Gregg Bell
The News Tribune
RENTON — No need for a watch or a calendar. Or a motivational speech.
Russell Wilson and the Seahawks know what time it is.
It’s about to be December, or it will be Sunday when Seattle (6-5) seeks to continue its push toward the playoffs against San Francisco (2-9) at CenturyLink Field.
“We have great confidence,” Wilson said.
“We have no fear.”
No wonder.
He and the Seahawks are 40-16 in the regular season in November, December and January since 2012, Wilson’s rookie season. That’s the most wins and best winning percentage .714 in the NFL over the final months of the season the last seven seasons.
Wilson is 19-8 in December in his career. That’s the same record he has in November.
He was 17-5 in December until last season, when the Seahawks had no running game to support him, All-Pro middle linebacker Bobby Wagner was not the same playing with a pulled hamstring and Seattle went 2-3 in the year’s final month. Its loss to Arizona in the season finale left them 9-7 overall and out of the playoffs for the first time in six years.
Now that they have the NFL’s top rushing offense and Wagner healthy, the Seahawks are counting on a return to their and Wilson’s December norm to return to the postseason next month.
Seattle currently is seventh in the NFC standings; the top six go to the playoffs. It is a half-game behind Minnesota (6-4-1) for the fifth seed, the conference’s first wild card. The Seahawks host the Vikings Dec. 10.
The Seahawks hold tie-breaker advantages over Dallas (6-5), Carolina (6-5), Green Bay (4-6-1) by virtue of beating each this season. They can own the same edge on Minnesota if they beat the 49ers this weekend then the Vikings in two weeks.
So with a typical finishing kick in December these revived Seahawks can win their way into the playoffs in this season of retooling.
Why do they win so much in December?
Much of it is Wilson’s grit in rising to the season’s biggest moments such as the last drive Sunday in a tie game at Carolina or the week before when trailing Aaron Rodgers and Green Bay. Carroll likes to think it’s also that it’s because early in the season he plays his younger players, even the reserves he rotates in such as on the 10-man rotation on the defensive line or three lead running backs in starter Chris Carson, veteran Mike Davis and rookie first-round pick Rashaad Penny. All have rushed for 100 yards in a game this season. Seattle is the only NFL team with that distinction.
By November, those new players are gaining the lessons and confidence of experience.
By December, they are better than your team’s rookies and reserves.
“You know, the one area—it’s carried over from years before, too, that I’ve thought of—is that our young players are committed, too, early,” Carroll said Monday. “And by the time that we get to the halfway point, they get better.
“And you get now into the last four games and the fourth quarter of the season, and they’re better. That helps you in more than just the fact of their play, but they also play more and allow other player to get some breaks and rotate and stuff like that. I think it keeps us strong.”
So does Wilson.
The previous week against Green Bay and Sunday at Carolina were the 25th and 26th times he has led a game-winning drive in the fourth quarter or overtime since 2012, including the playoffs. That’s the second-most late comebacks in the NFL in that span (Detroit’s Matthew Stafford has 27).
Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson (3) looks to throw downfield against the Carolina Panthers in the second half on Sunday, Nov. 25, 2018 at Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, N.C. (David T. Foster III/Charlotte Observer/TNS)
His teammates that have been here for more than a day or three feel the confidence Wilson exudes when games and seasons are on the line. He’s been here, and done this.
“I knew we were going to win the game probably at like the 8-minute mark,” fourth-year defensive end Frank Clark said Sunday in Carolina about the Seahawks being down 27-20 to the Panthers but knowing Wilson was about to lead his team back late yet again.
Wilson turns 30 on Thursday.
The Seahawks should get him a Happy December cake for it.
“Here, Russell has been such a good finisher,” Carroll said. “You look at his games and you look at his numbers in the fourth quarter and the fourth quarter of the season and stuff like that, his performance has been really stellar as we go down the stretch and that’s important, too, obviously.”
Another factor in the past, when Seattle was going to the playoffs five straight years through 2016 and to consecutive Super Bowls, winning it all in the 2013 season: the veteran players who may have even subconsciously been pacing themselves through September and October always turned it on in December, when playoff berths and championships were at stake.
This year, though, most of that experience is gone. Doug Baldwin is the only starter on offense who’s been with the team since before 2012. Wagner, like Wilson in the draft class of 2012, is the longest-tenured regular on defense right now.
That’s because fellow Pro Bowl linebacker K.J. Wright, whom Seattle drafted in 2011, is out indefinitely following knee surgery. Wright missed his eighth of 11 games this season last weekend at Carolina, and Carroll had no estimate Monday on when Wright may be back.
But the benefit of losing Richard Sherman, Kam Chancellor, Earl Thomas, Michael Bennett, Cliff Avril and all that proven experience is youth has brought an energy, a freshness.
Put another way: no one is allegedly bringing books to read during team meetings this season, as Bennett claims to have done last season while mostly tuning out Carroll’s messages he’d heard for years. Seattle traded the Pro Bowl defensive end to Philadelphia in March for a late-round draft choice and a wide receiver, Marcus Johnson, whom the Seahawks traded away before he ever played a game for them.
Carroll has been saying for months, even when Seattle was 0-2 after wayward passing instead of running in Denver and Chicago to begin the season and when the Seahawks were 4-5 and in doubt after the narrow loss at the Rams this month, that he loves this team’s youthful energy, competiveness and desire to have fun.
Walking into the Seahawks’ locker room in Charlotte, N.C., after Sunday’s latest comeback win, at Carolina, would have shown you how much fun these guys are having, and love to have.
Seahawks locker room are always rockin’ after wins. But Sunday in Charlotte was extra special noise. The walls shook. The bass was bumpin’ as much as the players. And as their 67-year-old coach.
“There is just a real upbeat aura about this team,” Carroll said. “They’re real hungry to learn. They’re hungry for the challenges. They’ve just been real competitive throughout and they’ve enjoyed the challenges. They have not allowed themselves to go downward at any time. They keep looking to the future and what’s up and what’s coming.
“It’s just been a really good group to work with.”
