 11 plays to a touchdown—on a pass to lead running back Chris Carson from the 3-yard line instead of the Seahawks’ usual run from there. Atlanta had a rookie cornerback starting on one side. The opposite cornerback, Isaiah Oliver, was Wilson’s target when Carroll decided to go for it all on fourth and 5 from the Atlanta 38-yard line in the third quarter for the game’s decisive play. Schottenheimer sent wide receiver DK Metcalf out wide left. Oliver was in press coverage, one on one. Metcalf got inside release on Oliver, blew past him, and Wilson’s perfect pass met Metcalf in stride for the 38-yard touchdown to put Seattle ahead for good, 21-12.
Atlanta’s weakness is absolutely New England’s strength. The Patriots have six defensive backs who could start for most teams. Stephon Gilmore isn’t just the most renowned cornerback in the league, he was the NFL defensive player of the year in 2019.
Jason McCourty starts at the other cornerback spot. His twin brother Devin is a Super Bowl-winning safety Devin is a three-time Super Bowl champion with the Patriots. He doesn’t even start right now.
JC Jackson and Gilmore have the most interceptions since 2017 of any Patriots on their roster. Jackson had five interceptions last year. He had an interception in the red zone to deny Miami its last chance in New England’s 21-11 victory last weekend. Jackson didn’t even start the game.
So if Wilson isn’t 31 for 35 for 322 yards and four touchdowns throwing it all over CenturyLink Field Sunday, it won’t be because of Wilson. It will because of Belichick—and the fact the Seahawks are likely to run against his defense far more than they ran against Atlanta.
“He’s very, very good, obviously, in figuring out how he wants to utilize his players,” Wilson said. “I think that’s the best thing about Coach Belichick and what he does and how he does it.”
This story was originally published September 17, 2020 at 4:59 PM.
