Getty ESPN analyst Ryan Clark was not very complimentary of Russell Wilson.
R
ussell Wilson struggled in the 2022 NFL Pro Bowl, but a meaningless all-star game hardly changes the fact that the Seattle Seahawks quarterback has been one of the best signal callers in the league over the last decade.
But apparently not everyone agrees that Wilson is elite.
While appearing on ESPN’s Get Up on the morning of Feb. 7, ESPN analyst and former defensive back Ryan Clark called Wilson “a really good quarterback” but “not a great quarterback.”
“Russell Wilson is not an all-time great quarterback. He’s never going to be in those conversations,” Clark said. “So we have to stop putting him in that world that any team that has Russell Wilson can win a Super Bowl.”
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Ryan Clark Compares Russell Wilson to Ben Roethlisberger
As Clark continued to explain why Wilson is not a great quarterback, he compared him to newly retired Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger.
“This is kind of like Big Ben’s trajectory — but I think Big Ben was the better football player — where Big Ben wins two when the defense is great and when they have a run game and you limit turnovers,” Clark said. “And then when he gets the ‘killer bees’, this offense is high-flying, he’s one of the best players in the football game, and you don’t win a championship.”
As Seahawks fans probably remember, Roethlisberger became the youngest quarterback to ever win the Super Bowl by beating Seattle in Super Bowl XL. He was about a month shy of his 24th birthday.
Roethlisberger won that Super Bowl in his second season after starting as a rookie. Wilson accomplished the same feat — led his team to the playoffs as a rookie starter and then won the Super Bowl during his second NFL season.
The Steelers and Roethlisberger won another Super Bowl in Big Ben’s fifth season while Seahawks and Wilson made a second trip to the Super Bowl in 2014, falling just short of repeating as champions in Super Bowl XLIX. Roethlisberger loss a Super Bowl as well to the Green Bay Packers following the 2010 season.
But after that initial championship success, a lot of which was due to the Steelers defense, Roethlisberger never went to another Super Bowl. Wilson hasn’t been back to the Super Bowl either since the ‘Legion of Boom’ began dismantling several years ago.
Ryan Clark Reiterates Why Russell Wilson Isn’t Great
After comparing the nine-time Pro Bowl quarterback to Roethlisberger, who arguably retired with the biggest question of his legacy being simply whether or not he’ll be a first-ballot Hall of Fame entry, Clark continued to argue Wilson “isn’t that great” and that he does not make “every team in the NFL” better.
“We have to stop including Russell Wilson in these talks that if Russell Wilson goes here, does this team win a Super Bowl? If Russell Wilson goes here, does this team win a Super Bowl? This isn’t basketball,” Clark said. “And frankly, Russell Wilson actually isn’t that great. He isn’t that much of a factor that changes who football teams are.
“And so now we’re thinking to ourselves, ‘Is he an upgrade over the quarterback we have, and can he make us a better team?’ And that’s not every team in the NFL.”
With Roethlisberger and Tom Brady retiring, there are only nine active quarterbacks that have made multiple Pro Bowls. Wilson just appeared on his ninth Pro Bowl team.
That’s three more than Roethlisberger, who made six Pro Bowl teams in 18 seasons. Wilson has missed the Pro Bowl only once in his 10-year career.
Watch the full segment where Clark argues Wilson is “not an all-time great quarterback” below:
“Russell Wilson is not an all-time great QB. He’s never going to be in those conversations. We have to stop putting him in that world that any team that has Russell Wilson can win a Super Bowl.”