Seahawks’ offensive ace Russell Wilson is on the defensive after his latest mistakes, loss
Russell Wilson sat alone on a metal, sideline bench.
He was leaning his forearms onto his thighs, staying into the screen of a mobile tablet. It was showing him the latest looks from the Rams’ defense, looks that were doing what Buffalo’s looks did the previous week.
Beating him.
Looks? Wilson looked like he needed a hug.
He apparently appeared that way after Seattle’s latest loss, too, 23-16 at Los Angeles on Sunday. Three more of his turnovers wasted the Seahawks’ shredded defense rising up in the second half.
In the locker room at the bottom of palatial SoFi Stadium, teammate Jamal Adams sensed his quarterback’s need.
“You the chosen one, man,” the All-Pro safety told Wilson.
“I don’t want nobody else as my quarterback.”
It’s a startlingly fast, cruel path from favorite for the NFL most valuable player award to where Wilson is now: needing teammates’ giving him pick-me-ups.
He and the Seahawks are suddenly in third place in the NFC West. They are looking up at the Rams (6-3) and the Arizona Cardinals (6-3). That’s because of three losses—and 10 turnovers by Wilson—in the last four games.
Wilson has seven turnovers—four interceptions and three lost fumbles—in the last two weeks while losing at Buffalo and L.A. It’s the first time since weeks four and five of his rookie season, 2012, that Wilson has thrown multiple interceptions in consecutive games.
After his latest loss, he even got publicly scolded by his biggest supporter.
Pete Carroll said Wilson’s continued turnovers are inexcusable and intolerable. The veteran coach knows with his last-ranked defense, there is no room for Wilson’s mistakes, pretty much any of them, for Seattle to win this season.
In fact, Wilson has to be perfect, or nearly so, for this team to succeed. It’s happened six times. It hasn’t happened three times.
Seattle is 6-3.
“With all of the emphasis that we have on it, to turn the ball over—what’s it, seven times in the last two weeks?—is just...I don’t even recognize that kind of execution where we are giving the ball up,” Carroll said.
That’s as much as a rebuke as the 69-year-old coach will give the man he gave the franchise’s reigns in his first game as a rookie eight years ago.
That’s all why, for one of the few times in his magical nine-year career Sunday evening, the Seahawks’ indispensable offensive leader was on the defensive.
It was as if Seattle’s only quarterback to win a Super Bowl, the franchise’s holder of just about every passing and winning record, could hear the Pacific Northwest’s doubters screaming at him all the way down in So Cal.
“The reality is, I know who I am. I know that I am a great football player,” Wilson said, answering a question about all the turnovers. “I know I’ve been great. I know I will be great. I’ll continue to be great.
“I know that there are better days ahead.”
The Seahawks absolutely hope so.
Wilson began this season with 19 touchdown passes and three interceptions through five games, all wins.
He’s thrown for nine touchdowns with seven interceptions the last four games, three of them losses.
Wilson’s first interception Sunday was baffling, among his worst decisions in recent seasons.
His defense had finally come up with a huge play it desperately needed to slow down the Rams, who gained 275 yards and led 17-7 in their often-runaway first half. Adams stripped quarterback Jared Goff of the ball as L.A.’s quarterback was trying to throw. Seahawks new fill-in cornerback D.J. Reed recovered the fumble at the Rams 27-yard line late in the second quarter.
Then Wilson scrambled up the middle after dropping to pass. He had only one, distant Rams defender between him, open field and the goal line. Instead he threw wildly across his body to the deep left, where three Los Angeles defensive backs were massed. Wilson was trying to throw to tight end Will Dissly, who had broken open earlier along the left sideline of the end zone. Rams cornerback Darious Williams moved over, jumped and rather easily intercepted the lofted gift of a throw for Wilson’s ninth interception this season.
It was his sixth interception in 3 1/2 games.
“Just a bad decision,” Wilson said. “I should have just took off and ran it.”
Wilson then undermined his team’s attempts to come back from down 23-13 in the fourth quarter. He bent down for a low shotgun snap from fill-in center Kyle Fuller, who was playing on a high-ankle sprain he got earlier in the game. Instead of falling on the ball Wilson tried to make a ridiculous play out of danger, as he had earlier this season when a snap failed far over his head in a last-second win over Minnesota.
This time, the ball skipped off the turf at his feet. The Rams recovered the fumble.
He denied, for the second postgame Zoom press conference in as many weeks, that he feels added pressure to make more plays with the last-ranked defense horridly struggling most of this season.
Of his confidence of trying to turn that mess on the fumbled snap into a big play, Wilson shrugged—and went basketball for a moment.
“I guess there’s good and bad in it all,” he said.
“If you don’t shoot, you’re never going to make it.”
His second interception Sunday and 10th of the U-turned season came when Williams expertly leaped over the back of tight end Greg Olsen to intercept Wilson’s throw with 8 minutes left. That also kept Seattle down 23-13.
“The guy made a great play,” Wilson said.
Mr. #NoTime2Sleep is Mr. NoTime2WallowInPity this week.
The Cardinals, the team that ended Seattle’s unbeaten start to the season and started Wilson’s slide with three interceptions of him in their overtime win Oct. 25, are coming to Seattle for a Thursday night game.
It’s another big one for the Seahawks in an NFC West they are looking up in for the first time this uneven season.
After dropping to 32-9 in his career after an in-season loss, the former Class-A baseball player in Tri-Cities made a baseball analogy for his day, and month, so far.
“Sometimes you go up to the plate and, you know, you don’t have your way,” he said. “So that’s what it was today.
“So I look forward to getting back after it, getting back to work, and just finding my best again.
“I have no doubt that greatness is in store. I have no doubt that we are going to get back on track. I have no doubt that we as a team are going to find a way, and we are going to have better days ahead.”
