Is Russell Wilson considered a Top 5 QB if he wins Super Bowl?
By Josh Planos
74 players were taken in the 2012 NFL Draft before Russell Wilson heard his name, the No. 75 pick in the third round by the Seattle Seahawks. Amongst those drafted before Wilson, five were quarterbacks. Some fans even booed when his name was called, for what could a man generously listed at 5’11 really bring a team coming off of a 7-9 record, a team that missed the playoffs?
When he first entered training camp, Wilson was No. 3 on the depth chart, behind Matt Flynn and Tarvaris Jackson. This Sunday, Wilson will become sixth quarterback in the history of the league to start in the Super Bowl in either his first or second NFL season. Wilson’s record needs no introduction; he’s 23-7 (the most wins in NFL history in a quarterback’s first two seasons).
The Seattle Seahawks have yet to win the coveted holy grail of football (Matt Hasselbeck lost to Pittsburgh in the team’s only other Super Bowl trip, eight years ago). This year, however, the team boasts the No. 1 defense in all of football and the No. 6 offense. Russell Wilson has been a pretty big part of that.
It’d be easy to let Wilson’s tremendous introduction to the league fall to the wayside, with head coach Pete Carroll at the helm since 2010, and a defense that hasn’t fallen outside of the top ten in three years. Hell, when most people think about the Seahawks, their minds wander to Richard Sherman or Marshawn Lynch.