Russell Wilson original .Net post after we drafted him

[Hawks46]

I remember all the really bad grades. The biggest knock on Irvin was that it was a reach. Come to find out that there were 3 other teams that owned up to wanting to draft him in the 1st round. A lot of .net was confused by the pick. Most of us hadn't figured out Pete and John's method of madness at this point.

As for Wilson, there were a few people that were stoked about him. I'm calling out Kearly as the biggest early supporter.

Personally, I'm an intangible guy for QB's. You look at every QB that had all the physical measurables, and if they had crap intangibles, they ended up sucking. Guys like Jeff George, Michael Vick, Vince Young, the list goes on and on. I was totally stoked about Wilson's intangibles, but I bought into the height thing and thought he might take a year or two to acclimate to the NFL as a backup before he saw his potential. I'm not sure why I thought this, as I knew that Wilson's OL in college would've been the 3rd biggest OL in the NFL that year.

I also thought Matt Flynn would be a capable starter until Wilson took over. So I was wrong on Flynn, half right on Wilson.


I also love all the draft grades. in the clip above, it shows how much Shraeger really knows haha. He was not only pissed about Wilson and Irvin, but also Wagner. I don't know one draft pundit that didn't like the Wagner pick, but most thought we reached on him.

I'm not sure I've ever seen a draft that the majority of draft "experts" literally knocked every pick, and more than half of those picks ended up being Pro Bowlers and/or All Pro's. Awesome. This was the draft where Pete and John smashed it so good, that the experts got afraid of criticizing our drafts and just started with the whole "I don't understand their draft so I'll give them a B".

 

[Ozzy]

I went nuts about Wilson and argued on a long Facebook thread that he would beat out Flynn. Brock was banging the table for Wilson pre-draft as well. I've missed plenty of times so this isn't a look at me post. Heck I might of subconsciously came to it to be contrarian who knows. Regardless it worked out

 

[razor150]

I remember preferring Cousins to Wilson, and was a little bummed we chose Wilson over him, but I don't remember posting about my preference.

 

[WilsonMVP]

Im not sure exactly when I bought into Wilson. I wanted to see him start in preseason so bad and when he finally got the chance he dominated. I told all my coworkers during the preseason that Wilson would be THE BEST QB in the 2012 draft and so far he has been even though people still think Luck is a top 5 QB..which is just... :roll:

I dont remember what site it was but they had done some stat thing and ranked QBs and Wilson was far and above anyone else but they labeled him an outlier because of his height. I actually just found the article while writing..its worth a read for sure.. http://www.footballoutsiders.com/nfl-dr ... ecast-2012

From the above link

The Asterisk
Russell Wilson, Wisconsin: 2,650 DYAR

Important stats: 48 games started, 60.7% completion rate, senior passer rating rose 64.1 points.

I would be remiss if I didn't at least mention the ridiculous projection that the Lewin Career Forecast spits out for Russell Wilson. Yes, that projection is even higher than the one for Robert Griffin. No, it doesn't particularly mean that Wilson is a sleeper prospect. There are a few things going on here that the LCF is just not designed to account for.

First and foremost, the change in Wilson's passer rating between his junior and senior years is insane. Remember that earlier I noted that Griffin had a larger senior year passer rating increase than any quarterback in our data set? Well, Wilson's senior year passer rating increase is 40 percent larger than Griffin's. But does it matter when the quarterback is playing in a completely different offense for a completely different school in his last year of college eligibility? At Wisconsin, Wilson got to pick apart defenses that were concentrating on stopping Montee Ball. At North Carolina State, I doubt opponents were quaking in their boots at the thought of Mustafa Greene and Dean Haynes. It goes without saying that there isn't another quarterback in the LCF data set who transferred between his junior and senior years.

There's also the issue of height, another data point where there's nobody in our data set that can be compared to Wilson. At first, it seems strange that LCF doesn't include a variable to discount short quarterbacks, but when you look at the data set that went into creating LCF the reasons are pretty clear. There's no penalty for being 5-foot-11, like Wilson is, because there are no quarterbacks in the data set who are shorter than 6-foot-0. There's no penalty for being only 6-foot-0 because the two quarterbacks who are 6-foot-0 are Drew Brees and Michael Vick.

Quarterbacks who are Wilson's height simply don't get drafted in the first three rounds of the draft, period. The FO master database only includes three quarterbacks who are below six feet tall: Seneca Wallace, Joe Hamilton, and Flutie. That's a fourth-round pick, a seventh-round pick, and an 11th round pick from 25 years ago. Even if we go all the way back to 1991, the only quarterbacks taken in the first six rounds at 6-foot-0 or shorter were Vick, Brees, Wallace, Joe Germaine (fourth round, 1999), and Troy Smith (fifth round, 2007).

Wilson too will probably be drafted on the third day of the draft, round four or later, which would render his absurdly high LCF moot.

 

[sutz]

I remember being cautiously optimistic about Wilson. He could obviously play, at least at the collegiate level, and I thought that for a 3rd round pick, he was not a bad deal.

From some of the talk, you'd think we used the 1st overall pick on him. Hard to lose with a 3rd round pick. :229031_shrug:

 

[The Outfield]

Guys, here's something fun. The official net nation fan forum from May 7, 2012:

http://web.archive.org/web/201205070051 ... f62b4a75ca

You can click some of the threads and view the first pages but the web archive won't have any additional pages unfortunately. It doesn't archive forums because that's a ton of (relatively) useless data for their servers. It's fun to read our initial reactions.

 

[TalontedNoseRider]

Being out of state, I find myself listening to borderline unhealthy amounts of 710 am to fill the void. That said, months prior to the draft Brock Huard spoke incessantly of Wilson and all that he could do (and has since done) for the Hawks. I remember thinking to myself: this is so over the top its got insider-trading mojo all over it. Props to Brock. When it's all said and done, more than makes up for Groz's verbal flatulence.

 

[Sports Hernia]

I remember Kip liking Wilson before the draft and was stoked when we took RW.
I remember Gruden going on and on about him just before the pick.

It wasn't until the KC preseason game that's when the good kind of WTF moment on Wilson hit for me.
The thought of the Hawks might have just landed the Ken Griffey Jr of football (not draftswise but superstarwise).

 

[bigtrain21]

Niners Nation poll

 

[Sac]

His segment with Gruden was epic.

 

[TriCHawk]

Guys, here's something fun. The official net nation fan forum from May 7, 2012:

http://web.archive.org/web/201205070051 ... f62b4a75ca

You can click some of the threads and view the first pages but the web archive won't have any additional pages unfortunately. It doesn't archive forums because that's a ton of (relatively) useless data for their servers. It's fun to read our initial reactions.

I like how one of the first things that pops up is the classic Wilson photoshop thread. Good for many laughs.

 

[hawksfansinceday1]

I remember Kip liking Wilson before the draft and was stoked when we took RW.
I remember Gruden going on and on about him just before the pick.

It wasn't until the KC preseason game that's when the good kind of WTF moment on Wilson hit for me.
The thought of the Hawks might have just landed the Ken Griffey Jr of football (not draftswise but superstarwise).

Yeah it was that KC preseason game for me too. I witched him look off a Safety on a TD pass and thought "hmmmm, we got something here".
I posted a thread about it the next day and said the Hawks may have found their QB of the future and talked about that play which is rare for a rook to make as well as his TD to int ratio in college . I didn't get much response which disappointed me but I chalked it up to "Flynnitis".

 

[sc85sis]

I was excited because I'd seen a little of Russell's play and due to Kip waxing poetic about him prior to the draft.

I also remember thinking after rookie minicamp that Pete was probably going to end up making Russell the starter. He just talked about him the same way he had talked about Matt Barkley before making Matt the first true freshman starter in USC history.

 

[TriCHawk]

I remember Kip liking Wilson before the draft and was stoked when we took RW.
I remember Gruden going on and on about him just before the pick.

It wasn't until the KC preseason game that's when the good kind of WTF moment on Wilson hit for me.
The thought of the Hawks might have just landed the Ken Griffey Jr of football (not draftswise but superstarwise).

Yeah it was that KC preseason game for me too. I witched him look off a Safety on a TD pass and thought "hmmmm, we got something here".
I posted a thread about it the next day and said the Hawks may have found their QB of the future and talked about that play which is rare for a rook to make as well as his TD to int ratio in college . I didn't get much response which disappointed me but I chalked it up to "Flynnitis".

I don't follow college much, so I just listen to what people tell me here. The KC game was what set it in stone for me on Wilson being the starting QB. Flynn couldn't make anything happen at all, but Wilson was just making play after play in that preseason, starting with his first game against TEN.

 

[SilkMonkey]

The only player I remember much negativity for was Jermaine Kearse, who was a 2012 UDFA.

And I think it was the drop factor. We had all seen the highlight plays but the open drops.

Thank Russell/John/Pete that he got Lasik - its made a huge difference for him.

 

[Rob12]

I searched, and actually was able to pull it up about a year ago. Should have bumped it. I remember it being pretty good for the most part. A lot of 12's here were stoked.

Maybe Anguish can help us out? Would be cool to relive it again.

 

[MizzouHawkGal]

And oh yeah,



NEVER forget.

Seriously? That pick was the reason I registered here. Of course I kind of lurked for awhile until Les said join in Jo.

I absolutely knew my feeling about him was right after the Kansas City game where they said enough of Matt Flynn.

 

[TwilightError]

I liked the pick but hated making Russ the starter. It was the legendary Wilson-Rice pass against New England that finally convinced me, like so many others.

 

[Rob12]

So it's not the same thing, but if any of you want to check out some rapid reactions from Field Gulls, I found some good stuff in their archives.

Field Gulls: More on Russell Wilson (Pre-draft article)
http://www.fieldgulls.com/2012/3/30/2915198/nfl-draft-2012-more-on-russell-wilson

Field Gulls: The Seahawks Select QB Russell Wilson with Third Round Pick
http://www.fieldgulls.com/2012/4/27...-select-qb-russell-wilson-with-3rd-round-pick

For those wanting to see the reactions of the entirety of the 2012 draft, here's the link I used to move forward and backwards from April 26-28, 2012:

http://www.fieldgulls.com/archives/912

 

[Rob12]

Be sure to read the comments on the Field Gulls articles if you decide to check them out.