scutterhawk":3ihbhdeq said:
Stunted Wilson's growth is putting it mild, as we all are saying that there's something wrong with Wilsons accuracy, and it seems like he's having a problem with seeing his open receivers.
Ahem.....If you think about how poorly the Running Game is without Unger and in there, but fail to make the connection to Russell Wilson's miscommunication mishaps without Unger's help.
Wilson has to read the Defensive formations, while simultaneously having to take into account for the inept play by an inconsistent Offensive Line, and I don't care who is up behind Center, you are NOT going to come away unscathed.
Drawing a correlation with what Tom Cable had to say a couple games back, about having the toughest job he's ever had, at Coaching a bunch of guys that are still green, turned up the lights for me.
Everybody is saying that Peyton Manning get's rid of the ball so fast, that it isn't a problem....SB XLVIII says otherwise, and too, who does Wilson throw to real fast, when the Defenses mows over his O-Line, and comes straight up into his face?,,,, Percy? Walters? Well, we all saw how that worked out eh?
A lot of the crap that's being leveled against Wilson, is NOT his fault, PERIOD
Wilson has had weird accuracy problems since after the Rams game.
I suspect there is a physical component (injury) we aren't being told about. We saw this at the end of last season and IIRC, we found out much later that Wilson did have a banged up shoulder he was trying to protect.
Whether it's something like a cracked rib, wrist injury, or whatever, it affects his accuracy but not really his velocity. I keep thinking back to the wide open TD flip to an open TE (Helfet) in the Carolina game, where Russ couldn't get the ball out of his hand. Was that due to an injury, where his arm simply didn't obey his mind's commands? The game-winning drive he led vs Carolina was primarily with his running.
Further, Russell *knows* his accuracy isn't up to his usual standard due to injuries affecting his throwing mechanics, he's going to be very reluctant to throw to windows that aren't wide open. And Bevell is going to try to protect him by playcalls that don't ask him to make certain throws that are likely to either tweak the injury further, or where Russell is likely to be so inaccurate as to risk a turnover. And Pete and Cable and Bevell are going to design game plans that feature the run even more heavily than usual, including Russell running, basically taking a big chunk of the passing playbook off the table. But, they don't want to tip off the opponent that Russell can't make all his usual throws, and allow the defense to "cheat", so they have to show just enough in the passing game to keep the defense honest. The risk being, when Russell throws it, it won't always have his usual reliable accuracy.
I'm not saying all the other stuff isn't a factor. I am saying that he has only had this type of accuracy problem before (late last season) when he was secretly nursing an injury. Think about his two picks vs. the Giants... despite all the other issues, OL, new receivers, etc., on both, his read to throw it was fine, and both were passes he normally completes. On the first pick, he knew exactly where he wanted to put it, to P-Rich's outside, away from the defender. Russell's body didn't cooperate, and it was a "ball", not a "steee-riike", and got picked. Same thing on the 2nd pick, Russell made the proper read, found single coverage deep, knew where he wanted to deliver it, to the outside shoulder, but his arm disobeyed, and instead he left a hanging curveball over the heart of the plate, and it got picked. Solely physical, mechanical throwing issues, not really related to OL, receivers, or any mental confusion. Toss in that missed easy TD pass against Carolina, where he couldn't get the ball out... I say the primary issue is Russell is nicked up in a way that affects his throwing mechanics and accuracy. So either it happened late in the Rams game, or early in the Carolina game.
I am proposing "Russell is playing through an injury that affects his throwing accuracy" as a hypothesis, not stating it as "fact". However, to me, it seems like this fits the data and more completely explains what we've seen since Carolina (physical throwing inaccuracy) than any explanation that omits this factor.
