Russell Wilson: 18 sacks in 4 games. Pete Carroll: Seahawks QB often needs to get ball out
Duane Brown was standing against the huge, cardinal-red USC wall outside the visiting locker room at the Los Angeles Coliseum. The Pro Bowl left tackle was shaking his head.
“Bad night,” Brown the blocker said. “Bad night.”
It’s easy to put blame on Brown and the Seahawks’ offensive line for more sacks of quarterback Russell Wilson.
It’s unusual for their coach to put some of the blame on Wilson himself.
Pete Carroll did that Sunday night after the Rams sacked Wilson five times and hit him on 11 more plays in previously soaring Seattle’s 28-12 loss in Los Angeles.
Wilson has been sacked 40 times this season. That’s fourth-most in the NFL.
Almost half those sacks, 18, have come in Seattle’s last four games.
“I don’t know. We got to keep from getting hit in the backfield, for sure,” Carroll said late Sunday night.
“And I think that it seems like we need to, Russ needs to get the ball out, to avoid the rush from being effective. Whether he has to throw it away or not, he’s got to do that to help us a little bit.
“But I thought their rush, which is as formidable as we face, was there tonight. And they did a good job with it.”
The Rams almost always do that against Wilson and the Seahawks.
Trouble with Rams’ blitz
Wilson has now been sacked 61 times in 16 career games against the Rams. That’s the most he’s been dumped by any opponent.
As he has for years, Los Angeles defensive coordinator Wade Phillips blitzed defenders at Wilson from all angles and depths. Cornerback Dante Fowler was in on two sacks. Linebacker Samson Ebukam also had 1-1/2 sacks.
It’s a given that all-world Aaron Donald is going to get into your backfield; he had 1-1/2 more sacks Sunday.
But when cornerbacks are crashing through multiple times, you are going to lose.
A spotty rushing game cut in half from previous weeks’ production by running back Rashaad Penny’s potentially serious knee injury five plays into Sunday’s game didn’t help, either. That is why the Seahawks went without a touchdown for the first time in 44 games, dating to a 17-9 loss at Green Bay in 2017 opener.
“Well, I felt like they played better than us tonight. We didn’t play our best game,” Wilson said. “There were opportunities out there that we had. It just didn’t go our way.”
To Carroll’s point about Wilson at times holding onto the ball too long, Brown wasn’t seizing that as an alibi for him and his fellow linemen.
“I don’t know. You never really keep a play clock on how long, when the ball is supposed to get out,” he said. “Some routes take a long time to develop. They’ve got a good secondary, got a good defense.
“We didn’t run the ball well. So that’s kind of what we build our foundation on. So we got one-dimensional. We get into dropping back (to pass) quite a bit against those guys, and they pin their ears back, and that’s what they do.”
Once Penny got hurt in the first quarter and it became 21-3 Rams in the second, Los Angeles’ pass rushers swarmed Wilson from inside and out.
Run game holds up pass blocking
The Seahawks offensive line, missing center Justin Britt again because he’s been on injured reserve since October, looked overwhelmed.
This was the latest example of the need for the Seahawks to get Chris Carson, Penny and the running game going early in games to make defenses play them honestly.
The Seahawks gained 106 yards on the ground in L.A. That was their fewest since their last loss, to Baltimore six games and almost two full months ago. And 26 of Wilson’s 28 yards on the ground Sunday came when he scrambled away from pressure while trying to throw. So it was really 80 yards rushing on planned runs.
“We started slow. Got into a one-dimensional game,” Brown said. “That’s not the kind of game you want to be in against the guys, a team of very talented pass rushers.
“We’ve got to be better up front. ... We put our defenses in tough situations.”
Through all the malfunctioning in Los Angeles the Seahawks’ reality is, even with the pass-protection issues, even with the loss and dropping from the second seed to the fifth in the NFC, Seattle (10-3) still controls its fate for the playoffs. If the Seahawks win their final three regular-season games — at Carolina (5-8) Sunday, home to Arizona (3-9-1) Dec. 22 then against first-place San Francisco (11-2) Dec. 29 — the Seahawks will win the division. They will get at least one home playoff game. They will likely get a first-round bye.
“Absolutely,” Brown said. “Everything we want is still in front of us.
“We’d have loved to win this game and bump ourselves up. But it happens. Everything we want is still in front of us.
“But we have to win. We’ve gotta win. ... We’ve got to really lock in this week, and play our best football.”
At least a lot better than they played in Los Angeles.
This story was originally published December 9, 2019 at 7:37 AM.
