Everson Griffen gets away (again). Here’s why Seahawks importing help is harder this year
The Seahawks have a spot open on their 53-man roster.
The game they just played showed, yet again, they need major help on their porous defense.
But they won’t be getting pass rusher Everson Griffen. Again.
They also need running backs. Any healthy one would do.
But it’s not that easy to just sign or trade for any player to help in any way. Not right away. Not in this unprecedented COVID-19 season.
The Dallas Cowboys took one potential option to help Seattle’s defense and traded him to Detroit on Tuesday.
The cost: reportedly a sixth-round draft choice, conditional on how well the 32-year-old Griffen plays for Detroit.
That’s a price even the Seahawks, as short on draft picks as they are after trading two first-rounders to the Jets to acquire All-Pro safety Jamal Adams this summer, could have afforded.
Seattle declined to sign Griffen in free agency before this season. They had looked into him before he signed with Dallas for $6 million.
Griffen has two sacks this season. That would tie him for the team lead on the Seahawks. They are tied for the fourth-fewest sacks in the NFL. Last year Seattle was next to last in the league in sacks.
“It really comes down to generating pressure on the quarterback. And it’s not just the pass rushers, it’s all of it,” Seahawks coach Pete Carroll said.
“We have to make it more difficult on the quarterback by harassing him.”
Seattle waived reserve defensive tackle Anthony Rush Tuesday, two days after he was inactive for its overtime loss at Arizona. There was no corresponding roster addition reported by the NFL’s official transactions.
That left the Seahawks (5-1) with an available spot on their active roster five days before they host NFC West-rival San Francisco (4-3).
Pass rush remains what it was in March when Jadeveon Clowney didn’t re-sign: this team’s biggest, potentially decisive weakness.
Not only did the Seahawks have zero sacks of Kyle Murray Sunday night in Arizona, they did not register a quarterback hit in Murray’s 48 drop backs. It’s difficult in any level of football to not hit a quarterback in 48 tries.
The only time the Seahawks pressured Murray was when Benson Mayowa forced him to run and rush a throw on fourth down. That finished Seattle’s goal-line stand after DK Metcalf’s already legendary run-down of Budda Baker after the Arizona safety’s interception and 95-yard return of Russell Wilson’s pass in the second quarter.
“We are not where we want to be,” All-Pro middle linebacker Bobby Wagner said, tersely, after Arizona game. “At this point, it’s going to take some focus.
“At this point, you’ve just got to make your mind up and say you want to play good defense. Period.”
Mayowa and Adams share the team lead with two sacks. Adams hasn’t played in a full month because of strained groin.
The Seahawks have nine sacks in six games. They are on pace to finish the season with 24. That’s four fewer than last season, when only Miami had fewer sacks than Seattle.
The Seahawks allowed 519 more yards to Arizona, 360 of them passing by Murray. Seattle has allowed 2,875 total yards, the most through six games in NFL history according to the Elias Sports Bureau.
The NFL trading deadline is Nov. 3.
The problem with importing
Trading for Washington edge rusher Ryan Kerrigan, signing available free agent Clay Matthews or making any other outside move will not help as much as such deals have in the past.
Not immediately.
It’s not only because Seattle has just over $3 million in available salary-cap space, counting the $857,500 charge of still-suspended wide receiver Josh Gordon.
The NFL recently enhanced its testing protocols for the COVID-19 virus in the wake of the Tennessee Titans having an outbreak that canceled games. Players now get tested every day, including game days.
Any player signed from the outside must complete six consecutive days of COVID testing before he is even allowed in his new team’s facility. Previously, it had been four days of entry time.
An import has to pass seven tests in those six days, including two on the final day: a point-of-care, rapid-result test plus the polymerase chain reaction test players, coaches and team personnel have been getting since the start of training camps in late July.
Only after a new player passes those six days of tests can he get a physical examination and begin training and practicing. He can’t even meet his new coach and teammates in person until after a week. Then he begins acclimating to the team and its playbook.
Essentially, it’s become a two-to-three-week proposition to add any new player in this coronavirus season.
“Yeah, it is. It really is,” Carroll said. “You’ve got to hope you have the crystal ball and you can get ahead of it.”
That’s why Carroll said the Seahawks have “creative thoughts” for running back this week. Seattle’s top three are injured: Chris Carson (sprained foot), Carlos Hyde (hamstring) and Travis Homer (bruised knee).
Rookie DeeJay Dallas is the only healthy running back on the roster heading into Sunday’s game against the 49ers. That’s why Dallas played in overtime at Arizona, when he had a tough time handling the Cardinals’ many blitzes.
David Moore and Tyler Lockett may be running more fly sweeps if Carson, Hyde and Homer can’t play this week.
Seattle does not have a running back on its practice squad, which expanded this season from 10 to 16 players.
That decision is catching up to the Seahawks right now.
“When you do get hit (with injuries), like multiple guys at the spot, you can be in trouble there,” Carroll said. “So we just try to keep staying ahead of it. It’s a whole different dynamic to filling your roster and keeping it going.”
Coaching help
As for the pass rush, Seattle is looking from within for help.
Not just with the players. The coaches, too.
Carroll said Monday Rasheem Green “should be back at practice, as we understand it, this week.” He’s been out injured for a month.
Carroll also implied rookie fifth-round pick Alton Robinson would get more than the seven snaps the defensive end got at Arizona.
“He’s an outside edge rusher,” the coach said, on a team that needs more of them.
Carroll explained the plan for Murray and the Cardinals was to pair Mayowa and Shaquem Griffin as the rush ends on passing downs because they are the Seahawks’ two fastest, healthy edge rushers.
Griffin, though, was a relatively stationary and reactive spy on Murray for much of the fourth quarter and overtime. He stayed behind the linemen and waited for Murray to take off running rather than attacking and rushing after him.
Carroll said Monday that was a mistake. He said he should have been more forceful with defensive coordinator Ken Norton Jr. in changing the game plan late and pressuring Murray more.
The Seahawks entered the Cardinals game having chosen to do what they had against Miami and Minnesota: blitz far less than they had in the first three games, with Adams, and drop deeper into coverage to prevent big plays behind them.
But Murray, last year’s first-overall pick in the draft, was far more lethal attacking that soft, play-back defense than Ryan Fitzpatrick and Kirk Cousins were in Seattle’s two previous wins before Arizona.
“We have to keep working to put our players in the best positions to be aggressive ... we need to help them more in our pressure,” Carroll said. “We did not try to get after them much (in Arizona). That was not part of the plan going in. And when we needed it, we needed to adjust.
“I wish I would have gotten that done.”
Carroll backed off somewhat from his words Friday that Adams would practice this week with the intent to play for the first time in four games Sunday against San Francisco. Carroll said Monday the team will see later in the week if Adams’ strained groin will be improved enough for him to play.
Carroll has a decision to make whenever Adams does return. Blitz more again with him? As much as they did in the first three games, when they allowed a whopping 19 plays of 20 yards or more?
It’s likely to be more blitzing with Adams than they have been doing in the last three games, but less than in the first three weeks.
Top rookie pass rusher Darryl Taylor remains out indefinitely on the non-football-injury list. Carroll hasn’t said when Taylor will practice for the first time since he had surgery in January to have a Titanium rod put in his lower leg to fix a stress fracture.
Plus, former All-Pro defensive tackle Damon “Snacks” Harrison has yet to play for Seattle since signing. He’s been working to get in game shape.
The coach thinks Seattle’s last-ranked defense will get better when Adams, Taylor and Harrison get back on it.
It will make it whole, at least. Without complicated imports.
“I’d really like to feel the continuity of everybody that we can count on, but we’re not quite there yet,” Carroll said.
“I really think because of the intent and the focus and the guys playing hard...that we are going to make a turn, and we are going to turn for the better. And it’s going to make a big difference in this season.”
This story was originally published October 27, 2020 at 4:16 PM.
