Russell Wilson's Defense of Nathaniel Hackett's Bad Kicking Decision is Hilarious and Understandable

Russell Wilson is a company man. Sure, he asked out of the situation in Seattle, but he spent many years there winning a bunch of games first. Now he's in Denver and he's already standing by his new man, er, men. Following Nathaniel Hackett's borderline insane decision to let the clock run down before attempting one of the longest field goals in NFL history rather than Let Russ Cook, Wilson defended the decision in his postgame press conference, calling teammate Brandon McManus "the best field goal kicker maybe in the game" and that McManus has "got the leg for it for sure."

If McManus is the best kicker in the game, there is not a statistic that supports that. He was tied for the 14th-most field goals last season with 26. He missed five which made him 84.8% on the season. That was tied for the 20th-best percentage in the league. His long of 61 last year was tied for third and he was just the 11th-best kicker from 50+ yards, making just five of nine attempts.

In 2020 he led the NFL with 10 kicks from 50+, but he also attempted 15, meaning he missed more from that distance than anyone else in the league. Five kickers connected on longer field goals that season, plus he was 19th in overall FG%.

And on those really long field goals, well, he hasn't had much success on those, even if he does have a very big leg.

The truth is, McManus is probably due to make one of those. Unfortunately, it's just highly unlikely that anyone makes that kick. According to ESPN, only two field goal attempts of that length have been made since 1960.

Nobody was going to make that kick. It's nice to know that Russell Wilson believes though. Or at least is willing to go back to being the happy company man, no matter the results.