RENTON, Wash -- Three days before the season finale against St. Louis, Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson tweeted a photo of his dad. It will stun you. The resemblance is uncanny.
#TBT.... Is that me or my dad? Haha... That's my dad in 1970s playing Baseball at Dartmouth #2Sports pic.twitter.com/Mmw9BeXJz8
— Russell Wilson (@DangeRussWilson) December 26, 2013
"It was Throwback Thursday and I thought it was appropriate for the day," Wilson said. "It put a smile on my face."
Wilson is coming off the worst home game of his NFL career. He's about to play in the biggest regular-season game of his career.
It says something about Wilson's mindset this week for a game with so much on the line -- the NFC West title and home-field advantage for the playoffs -- that his father is in his thoughts.
Harrison Wilson III died in 2010 due to complications from diabetes. Russell was asked what he thinks his dad would have said to him about this game.
"I think my dad would tell me, 'Just be poised Russ,'" Wilson said. "He told me to always be the calm in the storm. He told me to keep believing in yourself no matter what the circumstances are."
The circumstances this week are as big as they get for a regular-season finale. And Wilson enters this one with a performance he would like to forget in the 17-10 loss to Arizona.
Wilson completed only 11 of 27 passes for 108 yards. The Seahawks failed to convert their last nine third-down plays.
"I'll take the blame for it," Wilson said. "I've just got to be better. I'm not worried about it at all. I know we can be great on third down. I'm not going to waver. I never have and I never will. Nothing is going to fluster me."
It's a pretty bold statement coming from a guy who always is guarded in his responses. But it shows Wilson has a bit of a chip on his shoulders this week.
"I love a challenge," he said. "We'll get it right."
Wilson began that task at 4:30 a.m. Monday, only 12 hours after the Arizona game ended.
"I'm an early person anyway," Wilson said. "I'm usually here by 5:45 [a.m.]. Win or lose, I usually don't sleep that great just because I'm thinking about the game.
"This was one of those things where you just want to watch the tape and figure out what you did wrong. Sometimes you just need to get to work. That way you can put it away and move on to the next opportunity. That's what that was."
So what did Wilson learn in his pre-dawn film session?
"I just need to find a way to deliver the football a little more accurately," Wilson said. "I'm normally pretty high, percentage-wise, on that, but you just move on and forget about it. Sometimes you just have a bad day. It's that whole baseball analogy. Some days you go 0-for-5, but you come back and keep swinging.
"I just need to continue to do what I've done all year, continue to try to be consistent. Just stay poised and do what I always try to do, which is be the calm in the storm."
The lessons his father, and mother, taught him long ago.
"I think about my dad all the time," Wilson said. "I wouldn't be here without my parents and what they've done for me and the work ethic they taught me, the belief in myself and the self-motivation. I love them both for that."
Now it's time to apply what they taught him in a one-game test that means so much to Wilson and his teammates.
"We're 12-3," Wilson said. "That's a pretty good situation for us. There's no stress in the building and there are no worries. It comes down to the last week and it's in our hands. We believe in ourselves.
"In the NFL, you have to be able to adjust to make things happen sometimes. For me, I watch everything that I do, every little detail. I'm extremely critical of myself, but in a positive way. I try to understand it and how I can do it better."
Probably just what his father would have told him to do.