To the delight of Seattle Seahawks fans and fantasy football owners, the Seahawks let Russell Wilson cook in the team's Week 1 road win over the Atlanta Falcons.
Wilson was nearly flawless at the Mercedes-Benz Stadium on Sunday, throwing for 322 yards and four touchdowns on 31-of-35 passing. He didn't turn the ball over, either.
The Seahawks gameplan limited the types of early-down running plays that have frustrated fans over the years because they take the ball out of the hands of the franchise player. Seattle ran the ball just 20 times in the first game of 2020.
However, while head coach Pete Carroll was obviously pleased with Wilson's work in the kitchen, he still wants to make an effort to get the running game going forward. Wilson led the team in rushing with 29 yards on three carries, while the veteran halfback duo of Carlos Hyde and Chris Carson tallied just 44 yards on 13 attempts. Travis Homer carried three times for negative-1 yard:
“Seven and six carries wasn't enough for our guys and we need to get more,” Carroll said per the Seattle Times. “We were at 20 (runs). We want to get more than that in general. But when Russ was completing every pass we weren't discouraged about moving the football. But we love running the ball, we always have, and those guys will get more carries as we move down through the schedule.”
“It felt good giving those guys the chance to keep them fresh…Those were two guys that hammer the football,” the Seattle coach said of Carson and Hyde. “And T-Home was such a good change of pace, I just like the three-guy rotation. Imagine how much fresher you can keep a lead guy that doesn't have that opportunity, and so we'll just go one game at a time right now.”
Follow Us
Subscribe