To beat Seahawks, Jaguars must slow down Wilson

Seattle quarterback accounts for nearly 86 percent of team's offense

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The Jaguars have faced two highly accomplished quarterbacks this year: Ben Roethlisberger of the Steelers and Philip Rivers of the Chargers, and beaten them both.

Seattle's Russell Wilson is an entirely different kind of player.

"I've never seen anything like it," said Jaguars free safety Tashaun Gipson, who called facing Wilson the Jaguars biggest challenge. "He's elevated his game. He's probably the MVP in the league right now. He's playing lights out."

Jaguars head coach Doug Marrone has never prepared for Wilson as a head coach, but when he began to study the film on Wilson, he was very impressed and said that Wilson is having an MPV-type season. 

"When you watch him back there, whether it’s throwing the ball, running the football, escapability, prolonging plays, just making plays, durability, I mean, he just does it all," Marrone said. "I think it’s a combination of a lot of things that have to occur to try to—I don’t know if you can ever stop him, I think you just hope to contain him and limit some of the big plays that he’s been making. I put the film on and, again, I said I’ve never studied him until this week and I was like, ‘woah, this guy is special.’”

One guy who can draw on plenty of experience against Wilson is Calais Campbell—he faced the Seahawks twice a year, every year, as a member of the Arizona Cardinals. He knows it’s not an easy task to slow down the MVP candidate.

"He's tough, gritty, can make a lot of plays. I call him Houdini, because he just creates out of nowhere," Campbell said. "It's like magic when he breaks free and throws a touchdown."

So far this year, Wilson has not only been giving opposing defenses all they can handle, but he’s carrying more of the load than anybody at his position. In fact, he is not only the team's leading passer—he is also the team's leading rusher, with 432 yards. Wilson accounts for nearly 86 percent of Seattle's yards. He is on pace to set a record as the player who is responsible for the highest percentage of his team's yards in a single season.

In short, stop Wilson and you stop the Seahawks.