Russell Wilson has never received an NFL MVP vote in his career, which seems preposterous. Through the first two games of the 2020 season, Wilson seems bound and determined to make the voters notice him by playing at a level even he’s never attained before.
In the second quarter of Seattle’s Sunday night game against the Patriots, Wilson stated his case with an incredible 54-yard touchdown pass to receiver D.K. Metcalf.
Russell Wilson makes a perfect throw to DK Metcalf for the 54-yard TD! #Seahawks
📺: #NEvsSEA on NBC
📱: NFL app // Yahoo Sports app: https://t.co/D3Z0XewhrI pic.twitter.com/n52oK6Y7y7— NFL (@NFL) September 21, 2020
That play was impressive enough for its own reasons.
DK Metcalf's TD came with Stephon Gilmore as the nearest defender in coverage. It's the first TD Gilmore has allowed as the nearest defender since 2018. Last year he had a league-high 96 targets without allowing a TD. (via @NextGenStats)
— Mike Reiss (@MikeReiss) September 21, 2020
Apparently though, Wilson was just warming up. This 38-yarder to David Moore was even more ridiculous.
WHAAAAAAT pic.twitter.com/iwt4NaAuf2
— Warren Sharp (@SharpFootball) September 21, 2020
An incredible throw by Wilson, and such a great job by Moore to know where he was on the field, and to use the pylon as an in-bounds marker with his second foot.
And what did the propellor-heads at Next Gen Stats say about the probability rate of this touchdown? Basically, it bent their maths.
NFL NEXT GEN STATS notes that Russell Wilson's 38-yard TD pass to David Moore had a completion probability of 6.3% — the lowest completion probability on a completed pass this season and the third-lowest in the history of the metric (since 2017).
— Brady Henderson (@BradyHenderson) September 21, 2020
Wilson had just four incompletions in his Week 1 game against the Falcons, and heading into the fourth quarter against the Patriots, he had eight touchdown passes this season — and seven incompletions. More than one of those incompletions went right through the hands of his receivers, and the Moore touchdown marked the third of four against the NFL’s best pass defense in 2019.
It is clearly Wilson’s intent to make things as difficult as possible for the MVP voters when it comes time to ignore him at the end of the 2020 season.