You don't have the success he had for a decade and be as bad as you guys say he is at reading defenses. You don't have top 3 stats in almost every significant category for ALL TIME if you can't read a defense. I would agree it wasn't the strength of his game. He relied on his athletic ability and being able to create off script but that's ok Big Ben made a pretty good career playing in a similar fashion, Lamar Jackson does fairly well too. Very few guys excell in that area because its really hard to do.
Your argument makes it sound like you believe Geno is better than Russ was at his best and no offense but I think that is a wild take. Russ last year in what everyone is calling a laughing stock was still better than Geno. I think Geno does have different strengths than Russ and it makes a conventional offense much easier. I don't think he is a master of reading defenses either as evident by his lack of success in the red zone the past couple of years. He's not seen multiple touchdowns in that area. But this isn't to say Geno is bad. He is a good QB too I'm just going to go with the idea that he was better than Russ.
I also think its a little unfair to say because he failed with Hackett(who by all accounts was terrible) and Payton when he's at the end of his career. Seems unfair to judge him in his mid 30's as if he's always been that way.
I don't agree that Russ had a very unique skill set and it probably was a challenge in some regards. He was never going to run a Brady, Brees style offense. But those guys couldn't do what he could do either. People forget that Russ also played with a bad OLine, not a ton of weapons and when the offense stalled(it wasn't always Wilsons fault) he was one of the few guys in the league who could still make something happen when nothing else was working and no one could get open. I think you're having some liberty with the idea "the blocking was there and WR were open" Early in WIlsons career we had a terrible line. People who are anti-Russ assume it was all him and at times he definitely played a massive part but we lead the league or were near the top in instant pressures for multiple years. That isn't a Russ issue, that was Cable and the Pete trying to spend money elsewhere and patch together a line. We were really, really bad for multiple years. The year Russ had 98% of our touchdowns or whatever was a historically bad offensive line who couldnt run block either as we had one of the worst rushing offenses. Russ had to carry that offense and he did.
I also understand why Payton, with Russ in his mid 30's would want someone who is more conventional. I also don't fault him for being frustrated with the style Russ needs to succeed with. He is limited in many ways as a unique player and Payton has never ran an offense with that type of QB.
Russ is far from perfect but I will always argue prime Russ was one of the very best and most dangerous QB's in the league and the numbers and wins prove that. This doesn't have to be personal either, we just disagree and that's ok. I do understand a lot of the criticism towards Russ, its just in my humble opinion I think people flat out hate the guy and it bleeds into their argument and they talk themselves into the idea that Russ was worse than he was. He was literally second to Rogers in almost every category in history during his run, that is pretty good for a guy who can't read a defense or hit a wide open receiver.
Again we all view things a little differently and that's what makes sports fun. I think we're all rooting for Geno and the Seahawks at this point so any Russ stuff is just fun to talk about as it was a great time in our history that we all enjoyed. If I had a mission statement it would be you can root like hell that Russ fails miserably the rest of his career because of how he left and how he handled things but we can also at the same time remember when it was good and respect what he accomplished during his time. I guess you could look at it as "the dude struggled in many ways you wan't a QB to excell in but inspite of that was able to have massive succes" and when you think about it its actually a cool story. Just a different way to look at it I guess.
My last post on the topic as I don't want to be John63 part 2 lol.
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