‘Being unique is OK’: Pete Carroll takes pride in Seahawks running counter to rest of NFL
Pete Carroll had one word for what he saw the other night between the Los Angeles Rams and Kansas City Chiefs.
“Geez.”
The Seahawks’ 66-year-old coach watched like the rest of us when the Rams and Chiefs became the first teams to each score 50 points in an NFL game Monday night in Los Angeles.
He watched in amazement.
Carroll knows Chiefs defensive coordinator Bob Sutton and Rams defensive coordinator Wade Phillips. Those two veteran assistants were on the business ends of Los Angeles’ 54-51 win over Kansas City in their epic game Monday night. Patrick Mahomes threw for 468 yards and six touchdowns for the Chiefs. Jared Goff passed for 413 yards and four scores for the Rams.
“Some really good defensive coordinators on those staffs, too, I want you to know that, that were coaching ball (Monday) night,” Carroll said Tuesday before the Seahawks’ practice for Sunday’s big playoff-positioning game at Carolina.
“The offenses were just crazy. It was crazy. There was some huge defensive plays in that game, but there was so much offense and just so much explosion in all. It was as good a game as I can remember seeing.
“It reminds you like the old AFL games back in the day, it was just such a shootout. It was amazing.”
Points and passes piled on top of more points and more passes. It’s what the NFL wants. It has forged this with its pass-friendly rules that prohibit defenders from even touching receivers beyond 5 yards from the line of scrimmage, the protective rules about seemingly any contact with quarterbacks and the newly liberated rules on what is a catch of a forward pass.
And it’s what Carroll and his Seahawks absolutely aren’t right now.
The Seahawks win by running the ball and taking it away on defense. They lose when they don’t.
They are the only NFL team that has run it more than thrown it this season. And that’s after mistakenly doing what the rest of the league does: throwing 73 percent of the time and running it just 27 percent. That Seattle after two games this season. The Seahawks lost both.
They’ve becoming the league’s top-ranked rushing offense at 154.3 yards per game on the ground. The NFL’s second-ranked running game, 16 yards behind, is the Rams’. And we just saw how they play.
The Seahawks are the only team to have a 100-yard rushing game from three different players: Chris Carson, Mike Davis and, two games ago at the Rams, rookie Rashaad Penny.
Carroll loves to be different. He blares Drake, Post Malone, Travis Scott, AC/DC and Prince throughout practices. He holds basketball-shooting contests between offense and defense in the team’s main auditorium before meetings, with the theme from Space Jam roaring with the players; the defenders beat the wide receivers in the latest one on Tuesday.
Carroll brings in visitors to his meetings and practices, from rapper Kendrick Lamar to world-renowned astrophysicist Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson.
I asked Carroll if he was proud of being the anti-today’s NFL, a dinosaur, an anti-analytic championing a relic, the running game, in a league where passing is so chic in 2018.
“Yeah, I am,” Carroll said, with a small grin. “You know, I don’t mind being different at all.
“I didn’t mind it when we were in college (leading USC to Rose Bowls and national titles with pounding, physical running backs), either. We weren’t spreading out and doing all the stuff that other people were doing. We were running a pretty balanced attack back in the day and ran for a lot of yards, a lot of big time running backs.
“I think it’s a great way to play. When I look at college football and to look back, I look at the way that Nick (Saban) is doing his stuff there (at top-ranked Alabama). They are still a very formidable running attack, always, and in that when you’re playing all-spread teams week and week out it’s a big transition for you.
“Being unique is OK. Particularly when you’re being aggressive and tough.”
The analytics people hate what Carroll loves. They think running is a waste of time, not enough bang for the buck, not taking advantage of the rules of modern football. Carroll couldn’t care lesss. His Seahawks enter Sunday’s game at Carolina having run for 150 yards or more in seven consecutive games. That’s a team record.
That, he is says, is his proven way to win.
Yes, this offense with a second-year lead back (Carson), a rookie first-round pick (Penny) and a former waiver-wire pickup from the 2-14 49ers (Davis) is running better for a longer stretch than the Marshawn Lynch teams did while romping to the Super Bowl in the 2013 and ‘14 seasons.
The Seahawks are doing this while the rest of the league throws to a record-setting scoring totals.
The league’s 7,791 points scored through Week 11 are the most in NFL history. Also league records at this point of the season: 895 total touchdowns and 570 TD passes.
Whatever. Carroll would rather run 42 times to win games 28-14. That’s what Seattle did in Detroit on Oct. 28. Russell Wilson threw it just 17 times that day—for 248 supremely efficient yards and three touchdowns.
It’s what Carroll promised back in January when he replaced offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell with Brian Schottenheimer and line coach Tom Cable with Mike Solari.
It’s how this team, this offensive line as constructed, must play to set up Wilson’s play-action passing and pass block on a consistent basis. It’s what these Seahawks not just want to but must do to win.
Every other team outside Seattle seeks victory the other way. By throwing it all over every NFL lot, every week.
“Really, it’s about commitment and the commitment to practice it and talk it. And then carry out and coach it really well so that we’re able to do that,” Carroll said. “I mean, everyone wants to run the football. But to be that committed to it, I think that’s really what’s made the difference.
“The players are obviously suited. The guys up front are suited to run the football like that, and the running backs are suited to run football like that, and Russell complements that as well.
“I think everybody’s in on it.”
Everybody in, and only in, Seattle.
