Russell Wilson Overrated: Fans Call Wilson Most Overrated NFL Player
Russell Wilson is overrated? That’s what many NFL fans have started to claim. Posts about Russell Wilson being overrated have inundated social media, leading to a report from FOX Sports about the topic. This is the starting quarterback of the two-time defending NFC champion Seattle Seahawks that is being disparaged against.
Wilson is a quarterback that has beaten previous Super Bowl winning quarterbacks 10 times in the first three seasons of his NFL career. He actually had a 10-0 record until losing to Tom Brady and the New England Patriots in the last Super Bowl. He also lost to Aaron Rodgers in the 2015 NFL regular season, dropping his overall record to 10-2 against Super Bowl winning quarterbacks. That includes three wins over Rodgers, a win over Brady, two wins over Drew Brees, and two wins over Peyton Manning.
But still many NFL fans are calling Russell Wilson overrated.
In his first three seasons with the Seahawks, he helped lead the team to a 36-12 regular season record. That’s an average of 12 wins per season. He also has a playoff record of 6-2 that rivals some of the all-time greats of the sport. In his eight playoff games, Wilson has 1,820 passing yards, 255 rushing yards, 14 touchdowns, a 60.9 completion percentage, and a 97.8 quarterback rating. Then there are the two NFC titles and one Super Bowl title.
There aren’t many NFL quarterbacks that can say they won a playoff game in each of their first three seasons. There are even fewer that have made it to back-to-back Super Bowls. It got Wilson a huge pay raise in the last NFL offseason. As previously reported by the Inquisitr, Wilson has now become one of the highest paid quarterbacks in the league. His four-year extension tacked on another $87.6 million to what he will make with the Seahawks, putting him just behind Aaron Rodgers in yearly salary. Just over $61.5 million of it is guaranteed as well.
As noted in the FOX Sports article, many fans attribute the success that Russell Wilson has had to his defense and the emergence of Marshawn Lynch. This isn’t an argument that NFL analysts would use against Joe Montana, even though he had the third-best defense in the league during his 1988 Super Bowl run. That’s also the season San Francisco 49ers running back Roger Craig rushed for 1,502 yards. Montana also threw for fewer yards (2,981) than Wilson has in any of his first three seasons.
During the 1998 NFL season, John Elway led the Denver Broncos to the first of consecutive Super Bowl titles. He had a defense that absolutely dominated the line and allowed only 80 rushing yards per game. Elway and the Broncos also received 2,008 rushing yards from Terrell Davis, who ran the team right through the AFC Playoffs.
With that evidence at hand, should not the argument be made that Russell Wilson is no more overrated than John Elway and Joe Montana? All three Pro Bowl quarterbacks were aided by stellar play on defense and star running backs. There is no question that it helped the Broncos, 49ers, and Seahawks succeed even more than quarterback-play alone. But it doesn’t take away from what they each brought to the field.
As the Seattle Seahawks have struggled to open the 2015 NFL season, (1-2 so far) the talk of Wilson not earning his new contract has again inundated social media. It hasn’t mattered how well Wilson has played, the negative comments on sports articles just don’t stop. The FOX Sports article points out maybe the most glaring statistic in the debate about whether Russell Wilson is overrated or not. It reports that in games where Marshawn Lynch rushes for 50 yards or less, Wilson and the Seahawks have a 7-3 overall record.
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