SEATTLE — Late in what to that point had been one the worst games of his career, Russell Wilson called his shot.
Heading into overtime, the Seattle Seahawks quarterback had thrown a career-high four interceptions and completed fewer than half of his pass attempts. Yet he still felt compelled to tell offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell not just that he was going to lead the Seahawks to victory in the NFC championship game, he outlined how it would happen.
“I told Bevell on the sideline right when we won the coin toss, ‘I’m going to hit (Jermaine) Kearse for a touchdown on a check’” Wilson said. “And sure enough, we did.”
Up until that throw, four of the five passes thrown to Kearse had resulted in interceptions — the other went incomplete — with two of them going directly off the receiver’s hands to a Packers defender.
Yet Wilson had faith both in himself and his receiver, and the result was, as Wilson predicted, an audible at the line of scrimmage and a 35-yard touchdown pass to Kearse to win the game.
“When you’re down the stretch, you want Russell Wilson, and I think everybody in America knows that,” Seahawks tight end Luke Willson said. “If they didn’t, they know it now. And we’ll throw Canada in there too. He’s got so much poise. He is never affected.”
And let’s not kid ourselves, this was in no way Wilson’s best game or anything close to it. He was, in fact, pretty bad for much of the game and finished 14-for-29 for 209 yards and a passer rating of 44.9. But his resilience down the stretch was a huge difference in the game.
When the Seahawks got the ball with 3:52 to play in the fourth quarter, there was no logical reason to think they’d get the two touchdowns they needed to come back to take the lead, let alone one more in overtime. Not with the way Wilson and the offense were playing.
But on Seattle’s next three possessions, all of them touchdowns, Wilson was 6-for-7 for 134 yards and a touchdown while also rushing three times for 20 yards and a score. He also made magic happen on Seattle’s two-point conversion, buying time with his legs before floating a pass across the field to Willson.
On one of the worst days of his career, Wilson flipped the switch in dramatic fashion.
“We know he’s a fighter,” left tackle Russell Okung said. “He showed plenty of resolve coming through. He just kept playing, kept playing. He knew we were depending on him and he came through and made that big play in the end. That’s the Russell Wilson we know.”
Even on a day Wilson put his defense in some bad spots with early turnovers, those same defensive players had the utmost faith in their quarterback with the game on the line.
“When we won the (overtime coin) toss, I knew we’d won,” middle linebacker Bobby Wagner said.
Added defensive end Michael Bennett: “He’s the best quarterback in the league right now. It’s him, Aaron Rodgers, Andrew Luck and Tom Brady, those are the top four guys. … He’s a $150 million quarterback in my view.”
For three-plus quarters Wilson was anything but the best quarterback in the league. At halftime, he was 2-for-9 for 12 yards and three interceptions, good for a passer rating of 0.0. He was pretty awful, right up until he became unstoppable.
“If I’m going to go down, I’m going to go down swinging,” Wilson said. “… The guys were giving me great time to be able to make those throws throughout the game, really, and we were able to capitalize in the second half.”
While Wilson was as emotional as he has ever been during his career once the game ended, breaking down in tears during a TV interview, what allowed him to help facilitate a historical comeback was the fact that nothing change about him during the game. Not when he had more interceptions than completed passes, and not when his team needed two touchdowns in the final four minutes of the game.
“That’s what’s great about Russ,” Willson said. “Good play, bad play, it’s the next play that matters. He wasn’t frustrated, he wasn’t pressing, he was just being himself, and we needed him the most, he performed unbelievably. It was spectacular to watch.”
Herald Writer John Boyle: jboyle@heraldnet.com
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