SEATTLE — Week after week Russell Wilson and the Seattle Seahawks have insisted Wilson was feeling better.
The story out of the Seahawks camp during the run up to recent games was that the injuries that hindered Seattle’s quarterback since the opening week of the season were improving. That the Seahawks weren’t limiting him for the following week’s game. That he’d be normal.
Yet every weekend when game time arrived, there was Wilson looking like a shadow of his usual explosive self.
Well, Monday night we finally saw a glimpse of the real Russell Wilson.
Wilson looked the healthiest he’s been since the opener as he led the Seahawks to their 31-25 victory over the Buffalo Bills on Monday night at CenturyLink Field.
Wilson’s offensive stats were tremendous. He completed 20 of 26 passes for 282 yards and two touchdowns. He was the main reason why a Seattle offense that had managed just one touchdown in its previous 23 possessions was able to get back on track.
“I thought Russ really played a terrific football game tonight,” Seahawks coach Pete Carroll said. “I thought (offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell) called a great game tonight. We went after it in the throwing game tonight and that’s just kind of the way it stayed.”
But perhaps most importantly, both for Monday’s result and for the Seahawks going forward, was that Wilson was moving more like he usually does.
Wilson hasn’t been himself since suffering a sprained right ankle in Seattle’s season-opening 12-10 victory over the Miami Dolphins. He later suffered a sprained left knee in Week 3 against the San Francisco 49ers, then a strained right pectoral muscle in Week 6 against the the Arizona Cardinals.
The leg injuries took Wilson’s running ability away, as he came into Monday’s game with just 44 yards on 25 carries after averaging more than 600 yards on the ground each of the previous four seasons. Then the pectoral injury took away his ability to throw long as the Seahawks never challenged New Orleans deep last week in their 25-20 loss to the Saints.
But we saw all the elements of the real Russell Wilson on Monday night.
Pectoral muscle? On Seattle’s fifth play from scrimmage Wilson aired the ball out, hitting Doug Baldwin on a 50-yard pass that put the Seahawks inside the Buffalo 5-yard line.
Sprained ankle and sprained knee? On the very next play Wilson called his own number, faking a handoff and running around the right edge for a 3-yard touchdown, his first rushing touchdown this season. Later in the first half Wilson scrambled for a first down, something that he hadn’t been able to do since suffering his injuries.
No, Wilson wasn’t completely back to 100 percent. But he’s getting closer.
“I felt great out there,” Wilson said. “I felt as normal as possible. I felt really strong, I felt quick, I felt fast. I didn’t try to push it too much; I tried to be smart. I had the one run where I got the first down and probably could have gone a little further, but I looked back and said, ‘Nah, let’s go down, I’ve been in the training room too much.’ So I felt really strong, really good.”
That’s something the Seahawks have been waiting a long time for, and following Monday’s game Carroll gave in and admitted that Wilson has been far from right.
“Russell is finally running,” Carroll said. “He ran a little bit tonight. It can’t be more obvious. I don’t read the papers so I don’t know what you’re writing, but we’re not the same right now, and we haven’t been for eight weeks. That’s just he way it is. Russell is an extraordinary football player. You saw the effects of a quarterback running his butt off like that (in Buffalo’s Tyrod Taylor, who ran for 43 yards and a score), that guy was phenomenal tonight, we couldn’t get him down. That’s what Taylor’s all about, and that’s what Russell is like. That factor has not been there. Is it going to be the same? You can keep asking for it to be the same and it’s not going to be. It’s not the same yet.
“I’m so impressed and so thrilled to see what Russell has pulled off to make it through this time, to play for his teammates, and play for this team, and keep us moving forward, and keep us where we are with a lot of upside ahead of us.”
And with the Seahawks improving to 5-2-1 despite Wilson’s injuries, those words about upside have to be foreboding for the rest of the NFC.
For more on the Seattle sports scene, check out Nick Patterson’s Seattle Sidelines blog at www.heraldnet.com/tag/seattle-sidelines, or follow him on Twitter at @NickHPatterson.
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