Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson has been sacked on 8.35 percent of his pass attempts over his career, the highest career percentage among quarterbacks who started in Week 4 of the NFL season by a fairly healthy margin. He has been hit as a runner countless other times. And yet Wilson seems to shake things off every single time he is taken down: The Seahawks have played 149 regular season games since drafting Wilson in the third round of the 2012 draft, and he has started every one of them.
That streak — and the Seahawks’ chances of contending for their ninth playoff berth in Wilson’s 10 seasons — could be in a bit of jeopardy after Thursday night’s loss to the Los Angeles Rams dropped them to 2-3. On what looked to be a routine third-quarter pass, Wilson’s throwing hand hit the hand of Rams pass rusher Aaron Donald, bending the middle finger on his throwing hand in a direction not usually allowed by human anatomy.
(WARNING: Gross bendy finger video ahead. Do not watch if you’re at all squeamish about such things.)
The injury, which Seattle Coach Pete Carroll afterward described as a “badly sprained finger,” eventually sent Wilson to the sideline, because he couldn’t grip the football properly. It’s unclear whether he will be available for the Seahawks’ next game, a Sunday night contest in Pittsburgh on Oct. 17. He’ll reportedly have an MRI exam Friday (X-rays did not reveal any broken bones):
#Seahawks QB Russell Wilson will have an MRI on his finger today, sources say, and then seek a consultation with hand specialist Dr. Steven Shin of Kerlan-Jobe in LA. The initial belief is he has mallet finger, essentially a sprained joint that makes it hard to flex a finger.
— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) October 8, 2021Should the injury not heal fast enough, Geno Smith will become the first Seahawks player not named Russell Wilson to start for them at quarterback since Week 17 of the 2011 season, when Tarvaris Jackson could not lead the Seahawks past the Arizona Cardinals in the season finale. Smith’s last meaningful snap as an NFL quarterback took place in Week 13 of the 2017 season, when he started a game for the New York Giants, and he had thrown only nine passes in the three seasons from 2018 through 2020. But he performed admirably in place of Wilson on Thursday night.
On Smith’s first series in the fourth quarter, he capably led Seattle on a 10-play, 98-yard touchdown drive after the Rams had downed a punt at the Seahawks’ 2-yard line. That cut Los Angeles’s lead to 16-14, and while the Rams would answer the touchdown with one of their own on the next possession, Smith led Seattle on another scoring drive, this one ending with a field goal that cut its deficit to 23-17 with 2:45 left.
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A defensive stop gave the Seahawks further hope, but Seattle’s last-gasp drive ended on its first play when Smith’s pass was intercepted by Nick Scott. Smith was not to blame; wideout Tyler Lockett slipped while running his route.
“I went right to Geno afterward and just said you’ve been waiting a long time for your opportunity, the faith that you’ve shown in our program and us, to stay with us and all that,” Carroll said. “So proud that when he got in there, he did great.”
Nonetheless, any Seahawks team that does not have Wilson leading the offense is a lesser Seahawks team, which is especially true this season. Even with Wilson, Seattle will struggle to keep pace with opponents, particularly those with strong offenses.
The Seahawks’ defense, particularly its secondary, is one of the worst in the league. Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford threw for 365 yards and a score Thursday night, finding wide receiver Robert Woods (12 catches, 150 receiving yards) wide open on nearly every one of his routes. In total, Seattle has given up 2,254 total yards through five games, an average of 451 yards per game. That would be the worst mark in NFL history.
“We got [expletive] we need to fix, and everybody knows that,” Seahawks safety Quandre Diggs, who had an interception Thursday night, said after the game. “At the end of the day, you either do your job or you’re not ready for this type of atmosphere. That’s just plain and simple.”
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Seattle also is hurting at running back, with Chris Carson missing Thursday’s game with a neck injury that might bother him for the rest of the season. His replacement, Alex Collins, averaged only 3.1 yards per carry on 15 attempts against the Rams; take away a 13-yard gain in the first quarter, and that average drops to 2.4 yards per attempt.
Carroll, ever the optimist, called Wilson “one of the great healers of all-time” after the game. That superpower might be needed more than ever for a Seahawks team that can’t stop anyone, it seems.
“He’s been just remarkably durable,” Carroll said. “And what’s the marvelous part about it is his attitude and how he approaches it. I mean, he is going to heal. He’s going to heal himself. … He makes stuff happen, you know — and marvelous things.”
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