SEATTLE — A week after having one of his worst games as a pro, Russell Wilson had one of his best, allowing one to wonder whether the Seattle Seahawks can yet have another magical season when all is said and done.
“It was a huge win for us,” the Seattle quarterback said after leading the Seahawks to a 29-13 NFL victory over San Francisco on Sunday at CenturyLink Field. “We needed this this week.”
Wilson completed 24 of 29 passes for 260 yards and three touchdowns.
Of his five incompletions, three were passes that he threw away under pressure, and one was dropped by his intended receiver. In other words, Wilson missed on exactly one throw, an attempted bomb for Tyler Lockett that was just beyond Lockett’s outstretched arms halfway through the fourth quarter.
The 82.8 completion percentage was the highest of Wilson’s four-year career.
“Russell had a really good day today,” Seattle head coach Pete Carroll said. “Great decisions and took care of the football, and he hit almost everything. He missed just a couple shots there, but he had a fine football game.”
It was quite a change from last week, when Wilson was 14-for-32 for 240 yards, one touchdown, and one interception in a 39-32 loss to Arizona.
Wilson’s passer rating in that game was 67.2, his lowest of the season and the seventh-worst of his career.
His passer rating Sunday was 138.5, by far his best this season and the third-highest of his career.
“Across the board,” Carroll said of Wilson’s performance. “He showed good poise in the pocket, a really good job of picking when he needed to get out of there and make something happen, and he took care of the football beautifully all day.”
Between last week and this, there were mumblings in the media about whether Wilson is worth the four-year, $87.6 million contract extension he signed before the season.
As the disappointing losses have mounted this season — Sunday’s victory boosted Seattle to 5-5 — there has been an increasing willingness to point fingers at Wilson, who previously enjoyed a gentle touch from the Seattle-area press.
Wilson didn’t say so directly, but if Sunday’s game was meant to answer that, he did it with an exclamation point.
“I ignore the noise and just focus on what we can control,” Wilson said when asked if this was an important week for him. “And then come game day, it’s the best day there is. On Sunday you get to go out there and play football and love the game for what it is.
“I’m not getting distracted by anything else,” he said. “The biggest thing for us is to stay the course and play one game at a time. We needed this, but at the same time we’ve got another one next week.”
Seattle’s offense was razor sharp Sunday in perhaps its best performance of the season.
The Seahawks had 508 yards of total offense; the previous high this season was 397 in a loss to Cincinnati. They converted eight of 14 third-down situations, good for 57 percent and well above their season average of 38 percent.
They scored touchdowns on two of three possessions inside San Francisco’s 20-yard line compared to a season average of 35 percent. They controlled the ball for almost 38 minutes. They scored touchdowns on their first three possessions for the first time since 2005.
To top it off, Wilson was sacked just twice and seemed to spend less time running for his life than in most games this season
“The defense did a nice job for us today,” Carroll said. “But the story’s on the other side.
“The offense did a great job today,” he said. “They really played good football. They were terrific in running the ball. The third-down stuff was great. We did a little bit of red zone today.”
Seattle wide receiver Doug Baldwin said it was the kind of game they’ve been looking for all season and, he hopes, a sign of a strong finish.
“Hopefully it is,” said Baldwin, who led Seattle with six receptions for 60 yards. “This is what Seahawks football is about. Run the ball. Pound the ball. Allow our defense to do what it does and then make explosive plays when we need to on third down in the passing game.
“That’s what looks like Seahawks football,” Baldwin said. “So today was very familiar for us.”
Baldwin, Wilson and several other Seahawks insisted that there weren’t a lot of adjustments made during the week. The turnaround had more to do with correcting mistakes than designing new strategies, they said.
“I kept telling you guys that we really weren’t that far off,” Wilson said. “The biggest thing is just staying the course and staying on schedule. In this league, when you put yourself behind the eight ball a little bit, on third-and-9 and third-and-15 and that kind of stuff, it’s tough. It’s really tough. Today we stayed on schedule, and we were on top of it from the get go.”
“It feels good to win,” Wilson said. “That was a fun game to play in.”
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