Seattle Seahawks: Russell Wilson is a living legend

It’s convenient to explain away Russell Wilson’s success as the Seattle Seahawks starting quarterback by pointing to his elite running game and one of the NFL’s all-time great defenses, which is why people have manufactured incredibly misleading titles such as “game manager” to prevent themselves from actually examining the numbers.

Yesterday, the Seattle Seahawks exacted revenge on the Arizona Cardinals, completely dismantling a team that won 38-8 against a playoff team in the previous week. After completing less than half of his passes against the Cardinals in the Seahawks loss to Bruce Arians’s squad earlier this year, Wilson racked up a 67.9% completion percentage against one of the NFL’s best defenses with three touchdowns and zero interceptions.

Related Story: Who are the NFL's most overpaid players?

Wilson put an exclamation mark on a season that has been quite remarkable, and it’s almost a shame he won’t take home MVP honors after the season. Carolina Panthers QB Cam Newton deserves to walk away with the hardware for the way he’s carried his team, but Wilson’s work in the second half of the season should be remembered as one of the greatest feats of quarterbacking in the history of the game.

If you don’t believe me, then it would behoove you to check out the following tweet from Brian Nemhauser, who is one of the best in the business at covering the Seahawks.

Doug Baldwin has finally shed the “underrated” role with 14 touchdowns this season, Tyler Lockett is an exceptional rookie wideout, and even Jermaine Kearse has shown up well after a dud of a 2014 season. That said, nobody would mistake this trio of receivers for Peyton Manning’s “Four Horsemen” (Demaryius Thomas, Eric Decker, Wes Welker, and Julius Thomas), and Dan Marino had the Pro Bowl duo of Mark Clayton and Mark Duper at wide receiver.

More from NFL Spin Zone

• Dallas Cowboys made the trade everyone else should have made
• Pittsburgh Steelers rookie sleeper everyone should be talking about
• Anthony Richardson putting jaw-dropping talent on display immediately
• Denver Broncos’ stud wide receiver might be out for a while
• Washington Commanders: Three takeaways from win over Ravens

Drew Brees, of course, can argue that he also had good-but-not-great weapons at his disposal, but even he had a better offensive line than the sieve Wilson has been playing behind throughout his Seahawks career. But since the ‘Hawks know that Wilson has the smarts, mobility, and quick release to excel behind shoddy blocking, they’ve never felt the need to invest heavily on linemen. Even this past offseason, they dealt away star center Max Unger for a pass-catcher in Jimmy Graham, who didn’t do jack anyway, and tried to fill their holes up front with late-round picks and UDFAs.

When building a dynasty, you have to cut corners somewhere. The New England Patriots used to go easy on wide receivers, because they knew Tom Brady could make it work with whoever he has in front of him, as evidenced by what he’s done this year. Wilson, on the other hand, can ball out with terrible blocking, and, as we saw yesterday in the Patriots loss to the Miami Dolphins, not even Brady can pull games out of his behind with similarly atrocious blocking.

Since it’s fun to make these kinds of comparisons, I decided to take a look at Wilson’s numbers through his first four seasons in the NFL and compare them to what Brady, Manning, Brees, Aaron Rodgers, and Ben Roethlisberger did in their first four years. I must make it clear that I did NOT start looking at numbers from when a player like Brady or Rodgers first started, because Wilson deserves credit for winning the starting job as a rookie and getting thrown into the fire as a starter from Day 1.

As you can see here on ProFootballReference.com, Wilson’s sky-high 101.8 QB Rating leads all of these decorated quarterbacks, and his 64.7% completion percentage is also tops. Only Roethlisberger can match his 8.1 yards per attempt, and despite the fact that Peyton is the only other QB to start in every game in his first four seasons, Wilson has less interceptions thrown than the other signal-callers (aside from Rodgers, who played in just 23 games).

The postseason numbers are just as impressive, because of the three QBs (Wilson, Big Ben, Brady) with at least three playoff games in their first four seasons, Wilson has the highest QB Rating and passing yards per game with 9.0 yards per attempt to boot.

All of this, of course, doesn’t even factor in Wilson’s ridiculous numbers on the ground. It’s almost ridiculous to think that people fail to appreciate just how much of a beast he is, and I guess there will always be doubters like Mike Pettine. Guess what, Pettine, Wilson is a top-tier quarterback.

And if you don’t think he’s an elite QB, you’ve let the entire 2015 regular season pass you by, while you slumbered under a rock, blissfully unaware of the fact that Wilson’s 110.1 QB Rating is first in the NFL. As a matter of fact, that’s the 11th-highest QB Rating in a single season in NFL history if you include seasons with 400 pass attempts or more.

Wilson, of course, is now the first player in NFL history to throw for 4,000 yards, 30 touchdowns, and run for 500 yards in a single season. We talk about how wide receivers like Antonio Brown, DeAndre Hopkins, and Odell Beckham Jr. are beasts with no glaring weaknesses in their games, and I would challenge you to name a single weakness in Wilson’s game.

The only one I can come up with is his high rate of fumbles, because, otherwise, he’s of the Rodgers mold- a QB you concoct in a Madden lab. The man dissects defenses, rarely throws picks, is as athletic and elusive as they come, he is among the most accurate passers around (third in the league in completion percentage and second in adjusted yards per attempt this season), and few passers are as good as hitting deep throws.

Last season, Wilson suffered through both poor offensive line play and poor wide receiver play, as Baldwin, Kearse, and ideal backup TE Luke Willson were his top weapons.

This season, the emergence of Lockett has allowed him to have a competent group of wideouts surrounding him, and it’s no coincidence that he’s shredding the league. He’s done it against difficult opponents, too, as evidenced by his stellar performances against the Cardinals and Minnesota Vikings this season.

Wilson is clearly a top-five QB right now (right there with Brady, Rodgers, Roethlisberger, and Newton), and you can stick that “Game Manager” label the way Wilson stuck this beautiful bomb to Lockett against the San Francisco 49ers this season.

More nfl spin zone: Who are the best UDFAs in NFL history?

14 wide receivers this season had at least 9.5 yards per target, and all three of the Seahawks wide receivers were on this list. The only other team to have multiple players on this list in the Y/A department? The Arizona Cardinals, and Wilson threw an interception 0.3% less of the time (11 to 8 in total) than the Cards QB.

Chris Harris Jr. had it right back in September of last year: Russell Wilson was always better than Andrew Luck.