One of the prominent storylines heading into the 2020 NFL season was will the Seattle Seahawks and Pete Carroll stop taking the ball out of Russell Wilson‘s hands in order to “establish the run.” Whenever I have heard talking head pundits discuss this issue they always feel the need to give a long preamble about how they think Carroll is an excellent coach that has led his team to two Super Bowls. That may be true but it feels like a cop-out.
Wilson’s play over the first two weeks of this NFL season has shown how moronic Carroll’s incessant need to waste two downs of every possession in order to “establish the run.” It worked well when he had Marshawn Lynch at the height of his beast mode run but now that the Seattle offensive line has been shaky for years while Wilson has ascended to the second-best passer in the league behind Patrick Mahomes. At the end of another nail-biter between Seattle and the New England Patriots, that saw Patriots quarterback Cam Newton stuffed on the one-yard line as time expired to give Seattle a 35-30 win (the Patriots were a +5 underdog making, this a terrifying push), Wilson’s two-week stat line is 610 yards, 82.5 % completion, 9 TD’s, 1 Interception that doinked off Greg Olson‘s face on a perfectly thrown ball. Those are sick numbers, Pete. So let Russ cook.
On the other side of the ball, the Pats aren’t terrible? With a defense decimated by COVID opt-outs and one of the worst receiving cores in the league, I thought the Pats would eke out a respectable 9-7 or flounder to 6-10. Instead, Newton has looked like his pre-injury 2018 form by throwing for 397 yards on Sunday night and having four rushing touchdowns already this year. On the other side of the ball, the Pats have been able to cobble together good pass coverage and a pass rush that is not consistent but can at least make a play once a half. They are not on the levels of the Chiefs and Ravens, but they are a trade for a receiver or rusher away from giving one of those teams a run for their money in a divisional round.
