The who's developing faster argument is immaterial to the Seahawks this season, and the priority has to be the development of Seneca Wallace. If Wallace needs more time to get right for this season, then by all means give it to him, even if it is at the cost of opportunities for David Greene. There is a decent chance we won't see Wallace this season, but there is almost no chance we will see Greene.
Wallace still looks a lot better than Greene, but that isn't saying too much when Greene looks so bad. No matter what the circumstances, Seneca Wallace needs to play better than he has in the last two games. How well he is prepared to play matters a lot more than how ready Greene is. And how bad David Greene would be if Matt Hasselbeck and Wallace get hurt doesn't matter if the Seahawks can't count on Seneca Wallace to get it done if Hasselbeck gets hurt.
I graded each pass play against Green Bay in terms of if there was significant pressure on the quarterback, and the play of the quarterback. The following point system was used to assign a value to each play:
+2 = completion with significant pressure
+1 = completion without pressure
+1 = dropped pass with pressure
+0 = incompletion or sack without turnover with pressure
+0 = dropped pass without pressure
-1 = incompletion without pressure
-2 = fumble, interception, dropped interception with pressure
-3 = fumble, interception, dropped interception without pressure
Seneca Wallace saw significant pressure on 7 of 21 (33%) plays, while Greene saw pressure on 6 of 19 plays (32%). Using the system above, Seneca Wallace scored a total of -6. David Greene scored a total of -5. We could argue the finer points of that scoring system, but the two quarterbacks were basically equally terrible. I played around with the values a little bit, and the two never differ by more than a point or two from each other. Greene was actually significantly better with pressure (+6 vs. -2), while Wallace was better without pressure (-11 vs. -4).
Seneca Wallace and David Greene both looked terrible, but Greene did just get his first half of football in a year and he had a backfield of A.J. Harris and David Kirtman in there with him, and an offensive line of:
Floyd Womack-Steve Vallos-Pat Ross-Ray Willis-Kyle Williams.
Vallos has been playing RG (barely), but moved to LG for the first time this game, and Womack was a disaster at LT in his first action back. Greene struggled a lot, but he wasn't any worse than Seneca Wallace was in his first half this preseason against the Chargers (with better guys around him and less pressure from the defense) or even much, if any, worse against the Packers. The Seneca Wallace interception against San Diego wasn't any prettier than Greene's first pick against Green Bay.
Maybe Greene will bounce back like Wallace did and play as well as he did last preseason if he is given another chance or maybe he won't. And it should be more important to get Seneca Wallace on track, so Greene might not even get any more chances to bounce back.
Seneca Wallace looked bad in San Diego in the first half, he redeemed himself a little in the second, and then he looked bad again against the Packers. I saw David Greene get sacked twice, but he held onto the ball. Wallace needs to do that. It wasn't just a problem against the Packers. Wallace now has 3 lost fumbles in 3 halves of football this preseason. And in his 4 starts last year, he had 5 fumbles and lost 3 of them. He also continues to fire the ball into the offensive line.
Those appear to be things you have to live with if Seneca Wallace is your QB. However, I am not going to ignore how well he played last year when he came in. He wasn't perfect, but he was adequate as a backup QB. I would like to see him be better than that, and I think he can, but right now he looks worse.
I also don't think we can ignore how well David Greene looked last preseason or in the scrimmage. He was a disaster against Green Bay, but he got thrown to the wolves. It would be a lot different if Wallace had been successful and then Greene came in and was a disaster. That wasn't the case. They were both train wrecks.
We shouldn't be making excuses for either of them. Yes, the offensive line played poorly. So what? You still need to hold onto the ball when you get sacked, and you can't force the ball into coverage. The prevailing attitude seems to be "Let's make excuses for Seneca Wallace, but not for David Greene." We shouldn't be making excuses for either of them, and we should care more about how bad Wallace looks because he might actually play.
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