Russell Wilson walked on the sun-drenched practice field Monday as the freshly minted starter for the Seattle Seahawks.
To Wilson, even though he had a new title, nothing had changed from the previous month of a training camp where he went from being the "other guy" lumped in a three-way quarterback competition to the clear-cut winner.
Wilson was named the Seahawks' starting QB after beating out Matt Flynn for the job and seeing incumbent Tarvaris Jackson traded to Buffalo for a future draft pick. The decision means that Wilson will be one of five rookies to start at quarterback in the regular sea-son, joining Indianapolis' Andrew Luck, Washington's Robert Griffin III, Miami's Ryan Tannehill and Cleveland's Brandon Weeden.
But those other four were all first-round picks. Luck and Griffin were expected to be the starters since draft day. Tannehill's hopes were buoyed by an injury to David Garrard, while Weeden didn't face the stiffest competition for the Browns' starting job.
Wilson? The idea of the third-round pick out of Wisconsin earning the starting job was thought to be a stretch and that his task was to compete with Jackson for the backup job to Flynn. Seattle didn't guarantee $10 million to Flynn as part of a three-year deal for the hottest free agent QB not named Manning, only to stick him on the bench, right?
Wrong.
The last time Wilson wasn't a starting quarterback: the first game of his redshirt freshman season at North Carolina State against South Carolina. Wilson became the starter the next week against Clemson, started the final 50 games of his college career and will continue that streak when the regular season begins fulfilling a goal Wilson set when he was taken by the Seahawks back in April.
"This is an extremely competitive person and it drives him in the way he prepares. He just tirelessly works at it as he worked through the summertime, he was here throughout. He's the last guy to get out of the building. He has done everything he could possibly do to get ready," Seattle coach Pete Carroll said.
