Road to a Seahawks record: Russell Wilson's top 10 wins
Usually, when Russell Wilson breaks a record or becomes the first quarterback to do this or that, he publicly greets it with a shrug. All that matters, he’ll say, is winning.
This week, though, came a record he was more than happy to talk about. When the Seahawks beat the Carolina Panthers 30-27 Wilson broke a tie with Dave Krieg for the most regular season wins by a quarterback in team history. Wilson now has 71 while Krieg has 70 and Matt Hasselbeck 69.
“Whenever you can come into a new place, like obviously coming here in 2012 for the Seattle Seahawks, that’s always been my intention – to be the most winning quarterback here and to do that at the highest level,’’ Wilson said of the wins record.
He got it in fitting fashion, leading what was the 26th fourth quarter or overtime comeback win of 119 regular season and post-season starts in his career (Seattle trailed 20-17 and 27-20 in the fourth quarter before rallying).
And to those who think quarterback wins is a meaningless stat, go look at list of the winningest QBs in NFL history (which begins with Tom Brady) and get back to us.
So to celebrate Wilson approaching a milestone moment, we look back at his 10 best regular-season wins.
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Dec. 2, 2012: at Chicago
Seahawks 23, Bears 17
Anyone around the Seahawks will tell you that this is the game when they truly knew they had a quarterback who could take them to a Super Bowl. A week after a loss at Miami dropped Seattle to 6-5 and seemingly out of the playoff hunt, Wilson led a long drive for a TD to put the Seahawks ahead with 24 seconds remaining. After the Bears tied it to force overtime, he had another long drive to win it. Against a defense that finished third in the NFL, Wilson threw for 293 yards and rushed for 71 more to kick off a five-game winning streak.
HIGHLIGHTS
Nov. 23, 2016: at New England
Seahawks 31, Patriots 24
After a week of having to relive what happened at the end of 2015 Super Bowl, and against a defense that ended up leading the NFL, Wilson outdueled Brady on his own turf. Wilson was 25 of 37 for 348 yards, three TDs and no picks to Brady’s 23 of 32 for 316, zero TDs and one pick.
HIGHLIGHTS
Dec. 2, 2013: vs. New Orleans
Seahawks 34, Saints 7
It may be easy to forget how pivotal this game seemed at the time. Seattle was 10-1, the Saints 9-2 and this Monday night affair was billed as a test of whether the Seahawks could really handle the bright lights. Many may remember Seattle’s dominating defensive performance and Michael Bennett’s early fumble return for a TD. But Wilson got the better of Drew Brees, completing 22 of 30 passes for three TDs and no interceptions to Brees’ 23 of 38 for 147 and one TD. When the Saints cut the lead to 17-7, Wilson led consecutive scoring drives of 82 and 80 yards against what finished that year as the No. 4 defense in the NFL.
HIGHLIGHTS
Nov. 29, 2015: vs. Pittsburgh
Seahawks 39, Steelers 30
On a day when the Legion of Boom was torched for 480 net passing yards (second-most ever against Seattle), Wilson had to be almost perfect to beat another likely Hall of Fame QB, Ben Roethlisberger, who threw for 456 yards. Wilson matched him throw for throw, completing 21 of 30 passes for 345 yards while setting a team record with five touchdown passes, two to Doug Baldwin in the final 8:12, to pull out the win.
HIGHLIGHTS
Oct. 14, 2012: vs. New England
Seahawks 24, Patriots 23
This game came six weeks before the win at Chicago, and in retrospect many pointed to this as Wilson’s breakout. Wilson threw two TDs in the final 7:21 and three overall while Brady had two TDs but also two interceptions.
HIGHLIGHTS
Dec. 6, 2015: at Minnesota
Seahawks 38, Vikings 7
Against a Minnesota team that had won six of its previous seven, Wilson threw for three TDs and ran for another and had a passer rating of 146.0, at the time the third-best of his career. Most memorable was a sequence in which Wilson rushed for an apparent 53-yard TD in the third quarter only to have it nullified by a holding penalty. No matter, he threw a 53-yard TD on the next play to Baldwin.
HIGHLIGHTS
Sept. 24, 2012: vs. Green Bay
Seahawks 14, Packers 12
OK, so the Fail Mary game is far down the list of Wilson’s statistically impressive games (10 of 21 for 130 yards). But in what was just his third NFL game, the way Wilson handled the setting and made the throw (a 24-yard TD to Golden Tate), was to many the first significant sign that maybe the Seahawks had something in Wilson.
HIGHLIGHTS
Oct. 29, 2017: vs. Houston
Seahawks 41, Texans 38
On a day when rookie Deshaun Watson announced his arrival to the NFL world with 402 yards and four TDs, Wilson made sure Seattle got the last laugh, throwing for a team-record 452 yards and four TDs, including the game-winner with 18 seconds left.
HIGHLIGHTS
Oct. 6, 2014: at Washington
Seahawks 27, Washington 17
Wilson made memorable an otherwise nondescript and sloppy Monday night win over Washington by rushing for 122 yards — a Seahawks’ single-game record for a QB and the most by any QB on a Monday night in NFL history.
HIGHLIGHTS
Dec. 16, 2012: vs. Buffalo
Seahawks 50, Bills 17
Two weeks after the Bears’ breakout, Wilson showed it wasn’t a fluke, becoming the first player in NFL history to rush for three TDs and throw for another in one half as Seattle became the first team in 62 years to score 50 or more points two consecutive weeks. (And yes, this left no room for Wilson’s “perfect game’’ — his three-TD outing at Detroit earlier this season in which he finished with the highest passer rating possible at 158.3. But that was good, too.)