How Russell Wilson Hurts The Seattle Seahawks By Scrambling

Russell Wilson has made a living with his feet, but there are times when his run-first mentality hurts the Seattle Seahawks.

There tends to be two things that stand out about Russell Wilson when most people think about him: His ability to not make costly mistakes and his play-making skills with his feet.

Wilson has already ran the ball 31 times for 221 yards and two touchdowns. The attempts and yards are both only behind Colin Kaepernick (47 rushes for 244 yards), but his two rushing touchdowns are tied with Andrew Luck for most in the league by a quarterback.

The Seahawks’ coaching staff does a great job at dialing up the occasional run for Wilson, and those plays are almost always incredibly effective. However, Wilson still does a lot of scrambling on his own. There are times when scrambling is the right thing to do and Wilson creates a great play for his team, but there are also times when taking off by himself is not the right call.

Sep 14, 2014; San Diego, CA, USA; Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson (3) scrambles during the fourth quarter against the San Diego Chargers at Qualcomm Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Jake Roth-USA TODAY Sports

Two Monday’s ago, the Seahawks beat the Washington Redskins and Wilson had the best rushing performance any quarterback has ever had on Monday Night Football with 11 carries for 122 yards and one touchdown. The first thing I thought was: “11 rushes from a quarterback? Surly he missed some throws.” And he did.

I’ll get to that Monday night game soon, but I first want to start at the very beginning of the season against the Green Bay Packers.

On the last play of the first half, Wilson gets great pass protection but still decides to run out of the pocket just 2.75 seconds after the snap of the ball. This will be a trend for many of the plays I’ll be going over. Often times, Wilson has a clean pocket and still decides run out of it very quickly. This tells me a few things: He’s predetermining many of his scrambles, he sometimes only looks at his first read, he doesn’t always scan the entire field and he isn’t consistently keeping his eyes down the field.

After running out of the pocket, Wilson has his running back wide open and does a pump fake his way instead of dumping the ball off. Wilson then keeps the ball himself for a few yards and the half ends. It might not have mattered that much, but the Seahawks would have been in better position if Wilson had just dumped the ball off. His running back has nothing but space, and he could potentially run out of bounds so the team can run one more play.

Later in the game, Wilson has another moment where he scrambles when he shouldn’t have. Again, the protection is strong, but Wilson starts to scramble just 2.42 seconds after the snap. Wilson missed a dump off last play, but this play could have been a touchdown.

Right after the snap, the receiver to the top of the screen fakes a route inside which takes the corner out of position and allows him to win the battle outside.

Wilson never even looks to that side of the field and quickly takes off on his own.

This play is similar to the last one. Wilson doesn’t ditch the pocket as quickly as usual, but he again misses the receiver at the top on the screen. The receiver is open for nearly the entirety of the play, but Wilson never appears to look his way. There is a safety at the top of the field, but there is plenty of room for Wilson to fit the pass in or take a shot deep since he has single coverage.

Lynch would end the thrilling Super Bowl rematch soon after this play, but Wilson could have been the one with all the glory if he had made the right decision.

Just two seconds after the snap, the receiver running right down the middle of the field has his defender fall to the ground which creates an easy touchdown opportunity. But again, much is the same with Wilson and he gets out of the pocket early and never scans the field.

If Wilson would have just kept his eyes down field, this would have been an easy completion that probably would have ended as a game-winning touchdown.

Finally, the game against the Redskins. On one of the first plays of the game, Wilson misses two throws because of his predetermined mindset to scramble.

On 3rd-and-5, Wilson gets great protection and has a receiver open for the first down just two seconds after the snap.

Most quarterbacks would have made this throw, but Wilson decides to take off on his own. As if missing an open throw that would have moved the chains isn’t enough, there is a receiver in the middle of the field with his arm up in the air because he couldn’t be more open.

So even though Wilson got the first down by his running, he probably would have had a long touchdown if he would have just kept his eyes looking down the field.

The last play I’ll go over is one of the few plays where Wilson’s mistakes don’t get covered up.

The Seahawks are up by just a touchdown and have a 3rd-and-12. Like always, Wilson has good protection and runs out of the pocket quickly. However, Wilson does something weird here that he didn’t do in the other plays. After pushing out of the pocket, and before hitting the line of scrimmage, Wilson appears to be looking down the field like he’s about to connect with one of his receivers. Alas, Wilson keeps it himself and the Seahawks are forced to punt.

What’s alarming here is that when Wilson was looking down the field, he was looking right at a person who was wide open, but he still didn’t deliver him the ball. This furthers my belief that many of Wilson’s scrambles are predetermined and not even a wide open receiver can change that.

I realize that many of these plays had successful results, but that doesn’t mean the right choices were made. In many of these scenarios, Wilson would gain a nice chunk of yards, but he left a lot to be wanted.

Wilson currently has only 987 passing yards. To put that in perspective, Blake Bortles already has more yards than Wilson (1,004). A lot of this comes down to the system that Wilson plays in and what he is asked to do, but his passing numbers could be a lot better if he would break some of his bad scrambling habits.

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