What Bill Belichick, Devin McCourty and others said about Russell Wilson’s remarkable performance

Russell Wilson lit up the Patriots’ historically great defense on Sunday night. Here’s what everybody had to say about it.

Early on in the Seahawks’ 35-30 win over the Patriots on Sunday night, Russell Wilson threw a pass to tight end Greg Olsen that bounced off Olsen’s hands and was returned by defensive back Devin McCourty for a 43-yard pick-six.

It was one of the few plays Wilson’s been involved with this season that didn’t have a positive result. Through two games and two Seattle wins in 2020, Wilson has completed 52 of 63 passes for 610 yards, nine touchdowns, and that one interception that wasn’t his fault. Wilson has as many touchdowns as he has incompletions, and at least half his incompletions this season have bounced off the hands of his receivers. Last season, the Patriots allowed just four touchdown passes to receivers; Wilson had four such plays in Sunday night’s game. Wilson leads the league in completion percentage, touchdown passes, Adjusted Net Yards per Pass Attempt, and quarterback rating.

As good as he’s been throughout his career, Wilson is now hitting things at an entirely new level.

Exhibit A: This ridiculous touchdown pass to D.K. Metcalf:

Exhibit B: This even more ridiculous touchdown pass to David Moore:

Last Thursday, when Bill Belichick was asked his opinion of Wilson, he had a lot to say about the quarterback his defense was about to face.

“I mean, this guy’s a tremendous player. Honestly, I think he’s in a way maybe underrated by the media or the fans, I don’t know, but I mean I don’t really see anybody better than this player. He can do everything. He’s got obviously great leadership, playmaking skills. He plays very well in the most critical situations in the game – his decision-making, running, passing. His passing numbers are extraordinary. You could put him up against anybody since he’s been in the league, literally anybody, in any category, really. His winning percentage is impressive. He’s there for every game, never missed a game. He’s got a great, great ability to do the right thing at the right time. He has tremendous vision and sees the field extremely well. I don’t think there’s a better deep ball passer in the league in terms of decision making and accuracy.

“He attacks every – literally every inch of the field you have to defend with him – the deep balls, the sidelines, his scrambles, his ability to get the ball to his playmakers and in space, and then you have to try to tackle him, which that’s very difficult too. You know, [Tyler] Lockett has lead the league in all-purpose yards. Russell’s got 4,000 yards rushing, 30,000 yards passing. Lockett’s been a go-to guy for them in all phases of the game – return game and offensively. [D.K.] Metcalf, now they’ve got [Greg] Olson, [Chris] Carson probably runs as hard as anybody in the league, so there are a lot of weapons there. I could go on and on – offensive line, [Duane] Brown – I mean, they have a lot of good players that are hard to handle and you put them all together and it’s orchestrated by Wilson. They’re very, very hard to define.”

Belichick after the game:

“Russell Wilson is a great player. He does everything well. He’s extremely hard to defend and he hurt us tonight in pretty much every way possible. He’s very difficult to handle. They have some very good weapons with him that he can use – the running game, [Duane] Brown on the offensive line, they got the ball outside. He made three great throws on the three long touchdowns. Two of which were very well defended, the other one wasn’t bad, he had a guy right in his face and he still made a great throw. You just have to give him credit. He definitely stressed us a lot with his scrambles and his long balls, his accuracies on the zones. He just did everything well. He’s very, very hard to defend.”

And even McCourty, with his pick-six, came away with respect.

“We talked about a lot of Wilson’s interceptions are really not bad decisions, a tipped ball or something like that. We knew that defensively we had to be very opportunistic because we aren’t going to get many chances. You saw that throughout the game, he just makes good decisions. He doesn’t try to force the ball and hold it and try to make a play with his legs. We just tried to take advantage of any opportunity we got.”

As for Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll, he’s quite happy to “let Russ cook” at an Anthony Bourdain level these days.

“Against a really, really difficult defense to deal with. They have historically been really a problem. Russ had a terrific night again, and the pass protection was excellent for us all night long, handling all of the stunts and the pressures and the different things that they do, the variety of things they do. So, a really big night for us to handle those kinds of problems. Russ threw five touchdown passes tonight. You can just see that he is really in command of what we’re doing, and his receivers came through beautifully. There were so many big plays and great catches. DK’s bomb. The one to David Moore. The great catch that David Moore made on a third down play, where he took the ball off the top of the grass. So many guys. Tyler had a good game. We got Chris again in the end zone, on a big play, on a great throw and catch and route and all of that. The throwing game was really alive.”

Seahawks receiver David Moore, after his historically difficult touchdown reception, on his quarterback:

“It’s just good to see him out there doing his thing. He wants to go out there and they want to let him cook, and he’s doing what he’s doing. We’ve got plans for everybody that we play. The fact that we can go out there and execute as a team, as a whole, that’s all we can ask for.

“His deep ball is great because he gives everybody a chance. He puts to where usually you can get it, and you can get it only. All you really have to do is put your hands out and make a play. He’s going to let you go out there and do that. It’s up to you to deliver the rest of it. The fact that he can do that and put that mug at a spot where it’s going to be hard for the DB to get a touch or anything of it, that’s great. That’s what you want. When you run down the field and you just see that deep ball in the air. Our coaches told us to breathe this whole week. To just ‘breathe, breathe, breathe. It’s going to come; it’s going to come. Just be ready when it comes.’ That ball, it can be dangerous when it’s in the air like that. But as long as you breathe and just concentrate, you’ll be alright.”

As for Wilson, he’s in a groove, and he just wants to keep it going.

“I think guys are just making tremendous plays. I think that Coach Schotty [offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer] is doing an unbelievable job of calling plays, we’re mixing the ball up in terms of who is catching it, who is touching it, in terms of the running game and everything else. I think the guys up front are doing a great job, man, they’re giving me time to make throws and allowing me to try to make some of these throws and stuff like that. So I just think that it all comes down to the kind of guys you have in the room, on the field and everything else.

Like I said, I think Coach Schotty’s doing a great very good job of calling the plays and the QB room is great with Geno and Danny and Austin Davis and we spend a lot of time together. Guys like Dave Canales, we spend a lot of time together just working on it and just spend a lot of time trying to be great. So like I said, I think that it’s just a start, and we want to continue to have a hot hand, we want to continue to deliver the ball to the right guy at the right time.”

Next up for Wilson? The Cowboys, who came away with an improbable comeback win over the Falcons on Sunday.