Three things Pete Carroll learned in Seahawks’ important win over Rams
Pete Carroll isn’t too old to learn.
The 68-year-old coach went to school on the Seahawks’ game film from Thursday’s exhilarating 30-29 win over the Los Angeles Rams.
What did Carroll and his team find Friday morning while re-watching the first victory in four tries over the defending NFC-champion Rams, one that has Seattle (4-1) entering a weekend off effectively two games ahead of Los Angeles in the division?:
- More reason to believe this is the best Russell Wilson ever.
- Ways to tweak the pass rush to have Jadeveon Clowney and Ziggy Ansah thriving the next few games, perhaps starting in the next one Oct. 13 at Cleveland.
- A new right guard. By accident.
Wilson did it again Thursday
Wilson was the best player on the field, at the sport’s most important position.
Or are you not impressed by this?
A Super Bowl champion and six-time Pro Bowl passer, Wilson threw for 268 yards and four touchdowns on just 17 completions in a mere 23 attempts against the Rams. That is 1950s-era passing frequency, with 21st-century results.
Was that the $140-million quarterback’s best game yet? For all he’s done for Seattle, that would be saying something.
“Best game I ever played?” Wilson said, sounding like he didn’t want to go that far. “I left it all out on the field. Coach and I were just talking about that.
“It was one of the best, I think.”
Wilson latest starring show came against a defensive front that constantly swarmed Wilson like no one was blocking for him.
Again.
“It was exceptional night for his consistency in him being able to find his way out of the problems,” Carroll said Friday. “We didn’t pass pro great against these guys, obviously, which was causing him to move. But the play-actions gave him space to move and do his thing.
“And other than that, he just found ways. It was just a remarkable night of football for him.
“Kind of just adding to what’s going on in the season. I think he’s on a great roll. We’ve just got to keep him...rolling.”
For the season, Wilson has 1,409 yards passing with 12 touchdown throws and zero interceptions. According to the NFL media research department, he is the first quarterback in the Super Bowl era (which began in 1967) with more than 1,400 yards passing, more than 12 touchdown throws and no interceptions through his team’s first five games.
Clowney, Ansah on the field
Clowney and Ansah, the team’s Pro Bowl veterans and new bookend edge rushers this season, played together on 42 of the defense’s 72 snaps against the Rams.
It was Ansah’s third game for Seattle. The 2015 Pro Bowl defensive end missed the entire preseason and most of the practices in August coming off shoulder surgery that ended his time with the Detroit Lions then a groin injury during conditioning in August. Ansah’s 46 snaps against Los Angeles were remarkable because they came right after he was in for 39 plays of last weekend’s win at Arizona.
That’s 85 snaps in four days for the 30-year-old who hasn’t averaged as many as 31 snaps per season since 2015. That’s as positive a number as any other for Ansah and the Seahawks.
Clowney played 56 of the 72 snaps against the Rams.
The Seahawks’ pass rush did not sack Jared Goff. It had five hits on L.A.’s quarterback in his 49 drop backs. That’s sub-standard.
Seattle’s defense had Ansah and Clowney drop into coverage at times Thursday, leaving just three pass rushers to go after five or six Rams blockers. It didn’t help. Not only did the Seahawks struggle to affect Goff, the added coverage defensive end didn’t help, either.
Clowney looked useless along the goal line, 10 yards off the line of scrimmage, while Goff threw past the defensive end on a 9-yard touchdown pass over the middle to Cooper Kupp in the second quarter. That cut Seattle’s lead to 14-13, and was the first of three touchdowns in three drives for the Rams’ offense to seize the lead entering the wild final period.
For the season, Clowney and Ansah have one sack each.
The difference in Seattle’s pass rush from 2018 with since-traded Frank Clark and currently suspended Jarran Reed leading it to Clowney and Ansah leading it now?
Not much. In fact, it’s been less effective through five games.
The Seahawks have 10 sacks and 17 hits so far this season. After five games last season, they had 10 sacks and 26 hits on quarterbacks.
Clowney has said he is still learning the moves of his partner inside him on most of his pass rushes, Quinton Jefferson (who had another strong game Thursday with two of Seattle’s five hits on Goff). Clowney says once he can anticipate what Jefferson is going to do and where he is going to go next to him, he will be so much more effective.
The coaches noted the ease at which the Rams scored in 2-minute, hurry-up mode at the end of the first half, after Jason Myers missed a 48-yard field goal that would have increased the Seahawks’ lead to 17-6, and again on Los Angeles’ first drive after halftime.
“We’d worked on this for some time,” Carroll said, suggesting the game-planning for the Rams has been going on for weeks if not months.
“We need to do better,” the coach said.
Yet Carroll said the first priority Thursday night was taking away the Rams’ running game. The Seahawks did that. They held Todd Gurley to 51 yards on 15 carries, and just 20 yards in the final three quarters.
L.A. came out in far more two tight-end formations than it had shown all season, perhaps to counter Seattle using base 4-3 defense 70 percent of the time through four games. Once the Seahawks adjusted its front to take away Gurley’s straight-ahead runs early inside, the running stopped, and Goff was often inaccurate while throwing so much in quarters two through four.
Carroll said he found some things in the Rams game film that he can change to make Clowney, Ansah and the Seahawks’ pass rush more effective in the upcoming games. He has already said the unit is nowhere near the production it will have later in the season.
“They are working at it. They are transitioning, too,” Carroll said of Clowney and Ansah.
A new right guard?
Jamarco Jones may have won a new job Thursday night.
Carroll said Friday that starting right guard D.J. Fluker has a hamstring “pull.” The team will need well into next week to determine whether the massive run blocker can play against the Browns Oct. 13.
If not, sounds like Jones will.
The second-year backup tackle was forced to play guard for the first time in his life against the Rams, after Fluker got hurt in the first half and did not return. That’s because the backup guard, Ethan Pocic, was hurt, too; he was inactive with a neck injury.
Jones, Seattle’s fifth-round draft choice from Ohio State in 2018, missed all of his rookie season on injured reserve following ankle surgery. Days before he got hurt in August 2018 the Seahawks had Jones replacing Germain Ifedi as the first-team right tackle in some practices.
Jones said after Thursday’s game he’d never played guard at any level. Not at Ohio State—he was the Buckeyes’ left tackle—nor in high school, Pee Wee, flag, his backyard—nowhere.
“Never guard in a game,” he said. “Always left tackle.”
Get this: he made his life debut at guard Thursday against All-Everything defensive tackle Aaron Donald.
“You always want to be prepared,” Jones said. “I felt like I prepared well this week. My guys trusted in me and helped me along this week. So it was great to get out there and finally get a chance to play.”
Carroll was floored that Donald didn’t destroy Seattle’s night, that Jones kept the Rams’ quick defensive tackle Wilson has called the best played he’s ever opposed mostly in check.
“I was shocked that it was so smooth for him, to move to the right side and play guard where he has no background, other than practice,” Carroll said. “He moved his feet well. He played strong. And assignment-wise he was solid. I think he got out of the game with no pressures (on Wilson); he might have been the only guy coming out of the game who did that.
“So, at a time when ‘Fluke’ may be unable to go, we are fortunate he stepped up the way he did. He made it. ... It’s a remarkably good showing for us going forward.”
This story was originally published October 4, 2019 at 2:18 PM.
