Pete Carroll is an emotive dude. Viewed within the context of pro football coaches – where stoicism (Bill Belicheck), cool (Mike Tomlin) and fire (Jim Harbaugh) rule – you could describe him as giddy. He’s like the Jimmy Fallon of NFL coaches.
It gives you pause when he starts dropping hyperbole. Then again, up until this point, Russell Wilson has been deserving of most of the accolades Carroll has thrown his way; so perhaps the coach wasn’t exaggerating when he recently said that Wilson is “a million miles ahead” of where he was at this point last season.
From the News Tribune:
“He’s threw a couple of balls today, things that we talked about over the offseason that he’d like to take a shot at, and he did it today just to see what would happen with full awareness of why he was doing it,” Carroll said. “We were talking about trying to throw the deep ball last year over guys’ outside shoulder; we’re just a million miles ahead of where we were. He’s the kind of player that will affect other guys – he affects everyone around him – and hopefully that will help everyone play better and faster.”
That’s a scary thought, given that, possibly even more so than Andrew Luck and Robert Griffin III, Wilson might be the most precocious of the 2012 rookie quarterback triumvirate. Is he leaving his peers in his dust? Not likely, but he personally sounds like he plans to wreck more shop.
“The leadership role is already established, and also just the reps,” Wilson said. “Last year I was splitting a third of the reps all the way through August pretty much, so I think that will give me a bit of a boost and get me ready for the season. I’m excited about that, we have a great offense with a lot of great players with the addition of Percy Harvin, with the guys that we already have, the running backs that we have, the tight ends, and it’s going to be a good thing.”
