USA Today article lays more of the blame on Wilson

[Recon_Hawk]

[tweet]https://twitter.com/PaulKuharskyNFL/status/651815205756895232[/tweet]
How does this explains the faults of Russell missing open receivers and bailing out of a clean pocket?

 

[SoulfishHawk]

Yeah, because he has a pocket so often :lol:

 

[mrt144]

[tweet]https://twitter.com/PaulKuharskyNFL/status/651815205756895232[/tweet]
How does this explains the faults of Russell missing open receivers and bailing out of a clean pocket?

You tell us. I dont think it attempts to.

 

[TwistedHusky]

To be fair to Wilson, if he has to spend 60% of his attention trying to determine if his pocket is going to collapse on him again or if it might hold, those are precious seconds he cannot use to scan the field for receivers.

There is also the issue with 'happy feet' or 'seeing ghosts' that happens when you are consistently hit from all directions.

I can completely understand that he is going to miss options by not stepping up in the pocket, because half the time the "pocket" is an optical illusion.

That does not, however, address the challenge our QB has in being able to adapt to blitzes or even read the defense well presnap. Some of that is not all his fault either, it is not like we are giving him additional options there - it feels like we are overly leaning on his ability to do the houdini act when under pressure.

It really feels like by going cheap on the OL we did a terrible disservice to him. Part of that is his fault, he should have stipulated $15M and required the team to put $5M into the OL or something. That $20M contract assured he is going to be protected by former DTs for the next several years - but truth of the matter is no OL means much much harder job for Wilson to be able learn to be a complete QB.

 

[Recon_Hawk]

Yeah, because he has a pocket so often :lol:

A lot more than people want to admit. The fact is, the pockets that work for Brady, Rodgers, and Rothlesburger isn't enough for Russell to operate out of.

 

[mrt144]

Yeah, because he has a pocket so often :lol:

A lot more than people want to admit. The fact is, the pockets that work for Brady, Rodgers, and Rothlesburger isn't enough for Russell to operate out of.

That's not a fact at all. RW has made coubtless plays from the pocket. The amount of times any of those QBs HAVE TO climb the pocket is a relative rarity, less than 20% of their snaps. The amount of time RW HAS TO climb the pocket is much higher.

Seriously, you'll be astonished at how bad our line looks regardless of QB relative to other teams if you spend some time watching other teams. It doesn't even look like we are playing the same sport

 

[Recon_Hawk]

Yeah, because he has a pocket so often :lol:

A lot more than people want to admit. The fact is, the pockets that work for Brady, Rodgers, and Rothlesburger isn't enough for Russell to operate out of.

That's not a fact at all. RW has made coubtless plays from the pocket. The amount of times any of those QBs HAVE TO climb the pocket is a relative rarity, less than 20% of their snaps. The amount of time RW HAS TO climb the pocket is much higher.

Seriously, you'll be astonished at how bad our line looks regardless of QB relative to other teams if you spend some time watching other teams. It doesn't even look like we are playing the same sport

I watch A LOT of other football. Probably 3 or 4 different games every week besides the Hawks and I've been doing that since 2009 when I first bought NFL rewind. I know what other offensive lines look like, and you know what? Most are not good. Russ isn't the first QB to deal with a bad offensive line. Palmer and Rothlesburger both had to deal with that in their careers. Both take a huge amount of sacks, but neither play with happy feet or seeing ghosts. If they did, would you blame Todd Haley's or Bruce Arians' offense as the problem? Nope. But here in Seattle where we have a QB who every time he leaves the pocket we blame the offensive line or the coordinator or the receivers.

Listen more to the players and coaches during the year.

When Russell is sacked 6 times and Cable comes out and says only one or two of those is on poor protection. That's him saying the QB is part of the blame.

When Pete are Bevell are subtly saying that they want to see the ball out of Russell hand's quicker, That's Pete saying the plays are there to be made if he worries less about the protection and more about running the play.

When Baldwin says that Russell trusts his mobility more than his line, that's him saying Russ doesn't operate like other QBs who are looking to make a play inside the pocket.

It's not the plays he makes from the pocket I'm arguing. It's the plays he DOESN'T make that gets blamed by the offensive line, the coordinator, and the wide receivers.

 

[PackerNation]

Oddly enough, it's the fault of the defense.

 

[StoneCold]

As a Wilson Apologist it is my duty to deflect some of the blame away from him and note that it is the experience - or severe lack-thereof - of our offensive line that to me is the reason for most signs of stagnation or even regression in Year 4.

Well, that and Blue Balls.

But wouldn't blue balls be good for a Hawk? Or do we have to wait until they start to get a green tint?

 

[MysterMatt]

Stuff like "he won’t stand in there and go through multiple reads. That’s a big reason why Seattle can’t run an expansive passing game." just sour me on the article before I can get through the first 1/3 of it.

He won't stand in there, because it's a freaking meat grinder lol. I'd be on edge with the way that line has (not) blocked.

I dunno. If anything, Russell is so paranoid now about the pass rush coming immediately that he rarely stands in the pocket long enough to see that sometimes he doesn't have to bail. Every now and then he does, and usually that's when something good happens. I also can't help but wonder if he loses time each snap just determining where the rush will be coming from instead of using that valuable time to do a quick pass to an open receiver.

I just know that we can't bootleg each play and sooner or later he's got to improve on this. I think he can, but for a few reasons it seems he's just not able to get there yet. Some of those faults are his (predilection to extend the play by going backwards, failure to see open receivers) and some are certainly not (poor OL, predictable play calling, etc).

 

[lobohawk]

Other than a few current old timers at QB, not many 4th year QBs have played better. Even Luck is getting pummeled and his play shows it. I would say Russell is ahead of the curve because he avoided the crap play many others have shown (Dalton, Cam, etc) in their early years. Now can he progress to the next level, while still being expected to cover flaws up front with his feet?

It's partly the Hawks fault, if Russell still leans on bailing too much. They've shortchanged him on the OL (even when they paid him crap) and expected him to cover their flaws (so it's not his pay that stopped this). Meanwhile expecting him somehow to change that instinct and sit in a pocket which may or may not hold (experience being a 50% shot of that happening).



BTW...his cap hit is not the 20 mil that people keep noting. Below are his cap hits and where they rank relative to other QBs. This also doesn't include QBs that will be getting raises soon. So how do these other QBs have better performing OLs? Maybe because the Hawks spent that money on their D.

2015 7 mil 19th ranked cap hit for QBs
2016 18 mil 12th ranked
2017 18 mil 11th ranked
2018 21 mil 5th ranked (Romo number 1, but somehow has a great OL)
2019 23 mil

Per Spotrac
http://www.spotrac.com/nfl/rankings/cap-hit/quarterback/

 

[mrt144]

Yeah, because he has a pocket so often :lol:

A lot more than people want to admit. The fact is, the pockets that work for Brady, Rodgers, and Rothlesburger isn't enough for Russell to operate out of.

That's not a fact at all. RW has made coubtless plays from the pocket. The amount of times any of those QBs HAVE TO climb the pocket is a relative rarity, less than 20% of their snaps. The amount of time RW HAS TO climb the pocket is much higher.

Seriously, you'll be astonished at how bad our line looks regardless of QB relative to other teams if you spend some time watching other teams. It doesn't even look like we are playing the same sport

I watch A LOT of other football. Probably 3 or 4 different games every week besides the Hawks and I've been doing that since 2009 when I first bought NFL rewind. I know what other offensive lines look like, and you know what? Most are not good. Russ isn't the first QB to deal with a bad offensive line. Palmer and Rothlesburger both had to deal with that in their careers. Both take a huge amount of sacks, but neither play with happy feet or seeing ghosts. If they did, would you blame Todd Haley's or Bruce Arians' offense as the problem? Nope. But here in Seattle where we have a QB who every time he leaves the pocket we blame the offensive line or the coordinator or the receivers.

Listen more to the players and coaches during the year.

When Russell is sacked 6 times and Cable comes out and says only one or two of those is on poor protection. That's him saying the QB is part of the blame.

When Pete are Bevell are subtly saying that they want to see the ball out of Russell hand's quicker, That's Pete saying the plays are there to be made if he worries less about the protection and more about running the play.

When Baldwin says that Russell trusts his mobility more than his line, that's him saying Russ doesn't operate like other QBs who are looking to make a play inside the pocket.

It's not the plays he makes from the pocket I'm arguing. It's the plays he DOESN'T make that gets blamed by the offensive line, the coordinator, and the wide receivers.

I see what you mean now, thanks for the clarification. I think you're right, nobody should really blame anyone else than RW for when RW leaves the pocket, it's wholly his choice to make - I was more up in arms with the idea that any of the aforementioned QBs and their pockets remotely resemble what RW is dealing with. RW makes the choice to trust his legs more often than those other guys, but it's not like he has that many opportunities to trust the pocket in the first place, especially compared to peers.

Yeah, they don't need the same pocket to operate that RW does, they also enjoy objectively better pockets on almost every play than RW does.

 

[FormerEvil]

[tweet]https://twitter.com/PaulKuharskyNFL/status/651815205756895232[/tweet]
How does this explains the faults of Russell missing open receivers and bailing out of a clean pocket?

This. The most frustrating thing to see as the season rolls on is that when he does seem to have a clean pocket, he will more often than years past, run himself into a sack or bail way to early and often into pressure. Whether that's a result of being shell-shocked or digression remains to be seen. I have been the biggest RW supporter amongst my friends and I'm starting to think there is perhaps something to this short factor. He clearly is not seeing open receivers this year and it's happened in the past. I remember S. Rice being demonstrative quite often when Russ missed him early in his career. The team clearly runs passing plays to the edges of the field to compensate for it. Hopefully he gets his act together because he's not the play-maker we're used to seeing and if he's not on his game, we're no better than the 7-9 teams we had with TJack and Whitehurst/Hasselbeck.