Russell Wilson’s improv skills help keep Seahawks alive

MINNEAPOLIS – Pete Carroll was expecting Russell Wilson to do more than just fall on the ball.

That shows just how much Seattle and its coach have come to expect from the quarterback who was starting his ninth playoff game in four seasons on Sunday.

Because when a shotgun snap sails over the quarterback’s head as it did for Wilson in the fourth quarter against Minnesota, most coaches start praying for damage control. When that happened near midfield, Carroll was hoping his quarterback could still do some damage.

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“I was thinking because it happened so far back, he had a chance to pick it up,” Carroll said.

The play started at the Minnesota 39 – Seattle’s fourth trip into Minnesota’s half of the field. The football hit Wilson’s left shoulder and bounced back across midfield to the Seattle 45. Carroll said he was surprised when he saw Wilson go to one knee to scoop up the ball after the snap sailed over his head.

“Then he got up and made something happen that was crazy,” Carroll said.

Wilson ran to his right, away from two Vikings blitzers, and found Tyler Lockett wide open in the middle of the field. A broken play turned out to be the break Seattle’s offense needed, Lockett running all the way to the Minnesota 4. Two plays later, Seattle scored the game’s only touchdown on Wilson’s 3-yard pass to Doug Baldwin.

“That’s why they pay him the big bucks,” linebacker Bruce Irvin said of Wilson. “He kept his composure. Any other quarterback probably would have panicked and threw it away, but Russell picked it up and made something happen with it. I wouldn’t want to have no other quarterback to lead this team than Russell Wilson.”

For the past two months, Wilson has been an absolute buzzsaw in the pocket. He wasn’t just improved, he was historically efficient. But in sub-zero temperatures on Sunday, it was some of Wilson’s ingenuity that was the difference, whether it was muscling a pass over the line of scrimmage while being tackled to avoid a sack in the fourth quarter or making something out of that snap that was delivered before he expected it.

The 35-yard gain was the longest for either team, showing you just how much each offense froze up in Sunday’s conditions.

“The ball doesn’t fly exactly the same,” Carroll said. “It doesn’t feel exactly the same so you just have to deal with it.”

Minnesota dealt with it by throwing underneath Seattle’s secondary throughout the game, Teddy Bridgewater taking only two significant shots to the deep portion of the field. Earl Thomas hit Jerick McKinnon to prevent a completion on the first one and Jeremy Lane broke up Minnesota’s other long-ball attempt in the fourth quarter.

Bridgewater completed 17 of 24 passes for 146 yards. Only one completion gained more than 20 yards, and that was a crossing route to tight end Kyle Rudolph on Minnesota’s final drive.

Seattle did throw the ball deep. Repeatedly. But a defensive pass-interference penalty in the second quarter – which cost Minnesota 41 yards of field position – was as close as Seattle got to success.

Wilson had Baldwin open inside the Minnesota 10 later in that second-quarter drive, but the ball fluttered after it left his hand, giving two Vikings’ defenders time to recover and prevent the completion with just over a minute remaining in the half.

After three quarters, Seattle’s offense had crossed midfield three times in the first three quarters, but never got deeper than the Minnesota 25.

“I don’t think we played very good for three quarters on offense,” Wilson said.

Wilson was 13-for-26 passing for 142 yards. It was the second-lowest yardage total in his nine playoff starts. But even during a game that would numb your hands and chill your bones, Wilson was able to rub his hands together and come up with something special on a play that should have been dead as soon as it started.

“We’ve seen so often the magic that comes out of him,” Carroll said.

And Sunday, Wilson had just enough to turn a broken play into a breakthrough moment.