Seahawks QB Russell Wilson thinks his much-discussed lateral to Mike Davis Sunday was perfectly legal.
Like many other Seahawks fans, quarterback Russell Wilson also had no idea what the Galilean transformation was until this week.
“But to see and hear about that was pretty cool,’’ Wilson said Thursday.
Wilson was at the forefront of a play Sunday night that a few days later saw football and physics merge in unforeseen ways when he pitched a ball to running back Mike Davis roughly six yards downfield for what was a critical 23-yard gain in the fourth quarter of a 24-10 win over the Eagles.
Some observers wondered later if maybe the ball had gone forward, which would have made the play illegal since Wilson was across the line of scrimmage. But the officials didn’t throw a flag and the Eagles did not challenge and that was basically that.
Still, on Monday coach Pete Carroll said that just to clear things up, he had put in a call to famed astrophysicist Neal deGrasse Tyson to ask if he could explain why to some it may have appeared the ball went forward.
Tyson then responded via Twitter saying it was merely the Galilean transformation and that “in their reference frame, the ball went backwards. It’s not their fault they ran forward faster than the ball.’’
During his weekly press conference Thursday, Wilson smiled when asked about the play and said it all looked good to him when he reviewed it on film
“It looks like it’s definitely backward,’’ he said. “You wouldn’t know to the natural eye. It’s like, whatever people are saying and whatever, it looked like a good play to me.’’
Carroll said Monday he has no issues with Wilson making a play that comes with some obvious risk. Carroll said Davis was calling for the ball. But if he was, Wilson said he didn’t hear him.
“I didn’t hear him call for it at all,’’ he said. “We were just playing ball. I peeked at him and he was looking at me and I just kept running and all of the sudden, ‘okay, here you go. You take it.’ And you know, he’s a great player. He’s a baller. So he can make some things happen.’’