Wilson is a bus driver in the sense that he is not asked to carry his team, as indicated by the fact that in his two seasons as Seattle's starting qb the Hawks have ranked 32nd (2012} and 31 st (2013) in pass attempts.
I think that's a pretty narrow take on the term "bus driver".
Passing volume is dependent on so many different things that simply using attempts to determine whether or not someone is a bus driver is pretty flawed. Jacksonville had more pass attempts than Dallas. Is Romo more of a bus driver than the QB in Jacksonville? Absolutely not. Jacksonville needed to pass because they were getting blown out every week, not because they thought their QB could carry it's team more than Dallas thought Romo could carry his team. Passing because you must and passing because your QB can absolutely carry your team will both give you a high number of passing attempts. Likewise, not passing because you don't need to and not passing because your QB is horrible will probably give you low passing attempt numbers.
From 1992 to 1995, Dallas was 12th, 24th, 26th, and 28th in passing attempts. Interesting. During the pinnacle of this franchises success, Dallas seemingly had a bus driver QB leading them to 3 championships. Of course the reality is that Aikman wasn't required to air it out 40 times per game but when called upon he was putting the ball on point, and was orchestrating a dominant and efficient offense.
Nobody is labeling Andrew Luck as a bus driver. Why, because he had an extra 465 yards passing on an additional 170 attempts? Every other statistic favors Wilson. Indy had a good defense, ranking 9th overall in the NFL. Indy didn't have the running game that Seattle does and Seattle's defense was about a TD better than Indy's but Luck had the good fortune of playing in one of the worst divisions in the NFL. Every one of Wilson's divisional opponents had a better defense than the Titans at #16 who had the highest rank amongst Luck's divisional opponents. Houston at #24 and Jacksonville at #28. That compared to San Francisco at #3, Arizona at #7, and St. Louis at #13.
When I think of "bus driver" I think of a QB who's a game manager by default, not a QB who's simply on a team that's good enough to win without him lighting up stat sheet. A guy who's reeled in because he'll turn the ball over and sink your team if you decided to let him pass. He would do this regardless of how strong the rest of his team is so even on the team with the best defense in the NFL, you just don't let him take chances.
I think Jay Cutler fits the mold of bus driver more than maybe any other QB in the NFL. He's good enough to start but the more you let him pass the more he's going to screw up. He doesn't have the ability to minimize mistakes on his own so the coaching staff has to do it for him or suffer the mistakes that Cutler will make. If you want more TDs out of Cutler, they're coming attached to INTs.
I don't consider Russell Wilson a bus driver. I consider him fortunate to play on a very good team which has allowed him to avoid the pitfalls of having to air it out every week just for his team to have a chance. I also consider him to be a guy who, like Aikman, produced when called upon while orchestrating an efficient offense. They aren't dominant but they're a young team and can get to that level if Wilson continues to mature as a player.
Where's the cutoff anyway?
Wilson had 3350 yards, 26 TDs, 9 INTs. How much more would he have to do to ditch the label of "bus driver"?
Romo was at 3830 yards, 31 TDs, and 10 INTs.
Where in that 480 yard, 5 TD gap is the cutoff where a player loses the label of "bus driver"? Wilson also had over 500 yards rushing and 1 rushing TD for a production total of about 3900 yards, 27TDs.
I think Wilson is a very good QB. I also think it's ironic that the fan base for a team with a QB who has supposedly been unjustly criticized will turn around and discredit another team's QB at the drop of a hat.
