Every long-tenured NFL athlete reaches a point in their career where they must evolve. The physical traits that made them special inevitably fade, forcing them to rely on experience and savvy to remain competitive against an ever-younger league. That is even more true for dual-threat quarterbacks, who often rely on their escapability to create plays. Russell Wilson was once the best at it, but his transition to a pocket passer hasn’t worked out so far.
If you watched Wilson for any of his first eight or nine seasons with the Seattle Seahawks, you were pretty much guaranteed to see some magic. He was elite at navigating the pocket, escaping pressure and launching the ball down the field for big plays. And it always seemed to come at the perfect time. Hall of Fame QB Kurt Warner believes that version of Wilson is gone, and the new version isn’t up to par with other traditional pocket passers.
“I just believe Russell Wilson has become a completely different quarterback than he was in Seattle,” Warner said via The Rich Eisen Show on the Roku Channel. “In Seattle, he played confidently. Their offense was built around, push the ball down the field, make the big play or create. That was what they were, and that was Russell Wilson at his best.
“…I truly believe Russell Wilson went to Denver saying, ‘I want to show the league I can be a pocket passer. I don’t have to be this creative guy, especially as I get older, that I can be a starting quarterback by playing the position in the pocket.’ And it just hasn’t worked out.”
Just a quick glance at Wilson’s adjusted net yards per pass attempt stat, and you can see his drop-0ff over the last few seasons. He had previously never come close to dropping below a 6.0 ANY/A, but he did in 2022 with a 5.54 and only a slightly better 6.04 in 2023.
Even watching him in the preseason for the Steelers, his lack of escapability from the pocket was evident. It isn’t quite to the level of late-career Ben Roethlisberger with shot knees, but it still isn’t good enough to be a consistent weapon.
“His ability to see and process information from what I see just isn’t there right now,” Warner said. “And so what he’s become over the last couple years is, I’m gonna peek at my first read and if it doesn’t show itself really quickly, I’m gonna look for a check down. And it’s become small-ball.”
I will say, he showed some signs of being able to sit in the pocket and progress through his reads during the preseason finale. On his deep third-down completion to George Pickens, he got through his reads from right to left before finding Pickens and pulling the trigger.
He still has arm talent and plenty of experience. He can push the ball down the field if the reads are there.
If he continues on the trend of playing dink-and-dunk with a lot of check-down passes, someone like Jaylen Warren or Pat Freiermuth could be in for a lot of receptions with a really low average.
It’s just one opinion, and he has yet to play a snap for the Steelers, but a Hall of Famer’s opinion is as good as any.
Wilson’s calf concern could make this issue even worse, as he wouldn’t be able to escape the pocket and create plays even if he wanted to. It has flared back up after a month and a half. At his age, that might linger for much of the season at this point.
