USA TODAY Sports' Tom Pelissero breaks down the showdown in Seattle.
RENTON, Wash. – On a night the New Orleans Saints largely held the Seattle Seahawks' run game in check, Russell Wilson's sterling performance in last month's blowout win delivered a nationally televised message about how far he has come in a short span.
But the man who works more closely with Wilson than anyone at Seahawks headquarters says no one should have been surprised, given how the second-year quarterback has fared on big stages to this point – none bigger than last year's playoffs.
"In both those games, he was crystal clear on what he had to do, and he worked throughout the game to solve it," Seahawks quarterbacks coach Carl Smith told USA TODAY Sports this week. "The other Saints game I thought was just routine Russell Wilson."
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Wilson completed 22 of 30 passes for 310 yards and three touchdowns without a turnover in that Dec. 2 showdown of NFC front-runners at CenturyLink Field, where the teams will meet again Saturday in a divisional playoff game.
Take away Wilson's 47 rushing yards, freed in part by the Saints' overplay of inside zone-read fakes, and the Seahawks averaged just 2.67 yards on 30 carries. But Wilson was so pinpoint in the passing game it didn't matter much, with the defense also dominating in a 34-7 rout.
"We won the game in a pretty good way," Wilson said. "We kind of clicked on all cylinders."
Smith and teammates point back to a game exactly one year earlier – a 23-17 overtime victory Dec. 2, 2012, over the Bears in Chicago – as the moment Wilson proved to them he can win games, rather than the Seahawks relying on their elite defense and a solid rushing attack to win with him.
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"He played outside his mind," cornerback Richard Sherman said. "He managed the game. He ran it when he had to, he threw great passes when he had to and he drove the ball down the field when he had to for the game-winner. I think that's as clutch as you can get."
A little more than a month later, Wilson helped bring the Seahawks back from 14 points down in a wild-card playoff victory at Washington, then rallied them from a 20-point deficit in the fourth quarter of a divisional playoff game at Atlanta – only for the Falcons to drive for a winning field goal.
Those are the games that give Smith confidence in Wilson, who just 20 months ago was a third-round draft pick and apparent long shot for the starting job, throwing eight interceptions in the Seahawks rookie minicamp. Carving up the Saints last month was just confirmation.
"He's terrific at fixing things, whether it's the huddle call or it's his footwork and it's a particular throw or it's a read," Smith said. "He's open book. He's into it. He loves it. He just says what he thinks. I say what I think. He listens. He is definitely coachable.
"He takes not just what I say, but what Coach (Pete) Carroll says, what Coach (Darrell) Bevell says, what (Saints quarterback) Drew Brees tells him. He looks for answers wherever and he takes them and interprets them and tries to incorporate them into his game."
Follow Tom Pelissero on Twitter @TomPelissero
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