Russell Wilson earns something no Seahawks QB had since Matt Hasselbeck — way back in 2004
Russell Wilson has done something that hasn’t happened in 16 years.
The game’s hottest player was named the NFC offensive player of the month on Thursday — because who else was the NFL going to give that award to for September?
Wilson is the first Seattle quarterback to win player-of-the-month honors since Matt Hasselbeck. That was in December 2004.
Wilson had just turned 16 then and was starring in high school sports at The Collegiate School in Richmond, Virginia.
He completed 78% of his passes in September for 925 yards with a league-record 14 touchdowns against one interception that wasn’t his fault (it went through both hands of tight end Greg Olsen). He has an elite passer rating of 139.0 so far this season.
Wilson was the player of the week for two of the season’s first three games. And the week he didn’t win it, week two, he threw for a career high-tying five touchdowns while beating New England. Last weekend Wilson equaled that, passing for five more touchdowns against Dallas.
He broke Patrick Mahomes’ NFL record for most touchdowns through three games. At 14, Wilson enters Sunday’s first game of October, at Miami, two TD passes short of Peyton Manning’s record of scoring throws through four games of a season.
He will get the chance on Sunday against a Dolphins defense that is 25th against the pass, and 31st — next to last in the NFL — in yards allowed per pass play. Both of Miami’s starting cornerbacks are injured. One, Byron Jones, did not play in Miami’s 31-13 win at Jacksonville last week and did not practice Wednesday.
His coach is particularly awed by Wilson’s unusually accurate deep passes. He’s been the league’s top-rated deep-ball passer for years.
“He’s amazing. One of the real aspects of the game that has always captured America ... is that ball flying through the air and comes down to some guy flying down the sidelines. Russ is just a master at that,” Pete Carroll said this week.
“It’s just a spectacle when he plays.”
Wilson is the Seahawks’ first NFC offensive player of the months since Chris Carson in December 2018.
For all the Seahawks’ 31-year-old franchise cornerstone has done is his wondrous career — the winningest quarterback in NFL history over the first seven seasons of a career, Seattle’s first Super Bowl title, six Pro Bowl selections — Wilson has not received even a vote for NFL most valuable player, let alone the award itself.
But Wilson is getting all the early talk for the being the league’s 2020 MVP.
“I don’t want a vote. More importantly, I want to win,” Wilson said last week.
“Obviously, MVP is a special award. The best players in the world, so many great guys. I think of guys like Lamar last year, he was unbelievable last year. Such a great player. Guys like Patrick Mahomes, some other greats, obviously, that still play this game. Tom. Drew (Brees).
“For me, I want to be regarded as one of the best to ever play this game, to be honest with you. It’s part of the process. Hopefully, I can win enough games and do enough special things as a team to be able to do that.
“It’s a team award, really, I think, in terms of the MVP. It’s really a special award, because everybody’s involved in it. Hopefully I can be a part of it. Hopefully we can be a part of that, as a team.”
This story was originally published October 1, 2020 at 11:51 AM.
