The Seahawks have $26M reasons to start Flynn ($10M guaranteed) if his elbow is healthy. He was brought in to start.....and when NFL teams do that they almost always start their man. Even rookies, RG III and Cam Newton, get this bit of security.
Flynn has dumped the ball off in pre-season, like most experienced NFL starting QB's do. Even Brady has a 5.8 yrd/attempt average right now.
If he's healthy and throws well in the final preseason tune-up on Thursday, he'll start. But if that happens, the leash will be short.
Wilson,btw, was a 4th-Round BB pick of the Rockies.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/minors/player.cgi?id=wilson001rus
2B in the minors, but as my Ducks were chasing him around in that great Rose Bowl last January, I thought he looked like a GG-type COF. Can he pull a Bo?
Well, he didn't pop the ball much inthe minors, but he's a fast-twitch NFL QB.....he ought to be able to rope a fast ball.
I like the Steve Young comp, btw.
But NFL teams who bring in newly anointed starting QB's almost always give them that role.
"Frantic Fran," Ah, I remember him well. He could play, couldn't he, Doc? The young guys missed him. What I loved about him was that he ws greedy. Man, he would scramble and swerve and reverse field and still always look WAY downfield. he must have been a safety's worst nightmare.
moe
moe
.
Original article from August 25th.
At the bye, the Fran Tarkenton comp gains traction: Fran was amazingly self-possessed and calm during a scramble or rollout, able to see multiple receivers while evading tacklers. He was primarily a precision guy, preferring sure gains, but also very comfortable going down the field when the play was "brainy."
After 10 games, it is clear that Wilson's over-the-top release, and natural ability to move into passing lanes, trump any questions about his height.
Wilson's poise is off-the-charts, the game "slows down" for him, he's improving on a game-by-game basis and it looks 97% clear that the Seahawks have a 21st-century quarterback to move forward with.
As of Nov. 13th, Wilson settles in for Dr. D as a 21st-century interpretation of Fran Tarkenton.
.
=== Escapability ===
After the Bronco game, Field Gulls ran a stat that captured what will be the Grand Theme of Russell Wilson's rookie season. The stat ran something like, Wilson dropped back 25 times and got 11 early pressures. Of those 11 pressures, he scrambled left two times, scrambled up the middle two times, scrambled right six times, and got sacked once. The scrambles left and middle all went for 4-11 yards, the scrambles right either went for the 4-11 yard thing or else he threw short.
The takeway: never once did he step up in the pocket and try to punish the defense downfield.
I mean, those aren't the actual numbers, but that was the sense of the numbers.
................
Russell Wilson, we're sure, can't see that well when the pocket caves in. He therefore has spent his QB career (1) converting busted plays (dropbacks with 2.0 and 2.5 and 3.0 second pockets) to decent outcomes, as opposed to (2) rolling the dice and heaving the ball downfield for a long gain or a defensive interception.
You can conclude 11,000 different things from this Wilson tendency. SSI's conclusion is this: you've got a rookie QB with the extraordinary skill of limiting damage. It's part of who he is, always has been, as a 5'9" quarterback.
Neither I, nor Pete Carroll, want a QB throwing the dice when the defense has a huge advantage (an early collapsed pocket). If Russell Wilson wants to scramble left, scramble right, and salvage 5 yards out of every collapsed pocket, hey. That is a huge plus. Now let's talk about what he does when the pocket doesn't collapse.
It's like saying that Wade Boggs had a unique ability to foul tough pitches off on 1-2 counts, and work himself back to 3-2. No way am I complaining that he never got me a single home run on 1-2 counts. The bottom line is, his OBP was .300* after 1-2 counts and everybody else's was .200.
I therefore have much less interest, than the awesome analysts at Field Gulls do, in seeing whether Russell Wilson can step up in the pocket under a 6-man rush. He wants to slant for six yards running, or dump it off into the flat, great. We'll get them when the pocket holds up. Conventional wisdom says, learn to beat them downfield. SSI's observation is, there are about three or four QB's in the NFL who should be attempting to do that. The rest should think in terms of damage control.
.
=== Ma-ai ===
Discussed elsewhere :- )
Russell Wilson uses ma-ai greatly to his advantage. He already has a very fine feel for when the defenders are closing at his knees. He is very comfortable taking an aikido-style two-step angle off the approach while keeping his eyes downfield.
Friday he had two long runs, and the ma-ai advantage was obvious. Defensive linemen are making drunken charges, so to speak, being focused on beating their men on the line and not able to focus on what Wilson plans to do at the last moment. Wilson then adroitly and calmly steps around the charging linemen at clever angles.
Obviously this dance is not new to Wilson. And unlike most rookie scrambling QB's, Wilson doesn't simply tuck the ball and turn "desperate running back," eyes wide, as the pocket collapses into him. He's used to being nimble, escapable, at the same time he seeks opportunity downfield.
.
=== Size ===
Offensive coordinators talk about wanting a QB to be able to see over the line. I think that's mostly for public consumption. I think what they're really talking about, is a quarterback being little, weak, easily injured and unathletic.
Wanting a Jim Everett, Peyton Manning type for the position is, it says here, analogous to wanting a pitcher with a 94 MPH fastball. It's fine to prefer a 94 MPH fastball to an 87 MPH fastball, but that doesn't mean you get to freeze Greg Maddux out of baseball.
Zduriencik is a guy who will trade for Jason Vargas if he thinks he's got the goods; apparently Carroll is a football sabermetrician rather than a football tools scout. So he's into performance and results, rather than into combine stats for their own sake. Seahawk fans may reap the benefits of that courageous decision for quite a few years comin' up here.
.
=== Pocket Passing ===
All that said, I was absolutely blown away by Wilson's classic dropback passing on Friday against the Chiefs. For one thing, he doesn't have problems seeing, unless and until the pocket is being pushed right into him. It's true that you're going to lose a little bit of that Dan Marino last-second flick over the line with Wilson. But other than that, the cost seems minimal. Wilson has seen the field just fine, including down the middle, including down the middle late.
He has an almost supernatural touch - considering his age-arc - for throwing a ball juuuuuust beyond a corner's reach. Looove to watch him feather the ball juuust over the corner.
He also has a very quick release once he spots a receiver, and therefore the ball arrives over the corner and below the safety.
He showed good drive on the ball for down-and-outs and comebacks. Honestly, I just didn't expect him to deliver the football with this kind of authority. I thought he'd be a poor man's Michael Vick, with the success based off mobility. Wilson, three games in, is in the Steve Young category, a passer who happens to be extremely mobile.
He's eerily calm, even when running the ball. Now I know what they mean when they say he could have been a top-5 pick if he'd have been tall. To me, he looks like a franchise QB missing a couple of inches.
......................
We assume that Wilson is going to be the Seahawks' quarterback for the next eight years. If he didn't do enough to start against the Chiefs, he shouldn't have been in the QB competition to begin with. What were you looking for? Whatever it was, he did it. What are you going to do now, say Oh Well Whatever NeverMind?
SSI enthusiastically signs off. Let's get the Wilson show on the road, gentlemen.
.
Comments
Reminded me quite a bit of the way that Wilson plays ... agile, but always agile with the idea of keeping his head on a swivel and taking the best that was available to him...
............
Fo Sho Mo they guarantee $10M with the idea of a player starting, but Carroll has been pretty clear that it will be a competition for the position... when they signed Flynn, they hadn't yet known that Wilson would be on the squad...
Also wonder to what extent the street clothes were a cover act so that Wilson could play three quarters without a firestorm of dumb Q's ...
I've been looking at the data regarding our national obsession (baseball is our pastime...football is something else, considering it occurs only weekly and generally involves only 5 total hours of time per week...yet we Americans give it far more money than we give to baseball). This isn't meant to tick people off...just to start a dialogue...I'm becoming very concerned that what we do with American Football is the moral equivalent of ritual sacrifice.
Did you folks know that the oldest man alive today to have ever played at least 4 years of NFL football is 73?
Did you know that football stars who have died in the last ten years have been giving their brains over to medical science for study because, even as they go mad from dementia and and neurological diseases that are fast on the rise in the game's M.A.S.H. unit, they know that football caused their impending deaths? And did you know that those autopsies have unveiled scorched brains riddled with lesions and clear signs of severe internal bleeding long forgotten?
Would you sit comfortably on your couch and watch the NFL if you could see the blood pouring into their brains?
The average life expectancy of four-year NFL veterans is 54.6 years if you look at players who hit their prime in the 60s and 70s, and today's game has a much steeper injury rate, is filled with bigger players and there are five times as many concussion reports and other catastrophic back, neck and head injuries. In the average season post 1995, there've been roughly 82 catastrophic neurological injuries in football each year - that's almost three per team. Per year! And that's just spinal column, neck and head injuries that merited at least 8 weeks on the IL...it's HUNDREDS...PER YEAR...for other skeletal and connective tissue injuries with life-long repercussions such as chronic arthritis, brittle bone disease and joint death.
I hesitate to wonder what the injury rate is for mixed martial arts (ultimate fighting or otherwise), boxing (some studies have suggested that professional boxers have shorter life expectancy than football players!) and other pugilistic endeavors. What we do know is that the NHL - faced with similar alarming data, radically changed itself and became more like baseball - a sport of speed, skill, and precision. And IMHO, hockey is MUCH more fun to watch now than it ever was.
I think football is no better than the Roman Colosseum or the Aztec's virgin sacrifice...I used to find it fun...but I can't bring myself to even watch - not until they do something about the body count and the human misery they're inflicting on the world. This message coming to you from a man who has always voted republican and thinks liberal attempts to make things like air shows and hand guns illegal are insulting and beneath our collective dignity. Football can seem very heroic, but they used to sing songs about toreadors and further back, it was gladiators...and most of us have moved on and recognized how barbaric and morally depraved such things were. When will we take a harder look at football?
Nice job.
Point remains that retired NFL players are a sorry lot, as the players' union constantly intones. But ya, that first stat seemed out of proportion...
"Did you folks know that the oldest man alive today to have ever played at least 4 years of NFL football is 73?"
Steve Van Buren just died at 91. Chuck Bednarik is 87. Lance Alworth is 72. George Blanda died in '10 at 83. Raymond Berry is 79. Jim Brown is 76. Herb Adderly is 73. Doug Atkins is 82.
Those guys are all in the Pro Football HOF. All played more than 4 years. All older, or right at, your 74 yr. limit....Almost all alive (Well, not Blanda or Van Buren). And that's just the A's and B's in the HOF. I didn't even look at C-Z. And I certainly didn't look at non-HOF guys. Let me look at some. 1st name that came to mind was Boyd Dowler (hey, I was a Packer fan). He's 74, as it turns out Evidently still quite alive. Next name I thought of was Forest Gregg (HOF, right) He's 79 and still alive. BTW, both have birthdays on Oct. 18th. Really. Thought of another name. Let me check. Hey......just wiki-ed Fuzzy Thurston. He's 79 and still quite alive. Let me try one more: Will be right back. Well, I'll be. Paul Horning is 76 and still kicking. I was 4 for 4. Elijah Pitts, remember him Doc? Let me check: Oops, died in '98, age 60.
Hey, 4 out of 5 wasn't bad.
Data's way off.
moe
Double check your data.
I'm not an expert on data sources...looking primarily at writings on the subject and conveniently-provided lists on players included in samples.
For what it's worth, I've seen four different attempts to place life expectancy and all of them produced different numbers, though all were between 59 and 54. Which is pathetic. There does seem to be a range though, in terms of who survived. The problem I have is data access - going by what I read from the ESPN insider links and such. I will look around for a good age reference and get back to you...football-reference.com crashed my computer when I tried to load it...very annoying.
I have to admit I had pretty much zero knowledge of RW until the Gruden QB camp show. I don't follow the B1G. That said, when I got around to watching him throw it just seemed like his delivery was a little different. He releases the ball so overhand it looked odd. You get used to a guy like Hasselbeck, who has a 3/4 or sometimes even sidearm delivery. Wilson is overhand. Randy Johnson was 6'10", but threw 3/4-to-sidearm so even though his release was closer to the plate than normal, it didn't have the downward tilt you'd expect from someone so tall. I think Fister actually has more downward motion even though he's a couple of inches shorter than the Unit. I haven't seen any side-by-side video, but I'd feel confident in stating that when Wilson releases the ball, it's actually as high as (or even higher) that a QB who is 6 inches taller that throws 3/4. He had fewer passes deflected than Osweiler, who is 6'8", because of his high release point. I'm not concerned about that at all. His vision downfield I don't see being a problem; he's played behind 6'6" and 6'7" lineman his whole college career. He knows where the throwing lanes are.
I presumed all along that after the "competition" was over Flynn would be the starter. Now, I'm not so sure. I also want to see what's up with Flynn's elbow. That elbow may just keep T-Jack here. You don't want to trade him and then have to go with Josh Portis as your backup if Flynn can't play. One thing to keep in mind is that whatever the "consensus" is among the pundits, Pete Carroll will probably do the opposite.
The fact that if Wilson makes it means Mel Kiper has to eat a plateful of doo-doo is just extra frosting.
Thanks for this article Doc.
I would be pushing all the chips in on this kid. Your comp to Young is accurate in that Wilson is more than good enough to play in this league on his arm alone. Mobility to go along with that? Well, that makes him special. Young was one of the few that ever truly had both. One difference with Young is Wilson's persona. Young is kind of a goofball. You watch Wilson in interviews and listen to what his teammates have to say and how they respond to him and I would say he has a Montana type presence in the huddle. In his post game interview he said "I believe when you're prepared, you're never nervous." Joe Cool.
"I think what they're really talking about, is a quarterback being little, weak, easily injured and unathletic." Great take on the height issue! This just hasn't made sense to me. Even before Moe's info that O linemen average 6'5 I knew the average was right near that. A football helmet adds about 2 inches onto that. There is not a single starting quarterback who's line of sight clears 6'7. They ALL have to look through the lanes! It has to be a coded way to talk about durability. I don't think it's a 94 vs 84 mph fastball issue either. Wilson has a great arm, as good as guys a lot bigger. It think it's preferring any 6'4 guy throwing 94 over Tim Lincecum throwing 94.
Not sure if Pete is really going to trust the franchise to a rookie quarterback. If it was me I'd hand the kid the keys to the car and go to bed without waiting up for him to get home.
Per the official Seahawks website.
"Rookie quarterback Russell Wilson will start Thursday night’s preseason finale against the Oakland Raiders, as well as the regular-season opener against the Cardinals in Arizona on Sept. 9, Seahawks coach Pete Carroll said tonight."
http://blog.seahawks.com/2012/08/26/wilson-to-start-opener/
Congrats young man. Now bring us a Lombardi trophy!
And T.O. released. According to Seahawks addicts.
With the Jackson trade P.C. is living without a net. The Seahawks will start the season not having a quarterback on the roster with more that a couple NFL starts. Quite a bold move and speaks just how much he believes in Wilson.
And if it pays off, the M's will reap an Ichiro-style benefit for their ability to think outside the box.
... don't forget to log this one in D's column MoDawg. PINOCHLE!! ;- )
Flynn didn't even get the chance. It's Wilson in, Flynn out, before he was ever in! I was wrong. To the penalty box for me.
Delete the duplicate post.
With Chagrin,
moe
PS: A bold move by Carroll. Letting Jackson go was easy, I think. Rolling the dice on Wilson is a gambler's throw. You know what? I like it.
but if you don't, you have one the best QB Plan B's in the NFL. Wilson exhudes special-ness. It's asking a lot for him to start right away, but then again sometimes special players reward such risks and rise to the occasion.
Mikey likes it.
Not sure powerflushing T-Jack was a no brainer. It could turn out to be a gamble as big as starting Wilson.
That elbow issue scares me a little bit. It's being so easily overlooked that his elbow was bad enough to shut him down most of last week and have him in street clothes on game night. This is a baseball blog, we're used to arm issues. Is there anybody here who wants to say there isn't at least some remote possibility that Flynn's elbow might not stand up to a full season of starter reps?
Follow me down this nightmare scenario. God forbid a thousand times, but say Wilson has a season ending injury game 1 and by game 3 or 4 Flynn has an elbow swollen up bigger than his knee. At that point you'd pay a kings ransom for a veteran who could at least tread water. Well, that's what you had in T-Jack.
IMHO the really big gamble isn't Wilson over Flynn (though that's so cool!) it's the opening day roster that doesn't have ANY proven vet QB. That's part of the national medias bewilderment at P.C.'s decision. Nobody voluntarily heads into a season with that many unknowns at QB.
If this were a ship Captain Pete is pulling out of the harbor saying "Life boats? We don't need no stinking life boats!"
Not sharpshooting the decision. In fact I like the boldness. It's quite a change of pace from how risk averse Holmgren was.
This season is gonna be fun to watch.
Apparently not. ... yet Jackson wasn't going to be a happy camper here as the 3, right, and it could threaten Wilson's transition, so...
But I was thinking the same thing. You're one play away from being in deep muck. ... who's the #3 now, by the way?
I fully expect the Hawks to snag a vet off the waver wire this coming week for insurance.
So you are in no way apologetic for spewing that unmitigated drivel about the oldest one being 73? Your life expectancy numbers are absolute BS as well. You have NO credibility at this point.
Flynn was shut down from that "sore elbow" to save face. He started the previous two games and Pete had seen all he needed to of Flynn. After Pete made the decision to start Flynn both of the first two games, he had to give Russell 3 quarters in the 3rd game to make it equitable. Thus, the "sore elbow."
It would have been better for you to start with "Hello' to the community there, MocHawk. Also, Klat doesn't go for the 'BS' thing, whether it's spelled out or effectively conveyed via abbreviation. Lot of sites do, but the tone here is that of frictionless idea exchange that is not obstructed by anger.
But the stats were way off, yeah. The broad point, later-in-life brain damage, sticks. But that doesn't make it okay to get numbers as wrong as that. Your question MocHawk is fair enough, if not expressed in the community tone.
Credibility, by the way, is overrated. An argument is based on compelling facts and logic or it isn't.
The internet itself is a triumph of intellectual force over credentials. News bloggers 'with no credibility' have taken down conventional media, which bleated during the entire trip to the gallows that readers were 'listening to the wrong people.'
Nowhere is this more true than in sports blogging. ... if Matt's next article is convincing, it will convince.
If you need to save face and have him miss a start you say he stubbed his toe or strained a hammy or has food poisoning or caught the flu or bruised a quad or....anything. Seriously you do not ever say a young QB has an arm problem if he doesn't have one. That casts doubt on his number one asset and could potentially hurt future interest in him by other teams, thereby costing him MONEY! There's no way Flynn or any other QB would stand for that. If it wasn't truly an issue Flynn would have ran to the nearest microphone and said. "The heck with that! My elbows fine." The fact there was an MRI scheduled this week further enforces the idea that this was a real problem. No need to keep up a charade after Wilson was named the starter.
Secondly, when has Pete Carrol shown he cares what the media thinks? Can you show me anywhere else he's gone out of his way to save face? He's breaking almost every conventional rule and taking heat for it, seemingly without a care in the world. Has he came up with elaborate lies for other moves he's made? The people the most stunned about his naming Wilson the starter are the people who didn't believe him when he said this was going to be a three way race.
"Oh yeah, sure Pete. Way to be nice and throw a bone to the rookie." Followed by "What? Where did this come from? Who knew he was gonna do this?"
P.C. is a pretty straight shooter by head coaching standards. Any twisting of the truth about a players health is going to be to protect that player, not throw him under the bus.
Anyway, Flynn is throwing again and as of now will play against the Raiders, so it seems all is well. Might have been a simple case of over work at the start of the season. Or it might be a sign that he has an elbow that can't handle the workload of a starting NFL quarterback. He has exactly one season under his belt as a starter in college, ONE. And the college QB workload isn't the NFL QB workload. Not by a long shot. Flynn's never shown his body can take a full years stress as a starting NFL QB. Until he proves it, any sign his body can't take it is worrisome.
I'm not picking on Flynn. Wilson is just as much of an unknown but his elbow is not hurting and he had fifty starts in college, not twelve.
Notice the little index comment numbers up now... to me it's a pretty cool way to see how a discussion evolved. Interestingly, we go back and check the last several, and at SSI they're more straight-line than on most sites.
Nice add by the Klat crew :- )
Heading into the bye week is a good time to take a look at the Rookie and see just how right the good Doc was to buy in on Wilson.
Both to the eye and on the stat sheet this kid is performing up to and exceeding expectations. He looks every inch an NFL quarterback and a leader of men. (pun intended) He still passes the eyeball test and to me he looks like a franchise QB.
On paper he is doing as good as anyone ever has the right to ask a rookie. And I think it's important to view him through the prism of ROOKIE quarterback. He is on pace right now to throw for 24 touchdowns. Keep in mind the rookie TD record is 26, held by Payton Manning. His red zone passer rating is 104.2, that puts him top five in the league, not amongst rookies, among THE ENTIRE NFL! The kid is a cold blooded killer when he sees the end zone, completely lethal. His home passer rating is 122 making him the best home QB in the NFL. As of today his passer rating is 90.5. The only rookie to ever finish the season with a passer rating over 90 was Ben Roethlisber. And Wilson might just beat Ben's mark because...
I saved my favorite for last. Wilson's passer rating splits by month look like this; September- 73.5, October- 90.4, November- 130.1. He's getting better, lots better and fast! That's one of the intangibles people talk about with him. He learns and he doesn't repeat mistakes.
Look at it this way, what if the M's called up a 23 year old short stop and at the major league level he looked solid in the field, and at the plate his April, June, and July OPS splits were trending up like that? Homers like me would be talking Cooperstown, USSM would be pooh poohing the small sample size, and Doc would be scratching his chin wondering how soon is to soon to offer the kid a contract extension.
Congrats Doc, looks like you nailed the call on this one.
As a teenager, GM's marvelled, "He learns VISIBLY." From one game to the next he applied new things.
..........
Thanks mucho Auto5, though Dr D definitely wasn't the only one enthused about Wilson. ... I would say, at this point, his ability to have a good career in the NFL is now 97% beyond question.
Two months on, the Fran Tarkenton comp gains traction. Fran was incredibly self-possessed on the scramble, stayed within himself, was primarily a precision guy, yet was still dangerous downfield.
He's doing this with a pretty weak receiving corps. He's got a lot of #2, 3, 4 guys - but no true #1 out there. Get the man a premium receiver and watch out.
...but I like this core group of receivers. Rice, Tate, and Miller do something that guys in the past failed to do on too many occasions; Hang on to the dang ball! I've seen those three make more catches on balls that McKnight, Jackson, and Burleson drop on too many occasions.
Sure, a true #1 would be nice, but I think that this group is more than adequate to get the 'hawks to the promised land.
I don't dislike the group but there isn't a true game-changer there. A guy that demands special coverage and can still dominate the game. If I'm the Seahawks, I'm looking for a receiver in the first round of next year's draft.