SEATTLE — There was a bizarre aura about CenturyLink Field during the second half of Sunday’s game between the Seattle Seahawks and the San Francisco 49ers.
On the scoreboard it showed the Seahawks in the midst of a rout, with the game eventually ending with a 37-18 Seattle victory that was nowhere near as close as the score indicated. And yet the stands were awash in worried fidgeting and gnashing of teeth, with all eyes trained not on the action on the field, but rather on a lone figure gingerly walking along the sideline.
Funny how a quarterback injury can drum up excitement in a blowout.
Seattle’s victory could have been a Pyrrhic one, considering quarterback Russell Wilson had to leave the game because of an injury to his left knee. However, it seems that Wilson and the Seahawks may have dodged a bullet.
“He was lucky,” said Seahawks coach Pete Carroll, who characterized the injury as a sprain. “He was in a bad situation, he knows it, too. He lucked out that it wasn’t worse.”
Wilson was overcoming his sprained right ankle with a stellar performance when, midway through the third quarter, he was left writhing on the turf for the second time in three weeks. Seattle had third-and-23 from the San Francisco 39-yard line when Wilson was flushed to his right. The 49ers’ Eli Harold caught up to Wilson and brought him down with a horse-collar tackle, and in the process Harold landed on Wilson’s left leg, causing it to buckle. Wilson remained on the ground, and although he eventually got up under his own power, he was left limping on the sidelines as Trevone Boykin was summoned into the game. It was the first time Wilson missed a play because of injury in his five-year NFL career.
The crowd was hushed. The press box was hushed. Even Wilson’s teammates were hushed.
“My heart dropped,” Seahawks wide receiver Doug Baldwin said. “It was weird because I hadn’t felt like that in a long time.”
But just when it seemed the Seahawks had a quarterback crisis on their hands, there was Wilson trotting back onto the field, having missed just a single play.
Against the will of his coaches, it turns out.
“When he went back in, he kind of did that on his own, and we had to kind of yank him after that,” Carroll said.
“I don’t know if I did it on my own,” Wilson countered. “I told them, maybe they didn’t hear me. I said, ‘Guys, I’m going back out, see you there.’”
Wilson finished out the drive, but afterward he continued to undergo treatment on the sideline, with a brace being placed on his knee. The Seahawks eventually said enough was enough, confiscating Wilson’s helmet and wrapping his knee in ice with the Seahawks leading 27-3.
Wilson’s day was done. But fortunately for the Seahawks, that may be the extent of the time that Wilson misses.
“I am fortunate,” Wilson said. “I don’t think it was as severe as it may have looked, thank God. I’ll do some tests and check all that stuff out, but I’m walking fine and all that, moving well and I have good mobility.”
Up to the point of the injury Wilson was playing great. After opening the season with two games in which the offense was stuck in neutral, the Seahawks came flying out of the gates against the 49ers. Wilson was finding all kinds of joy in the vertical passing game, hooking up with Baldwin and Jimmy Graham on throws deep down the field. He finished the game 15-for-23 for 243 yards and a touchdown, his passer rating of 114.9 was more than 30 points better than either of his first two outings.
And Wilson pulled it off despite his sprained ankle. Indeed, Wilson’s mobility was noticeably better than it was during last weekend’ 9-3 loss to the Los Angeles Rams. Keeping the ball on the read option to pick up a first down early in the second quarter was an indication of the progress his ankle has made.
“I thought he played great today,” Carroll said. “I love the way he played. He did everything we needed him to do. I thought he played terrific. We were 65-percent on third downs, and he’s controlling it and hitting the big plays down the field — great post route and great wheel route up the sidelines to Doug, just fantastic throws to Jimmy. I thought he played great.”
Carroll said Wilson would have come back into the game had it been close. Wilson will undergo an MRI on his knee, but he’s confident it will come back clean.
And once again Wilson proves he’s the ultimate escape artist.
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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