Wilson’s primary target was the often overlooked Doug Baldwin, a gritty player and persona who had never complained about the size of his role in the offense and was vocal about his demands that the other pass catchers follow suit. What had led Baldwin’s burst was his running style. Baldwin was able to go off-stride and change direction with precision, oftentimes using shoulder and head movements to disguise his feet. In doing so, he was tying defenders into knots and then blowing past them, where he would be—by no exaggeration of the term—wide open with nary an opponent’s jersey in sight. Against the Steelers, Baldwin put up 145, for a 24 yard/catch average. Against the Vikings, it was 94, for an 18.8 yard average. Against the Ravens, it was 82, for a 13.7 yard average. Out of Wilson’s 11 touchdown passes during the last three weeks, Baldwin had accounted for five. Against the Ravens, he and Wilson added three more.
For his final TD, Baldwin was covered by cornerback Ladarius Webb. Webb, whose slight nudge on Baldwin had prevented an earlier touchdown, had decided he needed a bigger cushion against the speedster. Backpedaling from Baldwin before the snap, Baldwin started at Webb furiously but then laid off the speed while still accelerating and lengthening his strides. The result was like an off-speed pitch in baseball. At the release, it felt like the pitch would come in hot, but it arrived so late that the batter had already swung. In this case, Webb had panicked when Baldwin rushed him and had gotten happy feet, forcing him to leap when Baldwin stutter-stepped to the outside. Webb flopped onto his hands and knees. He was turned so far around that he was able to watch Baldwin complete the catch.
