It’s not often a defending Super Bowl champion has to defend himself, but Russell Wilson–despite his success–gets some heat sometimes. In the NFC Championship game he looked like he deserved it. Four interceptions? Who goes to the Super Bowl that way? Russell Wilson does. Because he keeps getting up. The Packers Clay Wilson hit him so hard on one of those interceptions that Wilson might have been forgiven for taking his time getting back in the game. Wilson was undeterred. Seahawks wide receiver Jermaine Kearse later said, “Man, that was some hit, but he got up like a champ.” Kearse might have said: like the champ he is.
Wilson orchestrated a nearly incomprehensible Seahawks comeback. His late game scramble to find Luke Willson for the two-point conversion? Willson said, “He’s the only person on the planet that makes that play.” You see the pattern? His teammates believe that Russell Wilson has the magic, just the way Joe Montana’s teammates did. (It’ll be great to see the quarterback match-up come Super Bowl Sunday. Because the only other guy in the league today whose teammates all believe he has the magic touch takes snaps for the Patriots.) As NFL coach and QB guru Jon Gruden said about Russell Wilson way back in 2013, before any Super Bowl, “Russell Wilson had the ‘it’ factor unlike any quarterback I’ve met. His intangibles weren’t excellent; they were off-the-chart excellent.”
