K.J. Wright: Yes, Seahawks will be in less base defense in 2020--because of Marquise Blair
K.J. Wright’s been on the Seahawks longer than anyone except the coach and general manager.
The team’s longest-tenured player is entering his 10th season, all with Seattle. That milestone fills Wright with pride.
And authority.
The veteran Pro Bowl linebacker has earned the right to speak directly. So he’s a good one to ask whether the Seahawks are going to play so much base defense in 2020.
In 2019, they played their base 4-3 scheme far more than any other team in the league. Given the proliferation of the pass and pass defenses from Pop Warner through college, Seattle may have used the most base defense in organized football last year.
Will they be in base so much again this year?
“Can’t give away the game plan, man. But I don’t think that’s going to be the case—with the emergence of Marquise,” Wright said.
He shook his head from side to side, and he smiled.
“We gotta have Marquise on the field this year,” Wright said.
Marquise is Marquise Blair, Seattle’s new nickel defensive back. The fan favorite and second-round draft choice last year from Utah last year has basically forced Seahawks coaches to find a place for him in the defense.
That place is as the new fifth defensive back on passing downs, Seattle’s counter to offenses’ three- and four-wide receiver formations.
Blair has not just taken but seized the job. He is known as a ferocious hitter at strong safety. But coach Pete Carroll and defensive coordinator Ken Norton Jr. love Blair’s size at 6 feet 1 and 196 pounds, and how he attacks passes in flight in the same way he does ball carriers on the ground.
With All-Pro strong safety Jamal Adams arriving in July in a splashy trade from the New York Jets, the Seahawks needed to find a place to reward Blair for his standout practices with a job somewhere else. It’s going to be the nickel job from Ugo Amadi, who ended his rookie season late in 2019 as the last of a parade of guys to play Seattle’s nickel.
“Marquise has been a noticeable change,” Carroll said last month, after Blair had two interceptions in the team’s mock-game scrimmage at CenturyLink Field.
Pro Bowl cornerback Shaquill Griffin was more effusive.
“Marquise Blair has shined in this camp,” Griffin said.
He called Blair “the front-runner” among all players in Seattle’s secondary this month.
“You can feel it when he’s out there with us,” Griffin said. “He doesn’t feel like he shouldn’t be out there.”
Last year, the Seahawks lost trusted nickel Justin Coleman to Detroit in free agency. He signed with the Lions for an average of $9 million per year. It was a league record for a sub-package defensive back.
Seattle tried to replace Coleman with former Browns starting cornerback Jamar Taylor. The Seahawks ended up cutting him in the middle of the season. They tried Akeem King. He’s no longer with the team, either.
They began and ended last season trying Amadi, their fourth-round pick from Oregon in 2019. In Seattle’s opener against Cincinnati, Bengals quarterback Andy Dalton threw for 418 yards with the rookie in the slot at nickel. In the Seahawks’ NFC divisional playoff game at Green Bay in January, Aaron Rodgers targeted the 5-9 Amadi for crushing conversions on third down to keep Russell Wilson and Seattle’s offense off the field when they were trying to rallying in a five-point loss that ended the Seahawks’ season.
The Seahawks dropped from 11th in the NFL in total defense in 2018 to 26th last year. Seattle allowed 382 yards and 25 points per game last season. In 2018, playing nickel with Coleman on more than 60 percent of their defensive plays, the Seahawks allowed 30 fewer yards and three fewer points per game than they surrendered last season.
That is why Carroll and Norton decided they wanted a nickel who looked and played more like a 50-cent piece. That’s when Blair became their preferred option there.
Wright is experienced and savvy enough to know his publicly advocating for Blair to be on the field more and thus the Seahawks to be in nickel more comes at his, Wright’s, expense.
The Seahawks were in base defense 68.8% of the time last season, according to Pro Football Focus. That was 30 percentage points higher than any other defense in the NFL was in base in 2019. The league average for base defense with four defensive backs last year: 28.2%.
Because of all the base Wright was on the field for 93% of Seattle’s defensive snaps, as the team’s weakside linebacker he’s been for the last decade. His snap count for 2019 was the third-highest total of his career.
The reason: Carroll and Norton trusted keeping Wright, All-Pro middle linebacker Bobby Wagner and now-departed strongside backer Mychal Kendricks on the field in base (four linemen and three linebackers) far more than they trusted using Amadi, King or Taylor as a fifth defensive back with just two linebackers.
If the 17 practices of training camp this past month were any true indication, Wright is going to yield to rookie first-round draft choice Jordyn Brooks when Blair comes in as the fifth defensive back this season. Brooks and Wagner have been the two linebackers when the defense was in nickel. It has appeared so far the coaches are easing Brooks into their system by giving him a situational responsibility on passing downs in nickel, before he perhaps challenges Wright as the starting weakside linebacker in base 4-3.
Carroll has said Brooks’ quickest path to starting will be at weakside linebacker. The coach wants Brooks to learn some mental sides, specifically the intensity with which the Seahawks practice each day.
“We are really trying to get him to really groove into how we practice, just so his mentality is on it every single step of every day,” Carroll said last month. “He doesn’t have a chance to do this unless he’s really into it — the whole time.”
Brooks may spend the season as a nickel linebacker. For Sunday, anyway, he’ll be watching Wright play on early downs.
Wright bounced back from knee surgery and 11 missed games in 2018 to have one of the best seasons of his career last year. The 2016 Pro Bowl selection and one of the league best at reading and ruining screen passes may stay the base weakside backer—only with Seattle in base defense less often this season.
This is the final year of Wright’s contract. When the Seahawks drafted Brooks in round one in late April, Wright was heading to offseason shoulder surgery.
“When I had my surgery, it was right in the middle of COVID,” Wright said. “So I had my surgery and they were just telling me, ‘K.J., you probably won’t be out there until mid-September, October.’ So I was like, OK.
“All offseason, my mind was: work my tail off to get healthy, and be ready for the first game. ... And then, while you are injured, they drafted Brooks. So that was fine, as well.”
Wright will be starting Sunday, as usual, when the Seahawks open his 10th NFL season at Atlanta.
“I just knew that when I am healthy, I am one of the best,” he said.
“So when they did it (drafting Brooks), that was an organizational decision. That is the decision the organization wanted to go in. That was their choice.
“But I know that when I’m on the field, I’ve got to do my thing. As usual.”
Just, now with Blair at nickel, maybe not as often.
