“We found ourselves.” Seahawks’ season pivoted to the playoffs in first meeting with Cowboys
The Seahawks were lost—and losing—the last time they prepared to play the Dallas Cowboys.
Fifteen weeks ago, Seattle was 0-2. After coach Pete Carroll had fired offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell and line coach Tom Cable, hired play caller Brian Schottenheimer and man-blocking coach Mike Solari to return the offense to the run last winter, the Seahawks were throwing.
And failing.
Russell Wilson passed 73 percent of the time in those first two games of the 2018 season, losses at Denver and at Chicago. He got sacked 12 times, the most times dumped in the NFL through two weeks.
Then the Cowboys came to Seattle.
“That’s when we found ourselves,” Seahawks wide receiver Tyler Lockett said of the game against Dallas Sept. 23. “We established the running game when we played against them. And that’s when we found our identity.
“Once you figure out who you are, that’s the scariest thing in the world. We know who we are. We don’t need to worry about who we are trying to be, or who we need to be. We are going to stay true to who we are.”
Who the Seahawks are entering Saturday night’s NFC wild-card rematch against the Cowboys in Arlington, Texas, is the league’s No.-1 rushing offense. Seattle averaged 160.0 yards rushing per game in the regular season, which was Seattle’s highest total since Marshawn Lynch led the offense to 172.6 yards rushing yards per game in the Seahawks’ last Super Bowl season, 2014.
They ended up rushing 534 times and passing it 427 times this season. That was the fewest number of throws in the league.
It all started against Dallas.
That’s when the Seahawks finally cashed in on Carroll’s promise to run the ball more. They rushed 39 times against the Cowboys. It was the first of eight consecutive games with at least 30 rushes. Seattle has done that in 12 of the 14 games since the Dallas game.
Chris Carson had the first of his six games with 100 yards that September day, Earl Thomas (remember him?) intercepted Dak Prescott twice and the Seahawks won for the first time this season, 24-13 over Dallas.
Did Seattle’s season change, and the playoff run truly begin, that first time playing the Cowboys?
“Yeah,” Carson said before Tuesday’s New Year’s Day practice. “We became more than just a one-dimensional team after that. We became a balanced offense.
“We took off after that.” \
They’ve won nine of 13 games since that day. They are back in the playoffs for the sixth time in seven years because of that running game that has softened opponents, made them play the Seahawks honestly and given Seattle’s offensive line better chances to protect Wilson for big, deep throws later in games.
“I mean, it was a big emphasis the whole offseason,” Carson said of running the ball. “Then in the first couple games we didn’t really do it too much. But then after that game, that’s when everything started to pick up.
“We saw how important it was to run the ball. We’ve got five great running backs, so it just made it easier.”
The Seahawks found their identity that sunny Seattle Sunday. But not their results. Not easily or immediately, anyway.
Dallas held Seattle to 295 total yards in the first meeting. That remains the Seahawks’ second-lowest total this season (they gained 276 the week before in the loss at Chicago). The Seahawks averaged just 2.9 yards per rush against the Cowboys. It took Carson a career-high 32 carries to get his 102 yards that day.
“You know, we didn’t really kill it that day. We had a hard game against those guys,” Carroll said. “I think Chris rushed for 32 times in that game... That wasn’t what became a little more standard, what we were shooting for later in the season.
“But it was a step in the right direction. The commitment came through.”
So did what Lockett, Seattle’s 10-touchdown receiver this season, calls “Plan B” for the Seahawks’ offense.
After the Cowboys were stacking nine defenders near the line of scrimmage to mostly stop Seattle’s early-game running, play caller Schottenheimer had Lockett sprint down the right sideline to beat Dallas safety Kavon Frazier dropping into a two-deep, outside zone coverage. He did, easily. Wilson’s pass found the wide-open Lockett for a 52-yard touchdown that put the Seahawks ahead 14-3 late in the second quarter. The Cowboys never got closer the rest of the day.
Seahawks wide receiver Doug Baldwin raised some eyes of Texas a few days after that game when he said practice-squad players Alex McGough and Caleb Scott figured out Dallas’ defensive signals just before Lockett’s touchdown catch and run.
But in the bigger picture of the Seahawks’ rebound season, Lockett’s score showed Seattle’s offense is more than just run-first, run-most. Carolina found that out on Nov. 25. The Panthers became the only foe of Seattle’s last 13 to hold the Seahawks below 150 yards rushing. Wilson to David Moore deep on fourth down and Wilson to Lockett with another deep pass on third down in the final minute rallied the Seahawks to a 30-27 win.
With one minute left last weekend against Arizona in the regular-season finale, Wilson again found Lockett on a long pass to set up Sebastian Janikowski’s last-play field goal for the win.
“The amazing thing about it is, when a team stops who we are we go back to Plan B. And we’ve got a great Plan B,” Lockett said. “And that Plan B helps us out every time we need it.”
Wilson has been able to throw passes deep down the field while afforded extra time to elude, slide, read and react to receivers’ improvisational routes because Seattle’s running game forces defenses to play the Seahawks more honestly this season. Wilson threw it fewer times than any other full-time starting quarterback in the league, yet set a Seahawks franchise record with 35 touchdown passes. That tied Matt Ryan for third in the NFL, behind Patrick Mahomes (50) and Andrew Luck (39).
Their identity, and the Plan B off of it, are why the Seahawks are back in the playoffs.
Carroll on Tuesday didn’t want to call that first Dallas game the pivot point on which Seattle’s season turned. The Seahawks rushed for 190 yards against the Rams’ rugged front, and won four of five games starting with that Dallas game.
“We were just getting started. I don’t think that was the pivotal week at all,” Carroll said. “I think that was two or three weeks after that, when we started to find the stride that we wanted, and then started to attempt to build on that...
“We made it through and were fortunate to win.”
Thing is, the Seahawks will take that result again Saturday night.
It would put them two wins from the Super Bowl.
This story was originally published January 1, 2019 at 5:21 PM.
