Russell Wilson, Seahawks adjust to a strong pass rush. They must do it again to beat Rams
Two games ago, Russell Wilson was holding the ball so long it seemed to be an addendum to his hand.
The Seahawks’ franchise quarterback was directly at fault for three of the five sacks he took in humbling, 17-12 home loss to the New York Giants. He was trying to make plays he was making in September into October. Plays that were deep down the field. Plays that made DK Metcalf the NFL’s leader in yards receiving.
Plays that, this month, weren’t there anymore.
New York and others before it adjusted from the bombs-away start Wilson and Seattle had to this season. They started bracketing Metcalf and Tyler Lockett with a cornerback in front of each of them plus one, often two safeties deep behind them. Wilson and the offense didn’t immediately adjust. Wilson waited and extended pays he has for some of the Seahawks’ most wondrous moments the last nine years.
Wilson adjusted on Sunday at Washington.
Wilson carried out coach Pete Carroll’s and offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer’s plan to neutralize Washington’s strength, its destructive pass rush. He threw the ball quickly, for short gains instead of long. He handed the ball off 20 times, for 129 of Seattle’s 302 yards. He completed 17 of 24 passes for 121 yards, all season lows. His yards passing were his fewest in more than two years. The 5 yards per attempt were his lowest in five years.
And he won.
“Another Bart Starr-type of game,” Carroll said of the 1960s title-winning quarterback with the Green Bay Packers most of the coach’s critics have never heard of. “On this day, against that team, we neutralized their strength.
“This was the game we wanted to play.”
Washington came into the game fourth in the NFL with 40 sacks. It still has 40 sacks. Chase Young, Montez Sweat, Ryan Kerrigan and friends had zero sacks and only three hits on Wilson. That was even with Cedric Ogbuehi filling in for injured right tackle Brandon Shell and starting left tackle leaving with an injured neck in the first half, replaced by Jordan Simmons.
Wilson didn’t look entirely like the relatively static Starr. He also took off a 38-yard scramble. That set up his only touchdown pass, a 10-yard bullet throw into the stomach of tightly covered tight end Jacob Hollister that put Seattle ahead 13-0 in the second quarter.
For Sunday, anyway, Wilson showed his can adjust, throw more quickly and win against a potentially game-changing pass rush.
He’s facing another one this Sunday.
No NFL team has sacked him more in his career than Aaron Donald’s Los Angeles Rams (9-5). Wilson’s been dumped 67 times in 17 games by them. The Seahawks have lost 10 of those games to the Rams. They are coming to Seattle Sunday for what is essentially the NFC West title game. As Carroll said Monday, it’s the best defense Wilson and the Seahawks will play all season.
“Well, I think that we can do a lot of different things,” Wilson said after clinching his eighth playoff appearance in his nine years leading the Seahawks.
“What we hope that we can do is do it all together. If we can run the ball the way we are, and also throw the ball down the field, and also throw it quick—which obviously we can throw it down the field and we can throw it quick, too, as well.
“When we marry all those things up together, that’s going to be a really great thing, and that’s going to make us a really, really tough offense.”
Wilson’s only true long throw at Washington was his perfectly placed ball over Freddie Swain’s outside shoulder away from the defender, that only the rookie wide receiver could grab along the left sideline at the goal line. It was originally called a 39-yard touchdown on the field, then overturned on replay review that saw Swain’s first foot to hit the ground landed out of bounds.
Carroll said following that loss to the Giants thatWilson needed to throw it more quickly, and the offense must run it more to get balanced. Now, Chris Carson and Carlos Hyde are healthy again to do that. At Washington, the backfield welcomed back Rashaad Penny for the first time since he tore knee ligaments 12 months ago.
That makes the Seahawks triply more equipped to slow down Donald and the Rams’ pass rush with a running game. Or did you like rookie DeeJay Dallas and Alex Collins off the practice squad as the only options at running back at L.A. last month?
Against the Giants, Seattle’s backs got 15 carries while Wilson dropped back to pass 48 times.
Against Washington? Twenty-six runs, 27 passes.
“I thought Schotty and the fellows on offense did a great job with the plan. Russell did a great job of carrying it out,” Carroll said. “We ran the ball for a bunch of yards. We found ways to do that. Keep the ball away from them, not get sacked.
“I’m just really thrilled about the way that worked.”
Carroll said the change is finding a rhythm in the passing game. A quick, get-the-ball out rhythm.
“This is a tremendous pass rush team,” he said of Washington. “They’ve got four number ones, or whatever, up there hauling ass at you, and they didn’t get Russ. That was awesome.
“That’s how they have won games, like we did at the end of that game, this game today. You saw our pass rush (sacks by L.J. Collier and Carlos Dunlap on Washington’s last two offensive plays in Seahawks territory that sealed Seattle’s win). That was big-time. Well, that’s how they been playing and that’s why they won four (in) a row. That’s why they (were) leading their division and all.
“And we didn’t let them have it.”
The key in Washington will be the key in Seattle Sunday against All-World Donald and the Rams, a defense Carroll regards as the best in football. Donald, second in the NFL with 12 1/2 sacks this season, has 12 sacks in 13 career games against Wilson.
“The plan and Russell carrying out,” Carroll said, “was getting the ball out of his hands all day long.”
Wilson says he’s all for it—and that the deep-passing game isn’t disappearing. He took shots deep against the Rams in Seattle’s 23-16 loss in California last month, even a couple to Metcalf with stud cornerback Jalen Ramsey shadowing him.
“All the things that we’re able to do, it makes it really difficult for defenses and that’s why it’s been special I think over the years, over time,” he said. “I don’t think it’s a new thing that I can throw deep. I think people have known for a while.
“But, we still find ways to do it.”
This story was originally published December 22, 2020 at 7:49 AM.
