As a second baseman in the Rockies’ farm system, Russell Wilson had a nice arm. You have to give him that.

Also, his range was exceptional. But as a hitter? Wilson made all the contact of a Rob Deer and swung with all the power of an Omar Vizquel.

It was only two years ago that Wilson made the incredibly sage decision to turn in his Rockies-issued baseball equipment in Asheville, N.C., and pick up some football gear in Madison, Wis.

Saturday night in Seattle, Wilson will be quarterbacking the playoff-contending Seahawks against the Broncos in a preseason game at CenturyLink Field.

As it turned out, Seattle’s gain wasn’t the Rockies’ loss.

“He could throw,” Bill Schmidt, the Rockies’ longtime scouting director, said of Wilson. “He used to pitch, so he had arm strength. The question was his hitting. What I told him, I told his agent: ‘We’re not going to know what we have until he gets 1,500 minor-league at-bats. Most likely it’s three, four years down the road when he’s in Double-A that we’re going to know.’ “

Football tears up knees, rips quads and hamstrings, crushes hips and shoulders and rattles brainstems. But when it comes to performing at the highest professional level, baseball is tougher.

“An athlete with tools” Wilson was the type of two-sport athlete Schmidt has been known to draft. He once drafted Michael Vick, but the Virginia Tech quarterback stayed with football and continues to play in the NFL.

Schmidt also drafted a quarterback headed to Oklahoma State on scholarship. Matt Holliday wound up being the best hitter on the Rockies’ 2007 World Series team.

Wilson had played quarterback for three years at North Carolina State when he graduated early. The Rockies selected him in the fourth round of baseball’s 2010 draft.

“We knew he was high makeup. We knew he was an athlete with tools,” Schmidt said. “He had the leadership, desire to be good. It was all there. We didn’t think he would leave after a year and a half to go play football, because he told us he wanted to play baseball.

“The NFL people told him — we did our homework, and you can ask the Broncos — no one saw him as a front-line guy. (His scouting grade) was like a nondrafted guy coming into camp in football.”

Football a perfect fit It didn’t take long for Wilson to realize professional baseball wasn’t the answer. He struck out 118 times in 315 at-bats in a total of 93 games with short-season Single-A Tri-City and low-level, full-season Single-A Asheville.

He batted .229 overall and hit five homers. In June 2011, he left Asheville to play a senior-eligible football season for Wisconsin, accepting the Badgers’ recruiting pitch over Auburn, which needed to replace Cam Newton. He ended up leading the Badgers to a Big Ten title and Rose Bowl berth.

Despite his second base body type, Wilson’s QB stock rose significantly as he entered the NFL’s 2012 draft. The Broncos liked him. Liked him a lot, in fact. They wound up drafting Brock Osweiler in the second round and the Seahawks nabbed Wilson in the third. There isn’t an NFL scout worth his mortgage payment who would take a 5-foot-10 quarterback over a 6-foot-8 one.

Osweiler was drafted to back up Peyton Manning. Wilson only had to beat out Matt Flynn. An inspiring performance against the Broncos’ second-team defense in a preseason game in Denver last year gave Wilson the starting job with the Seahawks. He had a superb rookie season, leading Seattle to a surprising Elite Eight appearance in the NFL playoffs.

“We had a kid with tremendous work ethic,” Schmidt said. “Everything I read out of Seattle last year, none of that surprised me. He was the first to the ballpark every day. He’d show up in Asheville at noon, getting his work in on his own. His work ethic was second to none to try to get better. But because he had never played summer baseball, he was so far behind in at-bats. I think he got humbled a little bit and realized how tough it was.”