Breaking Down How Russell Wilson Exposed the Chicago Bears Defense

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Russell Wilson's first signature win was marred with controversy, but his victory in Chicago over the Bears didn't come with an asterisk.

The 5'10'' third-round pick now has wins over Aaron Rodgers, Tom Brady, Tony Romo and Jay Cutler on his resume.

Not bad, right?

In the Week 13 triumph, the former Wisconsin Badger completed 23 of 37 passes for 293 yards with two touchdowns and no interceptions and ran for 71 yards on nine carries.

Wilson's 364 total yards came against a Bears defense that was allowing 307 yards per game coming in.

In this article, we'll look at how the Seattle signal-caller was able to expose Chicago's defense en route to such a productive afternoon.

Wilson did a marvelous job deciding where to go with the football based on the positioning of the Bears' safeties. In the first screenshot, notice how Wilson locates safety Craig Steltz drifting toward the middle of the field moments before the snap.

Steltz began in a traditional spot closer to the sideline, but as the only safety on this particular play due to Seattle's spread formation, he shifted to the middle of the field.

Wilson knew if Doug Baldwin could win his one-on-one matchup at the line that Steltz wouldn't have enough time to cover the ground to break up a seam-route pass. Therefore, the heady Wilson called an audible—a veteran-like decision.

Upon the snap, Baldwin implemented a quick stutter step on Kelvin Hayden while Wilson initially looked to his right to hold the safety. Wilson then delivered a strike with Steltz not even close to the play.

This became a central theme for Seattle's offense all afternoon.

Later, Wilson again recognized Steltz as the single-high safety in center field.

In what was nearly an identical play call to the Baldwin connection in the final minute of the second quarter, Sidney Rice made an outside move that gave him inside leverage, and Wilson threw a strike on another open seam throw.

Easy, right?

Again, the play was made before the snap of the football.

In the fourth quarter, trailing by four in his own end, Wilson showed a similar pre-snap shotgun spread look, the same one that had been so effective against the Bears all game.

But with two safeties patrolling the deep portion of the field, the Seahawks called a perfectly disguised read-option run to the right with the tight end and right tackle as lead blockers.

Without the extra safety in the box, Wilson easily scampered for 11 yards.

The same play was executed at the beginning of overtime, and was likely the result of the variety of seam throws that were hit earlier in the game with only one Chicago safety deep.

Wilson faked the handoff, and with two safeties back and two corners covering Seattle receivers on the opposite side of the field, Wilson picked up another relatively effortless first down with his legs.