Russell Wilson didn’t don an apron and a chef’s hat for his first Zoom news conference since training camp began. But the Seahawks’ quarterback didn’t exactly slam shut the oven door on the Twitter sentiment that boiled throughout the offseason:
Let Russ Cook.
For the uninitiated, that phrase, preceded by a hashtag, is a plea to Pete Carroll to take the shackles off Wilson. To lessen the coach’s long-standing reliance on the running game in order to accentuate the team’s best asset — Wilson with the ball in his hands.
Wilson, of course, is far too much the diplomat to ever state that so directly. In response to the question of whether he ever retweeted a #LetRussCook missive, Wilson laughed and said, “No, I never retweeted it.”
But when asked Thursday if he agreed with the sentiment that he needed to be involved sooner, and at a higher pace, in the Seahawks’ offense, Wilson clicked the metaphorical “like” button.
“Yeah, I definitely think so,’’ he said. “I mean, rather than us having to be in the fourth quarter to be able to make stuff happen. I think we have a crazy stat of 56 and 0 when we have the lead by halftime. I think getting ahead is the key.”
The stat is actually that the Seahawks are 57-0 when leading by four or more points at halftime since Wilson took over as starting quarterback in 2012. Last year in many ways was a historical outlier; they won six games when trailing at halftime — tied for the second-highest total of any team since the 1970 merger.
Many of those wins were achieved by finally turning Wilson loose in the fourth quarter, when the situation got dire. In many of their close losses, they failed to execute a similar blueprint — including the one that ended their season, a 28-23 playoff defeat to Green Bay in which the Seahawks trailed 28-10 midway through the third quarter before Wilson was unleashed.
Logic and a decades-long body of statistical evidence in the NFL says that there’s going to be a regression to the mean when it comes to second-half rallies to victory. As legendary as Wilson has become in fourth quarter and overtime comebacks, it would behoove them to stop relying so heavily on his late magic.
All the #LetRussCook movement is saying, if I’m interpreting it correctly, is let him weave some magic early, too. And then you might not need him to pull a win out of his hat.
[ed. It's understandable management would want to protect their (very large) investment, but every Seahawks fan has been saying this for years. Russ is probably the best running quarterback in the league, let him use all his talents.]
Let Russ Cook.
For the uninitiated, that phrase, preceded by a hashtag, is a plea to Pete Carroll to take the shackles off Wilson. To lessen the coach’s long-standing reliance on the running game in order to accentuate the team’s best asset — Wilson with the ball in his hands.
Wilson, of course, is far too much the diplomat to ever state that so directly. In response to the question of whether he ever retweeted a #LetRussCook missive, Wilson laughed and said, “No, I never retweeted it.”But when asked Thursday if he agreed with the sentiment that he needed to be involved sooner, and at a higher pace, in the Seahawks’ offense, Wilson clicked the metaphorical “like” button.
“Yeah, I definitely think so,’’ he said. “I mean, rather than us having to be in the fourth quarter to be able to make stuff happen. I think we have a crazy stat of 56 and 0 when we have the lead by halftime. I think getting ahead is the key.”
The stat is actually that the Seahawks are 57-0 when leading by four or more points at halftime since Wilson took over as starting quarterback in 2012. Last year in many ways was a historical outlier; they won six games when trailing at halftime — tied for the second-highest total of any team since the 1970 merger.
Many of those wins were achieved by finally turning Wilson loose in the fourth quarter, when the situation got dire. In many of their close losses, they failed to execute a similar blueprint — including the one that ended their season, a 28-23 playoff defeat to Green Bay in which the Seahawks trailed 28-10 midway through the third quarter before Wilson was unleashed.
Logic and a decades-long body of statistical evidence in the NFL says that there’s going to be a regression to the mean when it comes to second-half rallies to victory. As legendary as Wilson has become in fourth quarter and overtime comebacks, it would behoove them to stop relying so heavily on his late magic.
All the #LetRussCook movement is saying, if I’m interpreting it correctly, is let him weave some magic early, too. And then you might not need him to pull a win out of his hat.
by Larry Stone, Seattle Times | Read more:
Image: John Froschauer/AP[ed. It's understandable management would want to protect their (very large) investment, but every Seahawks fan has been saying this for years. Russ is probably the best running quarterback in the league, let him use all his talents.]
