Silver lining to frustrating loss to Rams: Seahawks are packing an identity for trip to London

It’s fitting that the Seahawks are reuniting with Marshawn Lynch this week. Fitting also that they have to go halfway around the world to do it.

“Yeah, it’s kind of a natural,” Carroll said Monday on his weekly radio show with Seattle’s 710-KIRO, about playing Lynch and his Oakland Raiders on Sunday in London. “I’m sure Marshawn is going to be big in the UK.

“He might have one of those cart with (his Beast Mode brand) T-shirts on it, and stuff.”

The Seahawks’ offense has taken the long way to restoring its Lynch-era production and consistency.

Only now, five games into the third season since Lynch last romped for them, have the Seahawks regained their identity. The identity Carroll wants for his offense. The one Lynch forged by thudding force for Seattle from 2012 into ’15, and through two Super Bowls.

After two years of relying on Russell Wilson to do everything, often by improvisation when pass protection failed, Seattle is running again, and doing it more often and more effectively than it has since Lynch briefly retired at the end of the 2015 season. He signed last year with his hometown Raiders.

The Seahawks (2-3) leave Wednesday night for London to play Lynch and Oakland (1-4) Sunday at Wembley Stadium. And they are packing a seemingly formidable-again running game.

That was the positive to come out of Sunday’s frustrating, 33-31 loss to the undefeated Rams, a game the Seahawks spent Monday still believing they should have won.

“I think that you can see, I hope you can tell, how our team has grown,” Carroll said Sunday after the Seahawks pounded the Rams’ defensive front for 190 yards rushing. “The last three weeks have been really an extraordinary step forward for us.”

Extraordinary compared to the first two games.

In the opener at Denver Sept. 9 and then at Chicago the following week, the Seahawks’ offense averaged 19 rushes for 69 yards. Lead back Chris Carson was basically ignored in games one and two; he never got the ball after the 11:51 mark of the second quarter Sept. 16 against the Bears. That was the night when Seattle didn’t attempt a run from the end of the second quarter until the beginning of the fourth.

Wilson got sacked an NFL-high 12 times in those two games. The Seahawks lost both, and Wilson began showing up on injury reports with a hamstring injury, though he hasn’t missed a practice.

Against Dallas, Arizona and the Los Angeles Rams, Carroll and new offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer finally began doing what they’ve changed personnel, scheme and mentality, to do since January. The Seahawks have averaged 36 rushes per game the last three weeks, almost double their carries from the first two games. Their production on the ground has more than doubled over the last three games, to 158 yards rushing per week.

This is the first time since 2012 the Seahawks have had 100-yard rushers in three consecutive games. Lynch topped 100 yards in four straight games soon after he arrived in Seattle in a trade from Buffalo during that season. He rushed for 100 in five straight games later that ‘12 season, through the Seahawks’ first playoff game that postseason.

“We never believed that this team couldn’t run the ball,” Carson said. “That whole time we thought, given the chance, that we can make something happen. We’re starting to show people that.”

Seattle has won two of the last three games behind this stronger commitment to the run. Wilson’s game, and health, have improved, too. He had four turnovers (three interceptions and a fumble) while incessantly pressured in the first two games. He has zero turnovers in the last three games, with five touchdown passes.

He 132.5 passer rating Sunday against the Rams was his highest of the season (13 completions in 21 throws for 198 yards and three touchdowns). And it came while the offense was romping for big yards on the ground.

Wilson’s 39-yard touchdown pass to Tyler Lockett in the second quarter came off play action. The Rams had to honor the Seahawks’ run game and read blocks rather than just tee off on sacking Wilson, which they had done seven times the previous times those teams met, a 42-7 win for Los Angeles in December.

That extra time the Rams’ defensive front spent on the run gave Wilson plenty of time to find receivers down the field for other big gains, such as the 44-yard pass to Lockett with 4 minutes left. That got the Seahawks in position to win, before a crushing holding penalty on D.J. Fluker pushed them back out of range for a winning field goal.

“We showed up and played the way that we need to,” Wilson said, “and the way that we want to.

“The run game is always key. You always want to be able to run the ball and be physical at the point of attack. (Against the Rams) I thought that Coach Schottenheimer did a tremendous job calling some of the play action plays and getting us down the field and finding guys and hitting things when we had the opportunity.”

While Wilson has become more efficient and safe with the ball, the Seahawks have had three consecutive games with 100-yard rushers. Carson set his career-high three games ago in the win over the Cowboys, then topped it with 116 yards on 19 carries Sunday against the Rams. Mike Davis set his career highs with 101 yards on 21 rushes the previous week in the win at Arizona.

Against Los Angeles, Davis added 68 yards. Sunday was the first time the Seahawks had two backs rush for at least 65 yards in the same game since Lynch (128 yards) and Robert Turbin (108) ran over Arizona on Dec. 9, 2012, in a 58-0 victory.

Seattle has risen from 29th in the NFL in rushing offense to ninth now.

It drives the analytics folks nuts, this running the ball primarily. They cite statistics and probabilities saying it isn’t worth the time and effort, because of the yards produced running compared to yards gained by passing.

What those number-crunchers ignore: This Seahawks team in particular was built to run first. This offensive line cannot pass block for 35-40 times per game. Fluker isn’t here to be a pass protector. He drives guys into the ground run blocking. Wilson cannot survive physically over a 16-game season if his blockers have to pass protect that many times each week.

This team brought in Schottenheimer to replace Darrell Bevell as play caller, hired Mike Solari with his man-on-man, drive-blocking schemes to replace fired Tom Cable’s more finesse zone blocking and signed massive, road-grading Fluker to play right guard to run the ball. And for Wilson’s play-action passing to play a co-featuring rather than completely solo role in leading the offense.

Carroll, Wilson and Schottenheimer cited not converting on third downs and not having the ball much as the reasons they didn’t run as promised and built in the first two games of this season. Whatever. It remains mostly inexplicable they did not. Think of where the Seahawks could be right now if Carson had gotten more than seven carries at Denver and six at Chicago.

They likely wouldn’t be 2-3, and already three games plus the head-to-head tie breaker behind the Rams for the division lead.

Plus, running the ball travels well. All the way to England, even, against any foe on any field. Including a famed soccer pitch at Wembley.

“We’re jacked about where we go (from here). There is a long season ahead of us,” Carroll said following the narrow loss to the Rams. “There is no doubting who we are as a team and how we’re trying to build this thing.

“We are in a pretty good spot right now. We are just getting going,” the coach said Monday on his radio show. “It’s just unfortunate that here we are, (at) 2-3. Just, we are really on the way now.”

Wilson said the feeling in the locker room following Sunday’s loss when the newly efficient offense did enough to beat the Rams: “We really feel like we’re about to turn a corner.

“And we’re going to keep believing and keep working hard,” Wilson said. “Great things are going to happen through that.”

This story was originally published October 8, 2018 at 7:05 PM.