Pete Carroll, why are your Seahawks so maddeningly soft failing on fourth downs?
For all the Let Russ Cook-ing that went on early this season, at his essence Pete Carroll wants to win with a physical, smash-mouth mentality.
The 69-year-old coach wants a punishing running game. He wants the attacking mentality he had the Seahawks playing with when Marshawn Lynch was the tone-setter during the team’s elite, back-to-back Super Bowl seasons.
Those seasons seem like decades rather than years ago with this current Seahawks offense.
For all of November, the coach who believes running games and defense wins championships—and has rings and trophies to prove his way has worked—waited on Chris Carson and Carlos Hyde to return from injuries. Seattle’s top two running backs are of the Lynch mentality: rugged, run-you-over types that, when healthy and rolling, instill Carroll’s will onto steamrolled defenses.
Well, now they are back playing.
So why in the name and spirit of Beast Mode are the Seahawks so maddeningly, and unsuccessfully, soft while (not exactly) going for it on fourth downs?
It happened again Sunday. It turned a tight game into the worst loss of Seattle’s season, a galling, 17-12 home defeat to the sub-.500 New York Giants that dropped the Seahawks out of first place in the NFC West.
“If we get that the whole game may change,” Seattle quarterback Russell Wilson said.
Exactly.
Giant problem
New York has a huge front. It entered Sunday fifth in the NFL in rushing defense, allowing 95 yards per game.
But Carson had rushed for 58 yards on his first nine carries, more than 6 yards per rush, by the time Seattle faced fourth and 1 in the third quarter. He had consecutive runs of 11 yards, even to the weakened, right side of the line behind Jones, on Seattle’s first possession of the game. That produced the Seahawks only offensive score of the first 3 1/2 quarters, a field goal by Jason Myers.
Plus, Carson gained 2,381 yards with 16 rushing touchdowns the previous two seasons. He scored Seattle’s only touchdown Sunday, on a 28-yard catch then stretch over the ball over the goal line.
And this is his contract year, the last one of his rookie deal. He’s wondered aloud about the Seahawks not approaching him yet with a new contract offer. It’s because of his history of injuries, every one of the four years he’s been in the NFL.
He is ultra-motivated right now to prove his worth, literally earn more money, every time he gets the ball.
As Wilson rightly said following Sunday’s game: “We’ve got to get 32 going, you know. Chris.”
Yeah, you know, Chris. Carson. He’s not exactly a poor option on fourth and short. The bullish running back is built for fourth and 1.
Yet in that situation Sunday, the Seahawks didn’t go Carson. They went too cute. Again.
Play caller Brian Schottenheimer employed three tight ends to the left, to augment the stronger side of Seattle’s offensive line. Seattle’s top three right tackles Brandon Shell, Cedric Ogbuehi and later Sunday Jamarco Jones were out injured. Rookie right guard Damien Lewis played Sunday with a sore groin.
Carson was lined up in the backfield next to Wilson on this fourth and 1 from Seattle’s 48-yard line, with the home team down 8-5 Sunday. But instead of giving it to Carson for a power run, Schottenheimer had Wilson fake a hand-off to Carson. Wilson rolled outside to his left on a bootleg. It appeared to be a run-pass option for the resourceful quarterback. But two Giants defenders weren’t fooled by the play fake. They barreled in unblocked at Wilson.
Wilson spun and ran but couldn’t find anyone open down the field amid the pressure from a New York front that sacked him five times Sunday. He ultimately chucked a desperate pass somewhere near Carson. He was covered tightly a few yards up field by Giants cornerback Isaac Yiadom.
The play ended up having about as much of a chance to succeed as if you had run it.
It so failed and covered, the Seahawks had so few options, the Giants’ right cornerback was inside the numbers tightly covering the running back on a short, check-down route a couple yards past the line to gain.
“The formation that we had, we didn’t have necessarily the call that we were looking for on,” Wilson said.
“It’s almost like they knew it was coming.”
They did.
Not just Sunday
The same thing happened in Seattle’s previous game, its win at woeful Philadelphia. Soft, lateral instead of downhill, and failed, on fourth down.
One of the times against the Eagles, Carson was in on fourth down at the goal line. Schottenheimer had third wide receiver David Moore, coming off hip injury, run a fly sweep. Laterally. He lost yardage on that call that had zero chance from the start. The Eagles are worse than the Giants. They didn’t take advantage.
The Giants did.
They and now the rest of the NFL know what the Seahawks are doing on fourth and short.
Seattle is 1 for 1 this season converting to first downs when running it on fourth and 1 or 2. The Seahawks are 1 for 4 with minus-3 total yards trying to pass in those situations.
So, why so soft on fourth downs—particularly now that Carson and Hyde are both back and available to impose that will Carroll espouses?
“That’s easy to say now,” Carroll said after Sunday’s loss.
And then. And last week.
“Stuff works sometimes. Sometimes it doesn’t,” Carroll said.
“You know, this is what you get to say when you don’t make it on fourth down. You get to ask the questions.”
True.
“We wanted the ball in Russ’ hands there, to give him a chance,” Carroll said. “He had all kinds of options. And that didn’t work.”
Wilson is like most of you. He regrets the play call.
“Going back at it, you know, I think that we should probably go downhill. Let Chris try to run over somebody like he always does, it seems like,” Wilson said.
“He’s such a special guy.
“I wish we had converted on that one. That changed the game, drastically, probably. Because, convert, we go down and score potentially, and they don’t score, so it changes the game, the dynamic of the game.”
All this begs another question, one only Carroll can answer as the team’s only source of injury information.
Is Carson fully healthy two games into his return from missing more than a month from the sprained foot?
“He’s making it. He’s making it to the game, is what he’s doing right now,” Carroll said. “His foot is still sore, but he can play.”
So, that’s a no.
That could be another reason for the so-soft fourth downs. Plus, Hyde missed practice time last week with turf toe.
“You can see: he looked good,” Carroll said of Carson. “But it’s just not 100%, and so we are trying to not overload him. We’ve got a lot of games left. And we’ve just trying to make sure that he can play and he can contribute. ...
“He’s not to the point that we can let him stay out there and keep on going, ‘let’s run him 25, 30 times and see what happens.’
“So it’s a time to bring him along.”
It’s a time, beyond time, to run him on fourth and 1.
This story was originally published December 6, 2020 at 6:59 PM.
