After watching Russell Wilson outrun Denver in overtime and use his feet to beat Washington, plenty of Seahawks fans have to be thinking: He controls the game so much when he runs, why doesn’t he do it more often?

The simple answer is he prefers to hand off to Marshawn Lynch on those read option plays and keep his eyes downfield when passing plays break down.

Most of Wilson’s running last season was out of necessity as Darrell Bevell inexplicably failed to move Wilson around behind Seattle’s battered offensive line. After rushing for 489 yards on 94 carries as a rookie — much of that on the read option in the second half of the season — Wilson ran for 539 yards on 96 carries last season.

As expected (by us anyway), this season he is running more. With 209 yards on 29 carries, he is on pace for 836 yards and 116 rushes.

Until Monday, most of Wilson’s runs had been scrambles off busted pass plays. In the 26-20 overtime win vs. Denver in Week 3, he led the Hawks to the winning touchdown on scrambles.

But against Washington, half of his runs were off zone-read keepers — a rare game in which he chose to run the ball 11 times, netting a career-high 122 yards in the 27-17 win. It was part of the plan against the Redskins.

“He played a marvelous football game. He really just did everything a guy could do,” coach Pete Carroll said. “We were the beneficiary of a really good plan in terms of the quarterback runs that came off the run game. He didn’t have to do any of that on his own; really stuff was called for him and he had to make the right read and the right option.”

It led to five option runs for 66 yards, including a 29-yard gain to set up a touchdown on the first drive. The rest of Wilson’s yards came on broken pass plays.

“The scrambles (are) a whole different story now — throwing play turns into a running play — and he was magnificent there,” Carroll said. “He just got in that flow. He passed up some opportunities to throw the ball because there was so much space to securely run the ball and make a lot of yards, and he did a great job with it.

“That’s not going to be like that every game,” Carroll said. “It just was this week. He took full advantage of it. He was just right on the money with making great choices and decisions and took care of the football marvelously. Again, gave us a great chance to win.”

Critics complain that Wilson puts himself at risk and wonder whether he can survive and the offense can succeed with him running the ball. Huh?

Those people apparently forget that he was running for his life for much of last season behind a bad offensive line, and they also apparently don’t realize that Wilson probably is the smartest mobile quarterback since Randall Cunningham or even Fran Tarkenton. He takes more big hits in the pocket than he does running.

“I’ve survived the past two seasons,” he said in answer to some foolish reporter who questioned the wisdom of his running. “I don’t usually get hit hard. I usually get down. I’ve only been hit hard once this season, and that was probably last week. I usually try to stay away from those big hits.”

You tell ’em, Russell.

“He does a great job back there. He plays smart,” Bevell said. “Are we trying to create all those? No, we’re not trying to create all those. Some of them work. Obviously they were designed for some of those things to happen, but some of the ones on the pass plays, that’s the way he reacts to them. A couple of them there was pressure. You’re not going to have a game quite like that last game each and every week, but we’re not going to discourage him from using his legs.”

Wilson reiterated what he has always said about broken pass plays: He tries to throw the ball first.

“I always want to keep my eyes downfield,” he said. “I’m never really trying to run the ball. I’m trying to find guys. I missed one the other night, I think. The very first one, I could have had (Jermaine) Kearse, but I had already passed the line of scrimmage.

“I try to keep my eyes downfield,” he said, referencing highlight scramble throws he made to Marshawn Lynch, Luke Willson and Cooper Helfet. “Those are big plays for us, and those are real plays that are going to happen often and we want to be great at those plays. We want to be the best in the National Football League at that.”

“That’s just a marvelous part of his makeup,” Carroll said of the scramble throws, “and we’ve encouraged our entire offense to play to that. When the play does break down and it does change, we want to kick into the scramble mode and try to really strike you.”

With Wilson, they can strike through the air or on the ground. And most Seahawks fans — not the silly, ill-informed worry warts — would like to see plenty more of the latter.