Popeyejones":21ba8emb said:
^^^ The obvious answer is opening up the offense, but I think that can run the risk of confusing cause and effect a little bit.
To a lesser degree it's like asking why Devonta Freeman looked like the best starting RB in the NFL for six games from weeks 3 (when he took over) through 8, and then looked like the worst starting RB in the NFL for seven games from weeks 9-17.
With these types of splits I think you just gotta go throw your hands up and go with the safest hypothesis, which is high variance in small sample sizes.
Wilson almost certainly ain't as bad as he was in games 1-9 and the playoffs, just as he almost certainly ain't as good as he was in games 10-16 of the regular season. Put another way, he's as unlikely to throw 50 TDs against 2 Ints next year (weeks 10-16 projected out) as he's unlikely to only throw 20 TDs against 15 Ints next year (weeks 1-9 and the playoffs projected out).
I view Wilson's last-half breakout similarly to how I viewed the last-half breakout in his rookie season when we dropped 50-burgers with regularity. In both cases, we had added an element that it took defenses some time to adjust to, but adjust they did, and we were back to running the ball and throwing now and then. In fact, we were right back to that approach vs. Carolina in the playoffs, although I don't know if that was because Carolina demonstrated on film an ability to stymie a quick passing approach, or whether Pete got conservative and went to his bread and butter approach (I favor the latter explanation).
A quarterback like Tom Brady seems to be able to keep the quick-passing offense going year after year, but for one, Wilson will never have *quite* the command Brady does over the short middle and for two, Brady's stats aren't consistently gaudy with that approach. What I like about the Patriots, though, is that they are adept at the counter-counter-adjustments in a way that Seattle has not proved to be.
What I can say is that the beginning of next season will be interesting. Our OL will be it's usual dumpster fire for the first half of the season as we replace 4/5 positions, which seems to be the mission statement hanging over the Seahawk desk. That would be the time to rely on quick passing, one would think, but I can just as easily see Pete deciding that handing the ball off more is a better option for keeping Russell healthy.