Russell Wilson to Pro Bowl, replacing Tom Brady. Ties Walter Jones for a Seahawks record
Despite his most injured and difficult season, Russell Wilson is going back to the Pro Bowl.
The NFL announced Monday it added the Seahawks’ franchise quarterback to the NFC’s Pro Bowl roster for Sunday’s all-star game in Las Vegas. Wilson replaces reportedly retiring Tom Brady, whom the league says has opted out of the exhibition because of injury.
This is the ninth time in his 10 NFL seasons Wilson is on a Pro Bowl roster. He had been named an alternate when the league announced its all-stars last month. Wilson’s ninth Pro Bowl ties Hall of Fame tackle Walter Jones for most selections in Seattle history.
Wilson posted his reaction online Monday: “Vegas Bound. Blessed!!! #9.”
In the 2021 season Wilson joined Hall of Famer Peyton Manning as the only NFL players to throw at least 20 touchdown passes and for at least 3,000 yards in each of his first 10 years.
That was after Wilson missed games for the first time in his career, three of them in October into November, following surgery on the middle finger of his throwing hand.
Wilson joins linebacker Bobby Wagner and since-injured safety Quandre Diggs as Seahawks named to the Pro Bowl for this season. Seattle finished 7-10.
Diggs broke his leg and dislocated his ankle in the season finale at Arizona Jan. 9. He had surgery in Phoenix a couple days later and will not play in the Pro Bowl.
The Seahawks missed the playoffs for just the second time in Wilson’s and Wagner’s 10 seasons, and Seattle had its first losing season since 2011.
Wilson has two years remaining on the record-setting, $140 million contract he signed in April 2019. Team chair Jody Allen, coach Pete Carroll and general manager John Schneider can with some justification write off much of the team’s issues this past season to Wilson missing games to injury for the first time in his career.
Seattle went 1-2 when Geno Smith started during Wilson’s rehabilitation from finger surgery. Wilson returned Nov. 14 to play at Green Bay, just over four weeks following surgery. His doctor had told him he may miss eight weeks.
The Seahawks got shut out for the first time in Wilson’s career in his return game, at the Packers. They lost the first three games of Wilson’s return, falling to 3-8 and effectively out of realistic postseason contention before the end of November.
Last month Wilson acknowledged he returned before he was fully ready.
“Like I’ve told you guys: I’ve played dinged up before. I’ve played with injuries and things, and not everything goes perfect. I think that’s what you have to do along the way,” he said Dec. 24.
“Was I 100%? Definitely not. But, at the same time, I think you go out there and learn as much as you can learn and play as hard as you can to help us win, and unfortunately it didn’t go our way.”
Yet he finished the season with 3,113 yards passing, and 25 touchdown throws. Wilson’s two touchdown throws to Tyler Lockett in the first half of the season finale at Arizona Jan. 9 moved Wilson past Hall of Famer Dan Marino for the second-most passing TDs in the first 10 seasons of an NFL career. Wilson has 292 TD passes. Manning had the most over the first 10 years, 306.
At times in the final game of this past season, Wilson looked like his Super Bowl versions of the 2013 and ‘14 seasons instead of his erratic, injury-shortened 2021. He had exquisite touch on long passes to Lockett, for the Seahawks’ first touchdown, and to DK Metcalf. The latter set up another of his three scoring throws in the first half.
Wilson also ran like he was 23, not 33. With the game on the line in the fourth quarter, he dashed on a third-down scramble away from pressure and at Cardinals exquisite safety Budda Baker for the go-ahead touchdown from 4 yards out. It was a play of want-to, in the finale of a lost season.
After that game, 12 weeks following surgery, Wilson said the finger and his health were back to 100%.
“I think my hand is doing pretty good,” he said. “I think that it was disappointing just to have my finger broken in several different places. It was a tough challenge.
“But you know what it was? It challenged me in new ways that I had never had before. I have had a lot of dings and things that have slowed me down here or there, and I’ve fought through them. But this one I couldn’t. ...
“I think to not waver on my confidence and not waver on what I know I’m capable of and knowing that I feel 100%, knowing that people are going to say this or that and you may miss one every once in a while, just like pitchers throw a ball every once in a while. Hitters, sometimes they swing and miss. And sometimes great free-throw shooter miss, too.
“So for me, I just knew that I am going to keep shooting, and I am going to keep playing. I am going to do everything that I can to get better.
“And my best days are ahead.”
This story was originally published January 31, 2022 at 10:33 AM.
