Russell Wilson has more wins than any other quarterback the last three seasons. The Seattle Seahawks advanced to the Super Bowl in one of the most improbable comebacks in playoff history. Russell Wilson completed his final five passes, including a game-winning 35-yard touchdown in overtime to Jermaine Kearse.

Before the final five minutes and overtime, however, Wilson was abysmal. He threw a career-high four interceptions and became the second player in the Super Bowl era to win a postseason game with that many picks. Through three quarters, Wilson had a 0.2 Total QBR, and although he increased that number to 13.6 with his late-game heroics, Wilson finished the game with the lowest Total QBR in a postseason win since 2006.

This is not the first time that Seattle has won despite Wilson’s inefficiency. In fact, since 2012, Wilson’s first year in the league, the Seahawks have 15 wins in which their quarterback posted a below-average Total QBR, five more than any other team in the NFL. That includes both of Seattle’s NFC Championship wins during that time.

How unlikely is Seattle’s three-year run given Wilson’s QBR?

Expected wins for quarterback

In 2011, Alok Pattani, a senior analytics specialist in ESPN's Stats & Information Group, outlined a concept of expected wins for a quarterback based on his QBR in a game. The basic premise is that a player’s QBR in game can be interpreted as the expected win percentage for the team given that level of QB play. So a team whose starting quarterback has a QBR of 20 in a game would be expected to win about 20 percent of the time; a player with a QBR of 80 should win about 80 percent of the time, on average.

Wilson’s 13.6 QBR against the Packers equates to .136 expected wins, meaning the Seahawks won .864 more games than expected, given their quarterback play. By aggregating the difference between a player’s actual wins and expected wins over a given period of time, we can determine which quarterbacks are winning or losing more than expected based on their play alone.

Since Wilson entered the league, he has a 63.7 Total QBR in the regular season and playoffs, which ranks eighth among 31 qualified quarterbacks. Wilson deserves credit for his above-average QBR during that time, but does that equate to a 42-13 (.764 win percentage) career record?

Based on Wilson’s game-level QBRs in the last three seasons, he has almost 10 more wins than expected. No other player has six more wins than expected during that time.

Largest difference, wins and expected wins, last three seasons (including playoffs)

Expanding the data set back to 2006, no quarterback has been aided more by his teammates over a three-year span than Wilson. Joe Flacco from 2010 to 2012 was the next closest in terms of added wins (8.4) during any three-year period.

So how have Wilson and the Seahawks been able to defy the odds? One word: defense.

In the last three seasons, the Seahawks have contributed 4.4 points per game to their net scoring margin on defense, by far the best defensive efficiency in the NFL. Only Alex Smith (2.1) and Andy Dalton (2.1) have had defenses that contributed more than two expected points per game in their starts during that time.

Seattle’s defense has a knack for playing its best when Wilson and the offense are at their worst. Since the start of 2012, Wilson has had 22 games with a QBR below 50, including 15 wins. In those games, Seattle has held its opponents to an average QBR of 34.0 and has had a per-game defensive efficiency of +7.3. In Wilson’s games with an above-average QBR, the Seahawks have allowed a 45.7 average QBR and have had a +2.4 defensive efficiency rating.

No one can take away Wilson’s NFL-leading 42 wins since the start of the 2012 season, the most by any player in his first three seasons (including playoffs) in the Super Bowl era. But much of his success has been a result of his teammates; he has had the benefit of playing with the most dominant defense in the NFL and the league’s leading rusher, Marshawn Lynch, in the past three years.

Should the Seahawks beat the Patriots, Wilson could become the youngest player in NFL history to win multiple Super Bowls. As he is on the verge of making history, remember, no other quarterback has received more help from his teammates over the last three years than Wilson.

So the Seahawks’ current run of success hasn’t come about despite him, but it hasn’t come about solely because of him either.