For such a long time, Peyton Manning has been the face of the NFL, although when next season gets here, it will be a 38-year-old face. The other face of the NFL has been Tom Brady’s pretty face, although by the time Bill Belichick takes that gray hoodie out of mothballs, it will be a 37-year-old face. Aaron Rodgers has Discount Daaaable checks, but he hasn’t won anything since Super Bowl XLV.
The heirs to the throne are Andrew Luck and Russell Wilson, and Wilson just became the leader in the clubhouse by winning Super Bowl XLVIII.
It is a handsome face, a shining face of hope and optimism and cheer, a magnet of a face, almost an angelic face, today a championship face, the kind of face any professional sports owner, coach or manager would want to represent his franchise.
It is the face we first noticed Derek Jeter wearing in 1996, when he showed up and started winning championships, and sadly strains to wear nowadays in the face of Father Time realities that can turn a smile upside down in a Big Apple minute.
The comparisons do not stop there: They both play short.
For Jeter, it is his position, the only position he has ever wanted to play, the position he would not relinquish when Alex Rodriguez took his performance-enhanced talents to The Bronx.
For Wilson, it is his physical stature.
It only makes him as easy to root for as anyone in the NFL, or in any sport.
His arms may be too short to box with God, but he refused to let that stop him from using his father’s “Why not you?” exhortation and carry it to his Seahawks teammates and ask them “Why not us?”
And today he stands as a towering inspiration for everyone 5-foot-11 and under that asks “Why not you?”
The chip on some of his teammates’ shoulders is bigger than him, for crying out loud.
But here’s what Seahawks GM John Schneider and Pete Carroll recognized right away: Russell Wilson is The Natural.
The obligations of franchise quarterback come easy to him. He is a born leader, because his giant heart is always in the right place, because he treats people the way he would want to be treated, because he is selfless, because he is heavily invested in his teammates’ success, because he has earned the respect and trust of his teammates with a failing-to-prepare-is-preparing-to-fail mantra.
“I believe the separation is the preparation,” Wilson said.
You knew the Super Bowl was never going to be too big for him if you listened to him define pressure as seeing his father Harry, who died from complications from diabetes in 2010, in a coma. “Playing the game of football is something I love,” Wilson said.
The Jets, among others, are kicking themselves now for passing on Wilson, who lasted until the third round of the 2012 draft, the 75th pick, solely because of his height. The quarterbacks selected ahead of him: Luck, Robert Griffin III, Ryan Tannehill, Brandon Weeden and Brock Osweiler. Think the Jaguars would have taken punter Bryan Anger with the 70th pick if they had a do-over?
Think the Jets would have grabbed Stephen Hill with the 43rd pick?
In a sense, the kid is Rudy with game. A big game.
“I always believed in myself, man, that’s never going to waver either,” Wilson said on the NFL Network, “and I just needed the opportunity. If I got the opportunity, I was going to take advantage of it.”
He took advantage of it with his rocket right arm, with mobility and escapability that gets him out of harm’s way, with a savvy beyond his years, with rare instincts, pocket awareness and presence of mind, and with rare decision-making skills that enabled him to avoid a single interception in the playoffs.
Carroll views Wilson as his point guard.
“That’s not because he’s a little smaller than some of the other guys,” Carroll said Monday on the NFL Network. “I said the same thing about Carson Palmer and [Matt] Leinart, and all those guys. We don’t want to build an offense around one guy, and we don’t want to build it around a guy that has to execute or you don’t have your day go right for you. … We have enough players on this team that can make things happen if the quarterback will just give them the chance. So that’s the way Russell’s been raised, and he understands it, he gets it, he’s done a marvelous job down the stretch.
“When people were saying he wasn’t as productive and they were looking at his numbers, I wasn’t saying that. We didn’t turn the ball over in the playoffs — that’s big-time ball. And he is in the center of all of that. He had a fantastic game [Sunday] night. I thought he played great football.”
Wilson (123.1 passer rating) should have been the Super Bowl MVP over Malcolm Smith. He could care less that he came up short. Winning that Lombardi Trophy is much, much bigger.