The New York Giants announced a few days ago that they will be starting rookie Jaxson Dart in week four. They have seen enough from Russell Wilson and decided to gamble on the young talent. To think that Wilson just lasted three games before losing the job is mind-boggling. What has happened to his career?
It’s worth looking back on what Wilson’s career has looked like so far. It’s a unique situation that is hard to fathom because of how good he was in his first decade in the league. He had to overcome numerous obstacles just to become a starter in this league.
Wilson was a third-round pick at 75th overall. He was a 5’11 “quarterback who came into the league with many doubting his ability to succeed. A big reason for that was his height.
Quarterbacks who are less than six feet are not historically good at the sport. The only exception was Drew Brees. Other than him, history was not on Wilson’s side, but he overcame that.
Wilson was a backup for the Seattle Seahawks going into the 2012 preseason. The plan was to have Matt Flynn start the season and let the third-round pick sit for a bit. The plans changed when he came onto the scene and immediately looked like the franchise guy.
The Seahawks’ idea to go with Wilson after his impressive preseason proved to be the right choice. From 2012 to 2021, he made nine Pro Bowls, led the team to two Super Bowls, and won one. He threw for 292 touchdowns and had a 101.8 passer rating with them.
As a starter, Wilson went an impressive 113-58-1 including the postseason. Everybody was in awe of his game and for good reason. He was the king of improv as he made big plays out of nothing seemingly every week.
In Wilson’s time in Seattle, he was on a sure-fire Hall of Fame trajectory and was regarded as one of the best quarterbacks of the 2010s. Suddenly, in the snap of a finger, all that cache and mystique that he built in his time with the Seahawks seemingly vanished over the last three years.
On March 8, 2022, the Seahawks traded Wilson to the Denver Broncos for three players and some first-round picks. At the time, many people believed that Seattle was being taken advantage of.
Denver was a team in dire need of a quarterback, so when they got Wilson, the expectations went through the roof in the Mile High City. Many people, such as I, thought they were going to be Super Bowl contenders while the Seahawks were going to be bottom feeders with Geno Smith.
Boy, was everyone wrong. Wilson, in his first year as a Bronco, had the worst season of his career. He had just 16 touchdowns and 11 interceptions with a passer rating of 84.4, which was by far his lowest up to that point.
It was astonishing how poorly he performed. From missing open targets frequently to not being able to beat the blitz of defenses, he looked like a rookie out there. It just made no sense.
In some fairness to him, the coaching staff was also a mess. Nathaniel Hackett was not fit to be a head coach and did Wilson no favors, but when a team gets a quarterback of his caliber, part of the job description is to cover up some of the team’s flaws.
Hackett was fired, and Denver brought in Sean Payton to fix Wilson. He was better in 2022 than he was in 2023 statistically, but those who saw the games knew Wilson’s limitations hindered what the Broncos wanted to do offensively.
Deep threats like Marvin Mims Jr were not utilized at all because of Wilson’s reluctance to hunt with the football downfield. He was uber conservative with his decision-making, and it ended up hurting Denver when they faced better competition later in the 2023 season.
Wilson was then released that offseason and picked up by the Pittsburgh Steelers. He missed the first six games of that season due to injury. The team was 4-2 when he took his first snap.
At first, things looked good. Wilson had good games to begin his Steelers tenure, winning the first six of his seven starts. The team was 10-3 and had a real shot of winning the division and being a top-four seed.
The Steelers’ offense, though, went ice cold in the final five games of the season, including the playoffs, not being able to put up more than 17 points in a game during that span. They lost all five games.
Wilson was released again and then picked up by the Giants. A team that was in desperate need of a quarterback. Turns out they have bigger issues than just that because Daniel Jones looks amazing as an Indianapolis Colt.
The point is, the Giants believed he would bring some stability to the position for at least one year so Jaxson Dart could develop. That process lasted 12 quarters.
It doesn’t make sense at all. Wilson didn’t suffer a catastrophic injury, so there’s no reason for him to decline like this. Age couldn’t have been an issue either because he was 34 when he signed in Denver.
Two years before his Broncos tenure, he was looked at as an MVP candidate for a good portion of the season. In 2020, he threw for over 4,000 yards with 40 touchdowns and a passer rating of 105.1. He wasn’t bad even in 2021, when everyone considered that to be a down year for him.
That 2021 season was the first time Wilson missed games due to injury, but he looked fine in the games he played. He had 25 touchdowns with six interceptions with a passer rating of 103.1. Then all of a sudden, in 2022, he looked like he didn’t know how to play the position.
Wilson has not been the same since, and now there are people out there questioning whether he his a hall of famer or not. It’s crazy to think that if he retired in 2021, the answer to that question would have been 100% yes.
Will we ever see Wilson start again? Earlier today, he stated that he’s not done and he will continue to stay ready when needed, but the football world may have seen his last pass.
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