It didn’t look great on Thursday Night, and the news wasn’t much better late Friday as it was revealed that Seahawks QB Russell Wilson is expected to miss 4-8 weeks after undergoing finger surgery. Wilson suffered the injury in the 3rd quarter after his finger awkwardly hit Aaron Donald on a follow through.
While Wilson lobbied to get back into the game, the Seahawks medical staff were quick to shut him down as backup Geno Smith took over the Seattle offense. The Seahawks are now 2-3, and face an uphill battle without their star QB under centre for the foreseeable future. Making matters worse is that they play in easily the toughest division in football, with the 49ers, Rams, and Cardinals all off to strong starts themselves.
The injury will also put an end to Wilson’s impressive streak of 149 consecutive starts to begin his career. In his absence, Smith orchestrated a TD drive to make things interesting late, but an untimely interception (which could be partially blamed on his receiver falling) sealed the game for LA.
For his career Smith has 30TDs and 37INTs, with 6346 passing yards in 31 starts. He’s also added 682 rushing yards with 7 TDs on the ground, but has lost 13 fumbles as well. Losing Wilson is a devastating blow to the Seattle offense, not only in real life but fantasy wise as well.
Smith may have some appeal in 2QB leagues, but outside of that shouldn’t be on anyone’s fantasy radars. The loss obviously hurts Lockett and Metcalf’s stocks as well, but may be a slight boost to Chris Carson (assuming he can return next week) as the Seahawks may lean more on the run game moving forward until they can get Russ back in the huddle.
Wilson owners will have to hope he’s closer to the 4 week timeline than the 8 week schedule. If you have IR slots in your league be sure to stick him there as he’s still a decent play when he comes back from injury. If not, and you’ve got an extremely shallow bench, you may be staring down the barrel of a difficult decision as to whether you believe he can return to form in short order this year.