Smoke is gone, game on for Seahawks-Patriots. Here are the keys to watch
The smoke is finally gone. Rain is back in Seattle.
And so are the Seahawks.
The air quality index for the Seattle-Tacoma area went from 200 amid all the wildfires across the West early in the week, in the range of unhealthy bordering on very unhealthy, to just 19 Saturday morning. That good air means Seattle’s home opener against New England Sunday night at empty CenturyLink Field is on.
“Little rain today, which was good,” coach Pete Carroll said after the Seahawks’ first outdoor practice in over a week on Friday. “I hope the rain helps the air, for everybody, but also helps all the people that have been hurting so much with all the damage from the fires that are going on. ...
“Need some positive stuff happening. That would be real nice if it helped.”
For the seventh consecutive week since testing began to start training camp, the Seahawks had zero verified positives for COVID-19. Carroll was concerned about that in the days after the team’s trip to Atlanta and back for its opening win over the Falcons.
The Patriots are coming to Seattle off a 21-11 win over Miami last weekend. It was New England’s first game with Cam Newton as its quarterback, after 20 years and six Super Bowl titles with Tom Brady.
Newton is 2-6 in his career against the Seahawks, who played his Panthers annually for most of the last decade. That includes 1-1 in the postseason. In the regular season he’s completed just 57.6% of his passes against Seattle, with five touchdowns and four interceptions. The Seahawks have sacked him 11 times while winning five of six regular-season games against Newton.
The NFL most valuable player in 2015 leads the key players in Sunday night’s game.
1. As they often do in primetime showcases, the quarterbacks are the headliners. Newton makes his second start for the Patriots, who don’t have Brady on their team for only the second week in the last 21 years. Newton ran 15 times for 75 yards and two touchdowns, plus conversions on third down twice and fourth down once, against the Dolphins in his debut. Brady sometimes didn’t have that many runs in two months. The Patriots used Newton on power runs inside, but more often and effectively on designed runs outside the tackles.
Seattle’s Russell Wilson is the NFC offensive player of the week for his brilliance last weekend at Atlanta--after his coaches finally...well, let Russ cook: 31 for 35 passing, 322 yards, four touchdowns, and 28 pass-play calls in the team’s first 38 snaps of the season.
Not only has Wilson has never won an MVP award, he’s never even received an MVP vote. Another performance like last week’s will get the nation talking about that.
2. Jarran Reed and Poona Ford are on the spot. The Patriots are going to run right at the Seahawks’ starting defensive tackles, including with Newton on unusual quarterback-lead power.
This is a completely different challenge for Seattle’s defense this week. It allowed Matt Ryan to throw for 450 yards while the defensive front rarely pressured him; the only consistent pressure came from blitzing.
New England ran 42 times for 217 yards on Miami. Carroll has been concerned for a couple years about the Seahawks’ run defense, and now run-stopping defensive tackles is the thinnest position group on the team.
3. It’s a completely different challenge this week for Seattle’s offense, too. Atlanta’s weakness is New England’s strength.
The Patriots have six defensive backs who could be starters on any other time. Three-time Super Bowl champion Devin McCourty doesn’t even start. Neither does JC Jackson. The backup cornerback had five interceptions last season, then another one last weekend in the red zone to seal the Patriots’ win over Miami. Stephon Gilmore isn’t just the NFL’s best cornerback, he was the league’s defensive player of the year in 2019.
Expect lead running back Chris Carson to get more than the seven carries he got in the Seahawks’ opener, and Carlos Hyde to run more than the six times he did in his Seattle debut last week. Carroll says his offense needs to and will run the ball more than it did in Atlanta.
“Seven and six carries wasn’t enough, you know, for our guys,” Carroll said.
“We need to get more here. We were at 20 (rushes in Atlanta, two of which were scrambles by Wilson, plus another throw ruled a lateral and a rush to David Moore). We want to get more than that, in general.
“But when Russ is completing every pass we weren’t discouraged about the movement of the football.
“But,” Carroll was quick to add, “we love running the football. Always have.
“Those guys are going to get more carries as we go down through the schedule.”
Look for more of Carson and Carlos Hyde running early to set up Wilson’s passes in this one.
4. When the Patriots have Newton throw in long-yardage situations and on third down, expect offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels to target Marquise Blair. Blair will be in his second career game at the Seahawks’ nickel defensive back.
Sending receivers down the middle of the field against Seattle presents the Seahawks a challenge of whether to blitz safety Jamal Adams. His aggressiveness and 12 tackles were a key to the Seahawks’ win at Atlanta. McDaniels is likely to try to use Adams’ aggressiveness against him by sending receivers to where Adams is blitzing from, which leaves Blair as the man inside to cover them.
Seattle had Blair on the field 70% of the time last weekend; last year its nickel backs played barely 30% of snaps, a league low. More of Blair and more nickel gives the Seahawks more options on how to array and blitz Adams. Until the front four consistently gets pressure on quarterbacks, Seattle needs to blitz Adams. And the team’s best way to do that right now is while in nickel defense.
This story was originally published September 19, 2020 at 1:02 PM.
