Joe Kinsey
Videos by OutKick
The “Let Russ Cook” meme has officially made its way to Seahawks offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer’s press conferences, and the 47-year-old with NFL head coaching blood running through his veins just might’ve worked himself into future job interviews with how he answered the following question.
Why are Schottenheimer and the Seahawks letting Russ cook?
“It was certainly something that we heard, we talked about, you guys asked about it quite a bit. It’s just kind of the way we’re playing right now,” Schottenheimer said during Thursday’s media availability. “We’re playing with a lot of confidence throwing the football. We’re still running the ball really, really well. I don’t think we think we’re going to go into Arizona and rush for 200 yards against them, but we do. The term is fun. The term is catchy. The fans love to talk about it.
“But I literally don’t sit up there in the staff room with the staff, and we don’t put on a chef’s hat, and we don’t pull out our recipe books and be like, ‘Hey, it’ll cook on this one.’ I mean, we don’t do that. We just come up with the best plays we can come up with. Some of them work, and some of them don’t. He’s playing with a lot of confidence right now. We knew at some point we might lose a game. And you know what, we did lose a game.
“If anything, it motivated us to get back to work. But I think it’s fun for the fans. I think it’s fun for people to talk about, but at the end of the day, we want to win. If that takes us not letting Russ cook, we’ll do that too. If we think we have to let Russ cook or that’s the way the game unfolds, then we’ll be pulling out our recipe books and mixing all the different ingredients and see how it tastes.”
And there you have it. An answer to a question that will turn into a job opportunity for Schottenheimer. His staff understands when it’s time to let Russ cook up a meal for Brian to taste. So far, Seattle has let Russ cook himself into the MVP award through seven weeks of the season. He has a league-leading 22 touchdown passes, leads the league in touchdown passes to attempts with 10% and has a wide lead with a 119.5 QB rating.
If you’re a t-shirt entrepreneur, now is the time to start making up the “Let Russ Cook” shirts and target them at Seahawks fans on Facebook. Sit back and let the money roll into through January and maybe into that Sunday in February down in Tampa.
OC Brian Schottenheimer speaks with the media during this afternoon's press conference. Listen live! 🎙https://t.co/cBp1cOYGUI
— Seattle Seahawks (@Seahawks) October 29, 2020
I saw a graphic on S4Y which was telling – it showed how Wilson’s passer rating has declined EVERY week since week one. It does help he’s played a cupcake schedule, since he’s still been putting up mostly absurd QB ratings.
No offense to Brian but I can’t fully trust a Schottenheimer. His dad froze up in the most critical games. Every Chargers fans still has nightmares about the 14-2 season that ended with a massive Divisional round upset against the weakest New England team of the Brady era. People bitch about Philip never winning anything, that was his season, they had the best running game, a very good defense, and they crapped all over themselves in the Divisional round.
Interesting stat from that game, with a Ladanian Tomlinson, Lo Neal backfield and a lead Marty/Cam Cameron managed to only run the ball 6 times in the second half. The one time Marty Ball would have won the game, they went away from it and got beat. They also had some of the most flukish turnovers in playoff history. Eric Parker muffing a punt and instead of covering it trying to pick it up and loses the ball. Brady is picked off with 3 minutes to go, instead of taking a knee the Chargers DB trys to run it back and Troy Brown strips him, setting up 1st and 10 for the Pats. Bad Juju!
Russ got that pretty hair now, looking like a mix between Prince and George Michael.
I think russell needs cooking lessons.