Russell Wilson's sack problem is his own

Russell Wilson made news this week for comments he made on The Dan Patrick Show. He suggested he was getting sacked too often and implying the problem is with his offensive line.

Wilson said, "I think that sometimes you hold onto it a little bit just because you're looking for that play and you find it, but also so many of those times it turns into touchdowns too. But you never want to be sacked that many times. Four hundred times basically is way too many - four hundred too many. So, I think that's a big thing that we've got to fix. That's got to be fixed and has to be at the end of the day because my goal is to play ten to fifteen more years."

Within Wilson's quote, he describes the type of player he is, one that scrambles and holds on to the ball sometimes too long in order to extend the play to score. That type of player is going to get sacked a lot.

All sacks are not created equal. Most of the time, when we picture a quarterback being sacked, it is from a hard hit coming from the quarterback's blindside. But a quarterback can be ruled down by contact without being tackled, and that counts as a sack. If the quarterback runs out of bounds behind the line of scrimmage because of defensive pressure, that is a sack.

Besides, the NFL has made several rule changes over the years to protect quarterbacks from injury. The types of hits quarterbacks used to take now result in penalties, fines, and suspensions for the defensive player. I'm not suggesting that Russell Wilson has never been hit hard, but his career started after the league began putting rules in place to protect quarterbacks.

A few of those three hundred ninety-four career sacks can be dropped at Wilson's feet, literally. Wilson has eighty-five fumbles in his career. Thirty-five of those fumbles he recovered, likely for a loss of yardage, which counts as a sack. Many of the fifty he didn't recover could have been "strip" sacks, when the ball is knocked out of a quarterback's hands.

His offensive line isn't to blame for all of these. In just eight years, Wilson is already on the NFL's career top twenty list in sacks. All of the quarterbacks ahead of him played at least thirteen years in the league.

Pass Block Win Rate (PBWR) is a new metric developed by ESPN to rate offensive linemen individually and as a team. As a team, the Seahawks were ninth in the league in PBWR the last season. It suggests that Wilson had an above-average offensive line in front of him in terms of pass protection. Improving Seattle's defense should be the priority this offseason with their limited salary cap space. If Wilson believes the offensive line is the top priority, perhaps it is time to restructure his contact and use some of his salary to attract those needed players.