‘How you win championships’: Seahawks’ suddenly improved pass rush is season-changing
The Seahawks’ potentially fatal flaw has turned into the source of another late-season surge.
Their coach calls it “a new step forward.”
Where in the name of Jacob Green did this pass rush suddenly come from?
“You would have wondered: How are we going to have a pass rush without JD (Jadeveon Clowney), after what he did last week? And we did,” coach Pete Carroll said Sunday minutes after Seattle’s latest bludgeoning and harassing of a quarterback in their 17-9 domination of the Philadelphia Eagles.
The Seahawks (9-2) bulled through Philadelphia’s battered offensive line. They harassed Carson Wentz into four turnovers. And they did it without their injured top sack man. Clowney was out with a core-muscle, hip injury, one game after he dominated the San Francisco 49ers.
Sunday’s five takeaways in all were the most turnovers forced in a game by Seattle in more than two years. It got five on Oct. 8, 2017, against the Rams in Los Angeles.
The Seahawks will beat any team, anywhere, if their pass rush is creating five turnovers.
“We have taken a new step forward,” Carroll said. “And we’re getting better. And this is really, REALLY important for this stretch run, that the defense can start playing like this. The last two weeks have been really good days for our defense, and that’s really important.
“It ain’t how you start,” said Carroll, the NFL’s winningest coach in November and December since 2012. “We got a chance to finish with a really good performance from these (pass-rush) guys. And it’s going to be necessary.”
It will be absolutely season-defining.
“That’s how you win championships,” said K.J. Wright, the longest-tenured Seahawk who won a Super Bowl with a thumping pass rush in Seattle’s 2013 season.
“When you look at this defense, when we get after the quarterback when he throws the ball and rattle him, that’s when you get turnovers.
“It starts up front. Guys get sacks. Make quarterbacks get off the spot. And create those turnovers.”
The Seahawks are doing that. They are now plus-nine in the most important statistic in football: turnover margin. It’s the third-best margin in the league, behind New England (plus-19) and Pittsburgh (plus-10).
How big a deal is forcing turnovers? Every one of the teams among the NFL’s top 10 in turnovers margin have winning records. That includes Minnesota (plus-4). The Seahawks next play the Vikings (8-3) on Monday (Dec. 2) at CenturyLink Field.
What a difference two games—plus two, veteran edge rushers in Clowney and Ansah playing as planned—make.
Going into the test at unbeaten San Francisco before this last one at Philadelphia, the Seahawks were 25th in the NFL in sacks. They had just 15 through nine games. They had hit QBs just 25 times. The pass rush Seattle remade after trading top sack man Frank Clark this spring was failing the team, potentially dooming the season. It was damning that Seattle’s wins over Cincinnati, Arizona, the Rams and others had come while allowing an alarming total of passing yards from comfortable quarterbacks who had more time than watchmakers.
Then Clowney had as dominant a game as a Seattle lineman has had in years, decimating the 49ers’ offensive line Nov. 11 in Seattle’s huge win in Santa Clara.
That victory gave the Seahawks control over their fate in the NFC West. Win the final five games of the regular season, including the finale against the 49ers at home Dec. 29, and Seattle wins the division no matter what San Francisco (10-1) does.
Sunday, the Seahawks were missing Clowney. He was inactive with a hip injury. Yet they swarmed Philadelphia’s makeshift offensive line that was down to a third-string right tackle. Lane Johnson was out injured and rookie first-round pick Andre Dillard got benched trying and failing to block Ansah early in the game.
Ansah was the Seahawks’ top offseason acquisition, but he had just one more sack in Seattle’s first 10 games.
Sunday, Ansah bettered his previous total for the season with 1 1/2 sacks while playing 37 of the 76 defensive snaps. He had two tackles for loss. Ansah had two hits on Wentz and forced him to fumble.He had a third sack and second forced fumble negated in the first half by a holding penalty 25 yards down the field on teammate Shaquill Griffin.
“I’ve just been working every day. I’ve been trying to get better,” Ansah said.
Fellow end Rasheem Green also put in work against the Eagles. Seattle’s forgotten second-round draft pick from 2018 who had done little as a rookie got his team-high-tying third sack of this season. Green also had two hits on Wentz. Green played a season-high 63 percent of the snaps. He was playing 18 percent of the time this season entering Sunday.
Shaquem Griffin had two hits on Wentz. He also forced a fumble crashing into the Eagles backfield just as Wentz panicked and tried to turn a pass play into a handoff to a startled running back.
Griffin was in for 25 plays against the Eagles; he and Ansah each played 14 snaps at San Francisco. It was Griffin’s second game in his role as an edge rusher at end with his hand on the ground on third downs and in nickel defense. This, after his failed rookie season as an off-the-ball linebacker.
In Philadelphia, Griffin and Ansah were the bookend edge rushers on passing downs. Ends Green, Branden Jackson and Quinton Jefferson rotated at times inside them as hybrid tackles, particularly after tackle Jarran Reed left the game with a sprained ankle. Reed, who had 10 1/2 sacks last season, shared a sack with Ansah. Reed was limited to 21 of the 76 plays on defense Sunday.
Even without Reed and Clowney, the Seahawks had two sacks and five hits on Wentz in first 25 minutes against the Eagles. They finished with three sacks and eight hits on the quarterback. Carroll counted nine QB pressures, and Wentz had just 176 yards passing until 80 in a garbage time final drive to a touchdown that made the final score a misleading 17-9.
Seattle has eight sacks and 18 hits on QBs in the last two games. That’s more than half the defense’s totals for the first nine games.
It’s season-changing.
This surge has come with the four defensive linemen—and without the aid of Wagner, Wright, fellow linebacker Mychal Kendricks or any defensive back blitzing. Earlier this season—heck, earlier this month—coordinator Ken Norton Jr. was blitzing just to get any pressure on quarterbacks.
If the Seahawks continue to make passers throw before they want to by rushing only four while maintaining the luxury of dropping seven into coverage, they will advance from a good team with a major flaw to a greater one with a decided edge for the crux of the season. And, yes, for the postseason.
“I think on the defensive side we’re starting to see what we’re capable of,” All-Pro linebacker Bobby Wagner said.
“The pass rush was amazing.”
This story was originally published November 25, 2019 at 7:01 AM.
