How Russell Wilson got back to neutral

From a purely auditory measure, the chorus of boos had reached a volume impossible to ignore.

The Pittsburgh Steelers were hosting the New York Jets for Russell Wilson’s first start with the franchise, and a rowdy Sunday Night Football crowd did not like the pass that landed behind receiver Calvin Austin to start the second quarter.

Fans didn’t like the behind-the-line-of-scrimmage miss to Austin that followed, either, so Acrisure Stadium erupted in boos again.

But the quarterback whom they were allegedly welcoming didn’t flinch. What the nerves of his ears noticed, his mind refused to meaningfully consider.

No, this wasn’t the first rodeo for a 13-year starting quarterback who had reached nine Pro Bowls and two Super Bowls, including a championship win.

But also: The 5-foot-10 5/8 quarterback realized long ago that if he wanted to excel as an undersized professional football player, he’d make up for his physical shortcomings with a mental edge. He would strengthen his mind to an almost unbelievable tenor. Perhaps it wasn’t always realistic to embrace positivity. But it was routinely reasonable to minimize negativity.

So Russell Wilson spent the first decade of his career working with Trevor Moawad, his mental coach and, over time, his best friend. Before Moawad succumbed to cancer in 2021, both had mastered the art of what Moawad called “getting to neutral.”

“A nonjudgmental, unbiased way of looking at information,” Moawad said in 2020. “Accepting the past as real but not predictive.”

As Wilson returned from a calf injury Sunday night, he accepted the misfires and drops that had precipitated the booing as real. The tumultuous two years he’d weathered with the Denver Broncos were real, and the calf injury that sidelined him most of training camp and the first six weeks of the regular season was real. The 4-2 record the Steelers had achieved with Justin Fields as quarterback: also real.

But none of it was predictive.

Tapping into his well-trained capacity for neutrality, Wilson focused not on his emotions but instead on the behaviors that would change his own and his team’s fortune. He “stayed the course,” as Moawad had long implored him to do.

“I kept telling Coach [Tomlin], ‘Hey, I’m gonna get hot here,’” Wilson said. “And sure enough, we did.”

Three Wilson touchdowns and a 109.0 passer rating later, a Steelers team with its best deep passing game of the season had trumped the Jets, 37-15, in Wilson’s debut.

Wilson’s success in the game, as Moawad often told his clients, left clues. And this time, they pointed straight at the friend, mentor and confidant who continues to influence the quarterback deeply three years after his loss.

How Trevor Moawad shaped, and continues to shape, Russell Wilson

Mark Rodgers, Wilson’s agent in baseball and football since 2010, identifies two potential tipping points in his client’s career.

On Feb. 1, 2015, Wilson threw the devastating game-sealing interception in the Seattle Seahawks’ Super Bowl loss to the New England Patriots.

During the 2022 and 2023 seasons, Wilson played for a Broncos franchise that cycled through three head coaches in his first 11 months, Wilson also battling injury and contract disputes as criticism abounded.

“Either of those things would knock out a lesser man,” Rodgers told Yahoo Sports.

Nobody in Wilson’s circle is taking credit away from the quarterback for his resilience. But all — including Wilson himself — believe the credit should be shared with Moawad.

Moawad and Wilson first met in 2012, when Wilson trained for the NFL scouting combine at IMG Academies, where Moawad was guiding players in motivation and visualization tactics. Moawad realized quickly that Wilson bought into the training and philosophy more than most athletes.

Before long, they were speaking daily and meeting weekly in-season. Conversations about preparation, action-oriented, goal-setting and the importance of staying present followed. Moawad taught Wilson that positivity works sometimes but “negativity works 100% of the time” — against its subject. And the coach whom cancer would eventually claim at 48 years old said long before his diagnosis: “You don’t have to be sick to get better.”

So despite the responsibilities Moawad juggled as a consultant for Nick Saban’s Alabama players, Jimbo Fisher’s Florida State players, Kirby Smart’s Georgia players and more, Moawad flew nearly every week of the season to Seattle for a mental game-plan meeting.

“Brad Pitt’s here, baby,” Moawad would say as he walked in the door. “Brad Pitt’s here.”

Meetings shifted in theme but always stuck to core tenets: Dream big. Visualize the success. Create an action plan for the immediate next steps. Focus on those behaviors, not their outcomes.

Dreaming big came naturally to Wilson, so Moawad helped ground those dreams.

“Russell's the kind of guy that believes anything is possible,” said entrepreneur Kenny Dichter, a close friend of both men and the CEO of a private aviation company. “Trevor zoomed them in to say, ‘OK, I get you, Russell. Anything is possible. Let’s win today’s game.’

“Trevor's philosophy, the way I read it, was: ‘If you win football games, the rest of Russell Wilson will be a bigger voice in the world. You'll be able to help more people if you do what you're good at.’”

A key tool to zoom Wilson in: weekly seven- to 10-minute videos that functioned as internal advertising campaigns. If negativity is four to seven times as powerful as positivity, per research Moawad cited, bombarding Wilson’s mind with stronger messaging was crucial. They didn’t only drill what Wilson was capable of but also how he would get there.

“Highlight reels are great; you’re definitely seeing yourself have success,” Sean-Kelley Quinn, who has consulted on Wilson’s videos, told Yahoo Sports. “But there’s not a lot of hearing about people not having success or how they've fought through adversity. It might be that positive message we want to see [of] ourselves thriving and going out there and excelling. But when there's chaos or an issue, how do the great ones respond?

“Understanding how champions think, understanding how elite athletes perform under lights and extreme pressure, how to get through it. Helping normalize those messages can be really important too.

“They normalize life itself.”

Moawad didn’t shy away from normalizing the moments when Wilson’s outcomes didn’t align with his goals.

When Wilson wondered how he’d move forward from a Super Bowl loss in his third season, Moawad moved into the quarterback’s San Diego home for a month. They created physical and mental training plans, debriefing not just the big-stage loss but the entire season at a round table in Wilson’s house. Chad Bohling, the mental coach for the New York Yankees, Dallas Cowboys and Dallas Stars, marveled at his friend and former colleague’s generosity and poise.

That was Trevor, those close to both men say.

“It's hard for people to really know what to say to people after a tough loss like that [but] I didn't ever sense any hesitation on Trevor's part,” Bohling told Yahoo Sports. “He was just as comfortable talking with Russ, working with Russ, after that loss as he was when he probably won the Super Bowl as well, which is very rare. A lot of people would not know what to say to a quarterback who just had that happen to him, but he was very comfortable and confident and knew how he wanted to attack it with Russ.”

So when Wilson’s Broncos journey proved rockier than expected, Wilson’s inner circle asked themselves: What would Trevor say?

They proceeded accordingly.

After loss of Moawad, Wilson’s circle searched to fill void

Moawad-directed videos, like Wilson’s meetings with his late friend, had stopped after Moawad’s death in 2021.

No longer was Wilson watching weekly cutups of Kobe Bryant and Michael Jordan; of Derek Jeter and Tom Brady. He was not watching athletes talk through their process of blocking out noise and entering the zone, the audio of their messages often superimposed over clips of their own successful moments and especially processes.

Multi-platinum singer Ciara, who married Wilson in 2016, thought Wilson missed the messaging.

So Wilson’s wife and his agent worked with Moawad’s former colleagues, Quinn and Jonathan Schultz, now at Optimal Mental Performance, to reintroduce the videos last season.

Ciara and Rodgers discussed weekly the challenges and opportunities that awaited Wilson, integrating music, religious sermons and themes relevant to that specific week. They’d share their vision with Quinn and Schultz by Monday or Tuesday, Rodgers said, and review a draft on Thursday or Friday.

Clips from Al Pacino’s “Any Given Sunday” came across Wilson’s screen, as did speeches by political and motivational speaker Les Brown. Bryant discussed his “Mamba Mentality” coming off injury. Olympic sprinter Michael Johnson discussed the importance of focusing on his lane and his lane only. Videos of Moawad speaking now entered the rotation — another lifeline to the friend whose finals texts Wilson still goes back to read three years after his death.

Saturday night, in person or over the phone, Ciara and Wilson watched the videos together.

“Ciara was like, ‘Let's get those videos going and just keep your spirits up. It's what Trevor would do,’” Wilson told Yahoo Sports. “I just felt really confident last year again, and so I think a big part of that was with those videos and those memories and those moments.”

The goal wasn’t to be overly positive, a criticism that has been levied against Wilson. Rather, combating negativity with grounded reasons for optimism could get Wilson back to neutral.

A year after Wilson threw 16 touchdowns and 11 interceptions en route to a 4-11 record, he threw 26 touchdowns to eight interceptions in his first year of Sean Payton’s system. The Broncos won just one of their first six games, then rebounded to win five straight.

Ultimately, the Broncos and Payton sought a split from Wilson, disagreements over Wilson’s negotiated contract expediting the divorce.

But even as the Broncos absorbed an $85 million dead cap hit to split from Wilson, he penned a classy goodbye message that simply did not dwell on negativity. Wilson wasn’t naive or unrealistic about stats and records; rather, he focused on the process as he thanked teammates, support staff and even “Wendy & Brandy in the cafeteria … for always being uplifting.”

"It'd be very tempting to clap back," Wilson’s brother, Harry Wilson, told Yahoo Sports. "I think Russ has been really consistent at the high road. That's really hard to do. That's neutral. It's not being positive, because he's not on social media trying to campaign for himself either."

Moawad’s messages would again guide Wilson’s perspective on a new start. He knew his mental coach would insist “the best is ahead” and no single moment nor season needed to define Wilson. The Super Bowl loss didn’t define him; why should the Denver chaos? His goodbye post was a step toward staying true to himself.

“Trevor would say, ‘Listen, when you go back and you think about your career, when you're 20 years in and you look back, yeah you may have had really one tough year,” Wilson told Yahoo Sports. “That was the first year in Denver. Last year I played well, they just didn't — they wanted to move on and that’s their decision. I'm in a good place here in Pittsburgh. I'm excited about it and happy where my feet are. Just to focus on where you are right now. I look at it as a tremendous honor. I don't look at it as a bad thing.

“I get to play for Pete Carroll and I get to play for Mike Tomlin — two all-time greats.”

As Wilson writes Steelers chapter, don’t expect negativity in the story

Wilson’s road from signing with Pittsburgh to starting with Pittsburgh swerved.

Externally, Tomlin spent the spring and summer saying the veteran was in “pole position” to start ahead of fellow offseason acquisition Justin Fields but guaranteeing nothing. Fields’ opportunity inched closer in training camp when Wilson tweaked his calf pushing a sled, sidelining him for weeks of preseason work.

Even after he returned to play in the preseason, Wilson aggravated his calf injury and missed six games. As his Week 1 availability hung in the balance, he weighed the wisdom of risking further concern in September. Rodgers said one person close to Wilson asked the quarterback: “What would Trevor say?”

He couldn’t control how strained his calf already was or the exact timeline its recovery would take. But Wilson could control his attitude.

Thirteen years and 334 passing touchdowns into his NFL career, that was nothing new, Harry Wilson said.

“If you look at his stats and then you look at 5-10 5/8, it’s like — how?” Harry Wilson said. “He’s not 6-4, 6-3. With those measurables, that margin for error is really, really tight. So why would I allow that margin for error to be even smaller with negativity?

"There's enough uncontrollables out there that the ones that I can control, I need to be maniacal about.

“Those are the breadcrumbs that Trevor leaves behind.”

So Wilson controlled his diligence about recovery and he controlled how much he supported Fields as Fields started. Wilson controlled his neutral and forward-thinking language as Tomlin played coy about which quarterback he’d start among two healthy choices, and he controlled his mechanics and coverage diagnoses as the boos rained down in the second quarter of Sunday Night Football.

Before long, he was controlling the game, finding receiver George Pickens 44 yards down the left sideline to open up the passing attack in the second quarter, and Pickens again on a back-shoulder touchdown to narrow the deficit to two points before halftime.

Wilson told himself then: “There’s gonna be a lot more of these, I believe.”

Thirty-one unanswered points later, the Steelers won. Wilson’s slow start was real but not predictive.

He’s eager to make more wins a reality.

“I think a lot of people are like, ‘Oh no, he’s done,’” Wilson told Yahoo Sports in August. “I’m like, ‘No, I’m just getting started.’ [So] I’m focused on winning again a whole bunch here soon. So we’re just hitting the reset button and going again.

“I’m really excited about this opportunity.”

Jori EpsteinSenior reporter

Jori Epstein is a senior NFL reporter for Yahoo Sports and the author of The Upstander: How Surviving the Holocaust Sparked Max Glauben's Mission to Dismantle Hate. She previously reported for USA TODAY and The Dallas Morning News. Follow Jori on Twitter @JoriEpstein.