Aros":2uwyu5t8 said:
Meanwhile there's still a ton of old coots who won't give him his due because he's not the "prototypical" tall, pocket-passing NFL QB.
I don't understand this. If you look at most fans outside of the Seahawks, they rate Wilson pretty highly. The media also isn't exactly ambivalent towards him either. They don't exactly bash him, and certain analyst are head over heels in love with the guy. Honestly, I think the majority of the media (guys not looking for click bait) have Wilson rated where he needs to be.
He's a very good QB, but he's really gated by the system he plays in. Even when he was putting up big numbers he struggled for most of the game (2015 not included). Lack of third down conversions, erratic throws, etc. A lot of this has to do with Carroll's offensive philosophy, not on Wilson himself. He is limited by his staff more than any other veteran QB in the NFL. The main reason for this? Carroll believes that the toxic differential is more important than anything else. Carroll's offense is essentially the offensive equivalent of the prevent defense
Carroll's view on the toxic differential isn't necessarily wrong, but there is a balance that I think must be struck. To other NFL fans, and analyst who watch the Seahawks occasionally don't really understand Pete's take on things. It becomes really easy to blame the inconsistent offensive play on the QB, because he is the most important figure on offense. Really, it is a function of Pete Carroll's philosophy of protect the ball above all else. This leads to the Seahawks avoiding certain parts of the field, avoiding certain types of common plays in the NFL, etc. It isn't that Wilson can't, he did it in 2015, it's that Pete Carroll doesn't want that from his teams.
This is why it is so hard to get a good idea of what Russell Wilson truly is capable of, especially if he had an offensive guru bringing him up. We have a system that is unlike any other in the NFL, and to a person on the outside looking in it is really easy to blame Wilson for us running that type of system. Looking at the whole picture it is the same system we ran with Hasselbeck here, a QB that built his whole career on throwing guys open, and delivering timing passes. He was a rhythm QB, forced to play in a system that didn't suit his skill set.
