Man you ever just blackout as a blogger/writer and just go off on a tangent with really no direction, just you feel yourself typing, and making some kind of sense. This is what happened when I read this article, one minute I was reading this article, the next minute it was an hour later, and I typed a comment almost as long as the article itself, My Comment for those who are interested, is slightly biased, and really can't be backed up with statistical analysis, its mostly my opinion of certain situations based on reasonable logic:
Uhh...BURN. Ignorant media loses once again. You should e-mail this letter to Mike Sando of ESPN (NFC West Blog). I'm certain Sando gladly will link this open letter to his blog, which will very likely find its way to Jeff Chadiha. You could tell the other day that Sando held back his overall opinion in regards to Chadiha's article likely not to ruffle the feathers of a fellow ESPN writer.
However, I agree with you that I don't understand the whole argument against Wilson that he had less pressure pressed upon. In fact he had much more.
As you said, Wilson shared snaps with two other QB, one the incumbent starter the majority of the team was rallied around in Tarvaris Jackson, and the other a moderately priced free agent that most of the remaining minority was warming up to.
At the time in regards to respect, not many players were in Russell Wilson's corner, in training camp no one was thing Russell Wilson. During Training Camp, politically, and theoretically, it was likely 75% of Player Respect for T-Jack, 23% for Matt Flynn, 2% for Russell Wilson.
After T-Jackson was "surprisingly" traded away to the bemuse of the players who supported him, it was probably 40% Flynn enthusiasts against 20% or 1/5th of the team for Wilson. And 40% undecided with attachments to Jackson.
After the KC, pre-season game, there was a huge shift, as both QBs showed potential in their own ways are started swaying the vote away of the once undecided Jackson supporters. 51% Russell Wilson. 49% Matt Flynn. Almost a 50/50 split, everywhere saw Wilson's potential but he was still a 5-11, 3rd Round rookie, this was wholly a team that likely believed it was an 8-8 team solely based on its growing smash-mouth running game and young but stifling defense. But it needed solid QB play to make up that other 3-4 wins towards play-off contention.
Do you put your faith in the 4 year veteran who played under Aaron Rodger who possesses solid tools reminiscing a younger Matt Hasselbeck in Matt Flynn.
Or do you put your faith in the sub 6ft wonder boy rookie? It many cases Matt Flynn was Batman to Wilson's Robin... On one hand, Flynn's Batman was still a very young Bruce Wayne, before donning capes and gadgets, still learning to master the fear within himself. While Wilson's Robin was already Nightwing entering his prime of kick-ass.
The KC game was all that Carroll needed to name Wilson the starter, but I felt when pre-season ended... Russell Wilson only had 60% of the Team's respect, with the other 40% behind Matt Flynn. No player is really going to voice their opinion against the decision of the HC. But its a logically to believe that even though Wilson was named the starter 40% of the team were skeptics of his ability to lead this team to the play-offs.
Theoretically, lets determine how long it took Wilson to reach about 90% or greater in terms of popularity/ approval rating based on respect and somewhat chemistry.
Season Start: 60%
@Arizona: 50%
Vs Dallas: 55%
Vs Green Bay: 55%
@ STL: 45%
@ Carolina: 50%
Vs New England: 75%
@ San Fran: 65%
@ Detroit: 70%
Mid-Season 4 W - 4 L (70%)
Vs New York (75%)
Vs Minnesota (80%)
Vs Miami (85%)
Vs Chicago (95%)
So it took Russell Wilson 12 games to fully establish his command, to fully establish himself as the Seahawk's franchise QB, to fully establish chemistry, and fully earn the respect of his Seahawks' brethren. The Chicago win firmly cemented Wilson as being the right choice at QB, and after this win, no player and no fan would question Carroll's choice for starting Wilson.
Luck had to replace Peyton Manning, ofcourse, which is no easy task but much of the Colt's team that played with Manning in 2010 was dismantled especially on offense. No one really expected Luck to be a 10 win QB let alone a 8-8 QB. Had the Colts finished 7-9 it would have been perfectly fine. Griffin was pretty much the same, the expectations was for the Redskins to be more competitive in their division, no one expected Griffin to lead the Redskins to the play-offs... finishing between 7-9 and 9-7 would likely been a successful season.
Again based on just Rushing Offense, Special Teams, and Defense the expectation of the Seahawks were very deeply rooted in realistic play-off aspirations We saw a 2-6 2011 team fight through various important injuries through a season already shortened by the lockout to finish 5-3 in the 2nd half at a decent 7-9 overall record. Just with more experience and better overall health the majority of the Seahawks likely thought they were a fringe playoff team at best with Tarvaris Jackson at the helm.
But the whole sake of this post, is to correlate and contrast.
In my own safe opinion using some logic like Luck and Griffin behind handed the starting gig without any real competition, as well as both QBs given the competitive advantage to learn their team's playbook a month before even being drafted adds up.
So I will say both Griffin and Luck started with a 90% popularity rating. Other fans can save the BS about Luck replacing Manning because much of the Colt's offense was constructed with his own collegiate peers. Or the BS on what it cost the Redskins to get Griffin, and the pressure of that, because i'm sure Griffin didn't have to be Superman from day 1. His only competition was another rookie QB, and grade of performance was be better than Rex Grossman and its an improvement.
Wilson had to climb the mountain that was 5-11 QB and people telling him he's not good enough, Wilson had to climb the mountain of Tarvaris Jackson being the incumbent starting, Wilson had to climb the mountain of high-priced free agent Matt Flynn, Wilson had to climb the mountain of what I think was a divided locker-room initially not in his favor, Wilson also had climb the mountain that was the pressure of being the starter of a team with realistic play-off aspirations, which meant if Wilson failed the team would morally question whether or not Pete Carroll made the right choice, not only with starting Wilson over Flynn. But with the decision of trading Tarvaris Jackson in the first place.
So while Chadiha and many others feel like Russell Wilson had no pressure to perform because he had a supportable rushing offense, quality special teams, and a strong defense are ignorant to the very big underlining factor.
If Russell Wilson failed, Carroll likely would have taken a big, impactful hit of negativity from his players. Which of course would threaten the long-term heartbeat of the team as well as the rah rah buy-in. If Russell Wilson led the Seahawks to a pedestrian 8-8 record, do you think the Seahawks still would have free agents raise up their hands and say "I want to play there"... not really. There was plenty of pressure on Wilson.
The theoretical fact in all of this is... and really the point of this whole topic, is simply if Russell Wilson had the luxury of starting in full control of the 2012 Seahawks team at a 90% popularity/approval factor of team respect/chemistry like Luck and Griffin, NO BODY would be talking about Luck and Griffin. It would be the Russell Wilson show in 1st place rookie everything.
East Coast bias is just so very lucky that Russell Wilson had multiple mountains to climb before he was allowed to even think about triumphing up Mt. Everest.