Multiple men at fault for Seahawks failing to counter after defenses took away deep passes
Russell Wilson took almost two hours following the game to speak publicly.
But this time, he wasn’t wearing a designer, custom suit. He had on a baggy team hoodie, so overly large it didn’t appear to be his. Instead of perfectly gelled and coiffed hair, it was, for him, disheveled. Unruly, almost, onto his forehead.
He sounded as he looked: dejected.
“We were kind of flat-lined,” Wilson said of his and the Seahawks’ worst game with the highest stakes, their 30-20 loss to the dominant Los Angeles Rams that wasn’t that close Saturday in the NFC wild-card playoffs at emptier, quieter-than-ever Lumen Field.
“We didn’t play great today. I think that was the unfortunate part about it,” Wilson said. “The real unfortunate part is, that’s it. End of the season. After all this time of putting in all the hard work in and everything else and how spectacular the season has been along the way.
“It’s unfortunate we didn’t get it done for the 12s and everything else.”
What they didn’t get done is what did them in over the final half of the 2020 season.
At midseason Wilson was a candidate to be the NFL’s most valuable player. The offense was leading the league in yards passing and points. DK Metcalf was the sport’s leading receiver in yards. Wilson was repeatedly launching home-run balls like he was Babe Ruth.
Then defenses caught up to Seattle’s ways. Instead of single-high safety coverage and cornerbacks trying to stay with Metcalf and Tyler Lockett, teams dropped two safeties deep. They bracketed Metcalf with a cornerback in front and a safety behind. The teams that beat the Seahawks the latter half of the season—the New York Giants, the Rams (twice)—sacked and hit Wilson with pass rushes that further ruined Seattle’s deep-passing game.
Foes dared Wilson to throw shorter, quicker passes underneath the more-umbrella coverages.
The Seahawks’ and offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer’s fatal flaw, through Saturday’s complete malfunctioning for the first three quarters against the mashing Rams?
They never adjusted to defenses’ adjustments.
Where they failed
The Seahawks finished 12-4, won the NFC West for the first time since 2016 and won four games to close the regular season because of their defense, not because of Wilson and the formerly high-flying offense.
The defense went from worst in league history in yards passing allowed and total yards allowed—from giving up 31 points to Dallas and New England in consecutive games, a coach-Pete-Carroll-era-high 44 at Buffalo in November—to surrendering a league-low 15 points per game over the last seven games.
Wilson and the offense tried, week after week, to fit a square peg into round holes. They tried to still throw deep into defenses specifically schemed to take that, sometimes only that, away from Seattle.
“It seemed like during the course of the season, after the halfway point, we had hit so much early, we had been so effective that people found a way to stay back and just try to bleed us and make us have to throw the ball underneath,” Carroll said. “And we were maybe really going for it more than we needed to. And didn’t take advantage of switching gears a bit there, as effectively as we would like.
“We like chunking them and going after them. As I look back now, I have a lot of work to do to figure it out, but I would think that we might think that way a little differently. At one part of the year, it was available, and we took it. And then in the second part of the year, against the really good defenses that we played, they were able to keep us out of that kind of a mode.
“I wish we would have adapted better under those circumstances.”
That’s damning in multiple ways.
First, that’s on Schottenheimer. He’s the play caller, the game-plan designer. It’s on him to see defenses backing up and taking away what Wilson feasted on in September and October, and countering that counter.
But ultimately, it’s on Carroll. He’s the head coach. He’s got the most power in the franchise. He’s also the executive vice president, above even general manager John Schneider in decision-making power of all football matters. The Seahawks hired Schneider as a first-time GM in 2010 after they hired Carroll to bring his entire program, down the music blaring through practices and free-throw shooting contests at team meetings, from USC 11 years ago.
If Carroll wanted adjustments, he should have made them, or ordered Schottenheimer to. And he should have done it before Wilson was sacked 16 times and hit 30 times in the three games by the team they ultimately could not get past to extend their season beyond round one of the playoffs.
The Rams.
It’s not as if Carroll stays out of Schottenheimer’s offense. Carroll said one of the reasons for the Seahawks’ inexplicable confusion, rush and false-start penalty after an injury time out ruined a fourth and 1 early in the fourth quarter Saturday was because he, Carroll, got involved in the play call and delayed getting the offense out of the huddle.
Not prepared for change
Lockett said teams defended the Seahawks differently than Seattle had planned. That’s on coaching.
“They just came out with a whole different game plan that we haven’t seen them run in games,” said Lockett, who set a Seahawks record with 100 catches this regular season. “I think that just comes with us this year being a passing team, to where because we became a passing team, it became easier for teams to try to scheme.
“You got teams starting to figure out, like, let’s drop eight people back. Let’s do this different type of stuff that they normally (don’t do on) film and now we gotta learn how to adjust. ...
“We really know what teams were gonna do.”
Ouch.
Los Angeles on Saturday again had All-Pro cornerback Jalen Ramsey shadowing Metcalf, 39 times in Seattle’s 57 plays according to tracking by The News Tribune’s Lauren Smith.
Schottenheimer’s counter was to put Metcalf inside far more than he usually is. Last season he was an “X” wide receiver as a rookie, on the line opposite the tight end and not in motion. Saturday, Schottenheimer had Metcalf lined up inside the yard-line numbers 25 times. Nine more times Metcalf went in motion from outside to inside, nearer the formation. That’s where Ramsey, like most of the best cornerbacks, doesn’t like to play. He’s exquisite alone outside, near the sideline away from traffic.
Metcalf had five catches in a game-high 11 targets, most after he threw a fit on the sidelines early in the game yelling at anyone and everyone at the Seahawks’ bench. Three of his catches and seven targets came specifically against Ramsey. The third was with 11 minutes left in the game and Seattle trailing 23-13.
The Seahawks were 0 for 8 on third down after Wilson’s long ball to Metcalf got batted down expertly by Ramsey with 7 minutes left in the third quarter. Seattle stayed behind 20-13.
Almost 90 minutes after Carroll spoke, Wilson was asked if he felt there was “enough sense or urgency in terms of making those adjustments” of no more deep balls into defenses playing specifically to stop them.
The quarterback looked blankly into the Zoom-call camera.
“That’s a good question,” he said.
It’s one that will define the Seahawks’ offseason. It could result in a change in play callers. Schottenheimer has been linked to the head-coaching vacancies with the New York Jets and Houston Texans. In recent weeks he’s declined to talk about that interest, or even if he’s interviewed yet.
“Right now, I’m just focused on trying to find a way to beat the Rams,” Schottenheimer said Wednesday.
He’s still still searching.
Play faster
Wilson said playing with a faster tempo, and without huddling, would help.
“Early in the season we were able to get the deep shots and stuff like that early on,” he said. “I think that, as well, our tempo, our pace and stuff, getting in and out and all that, we kind of lost that a little bit I think along the way.
“I think that’s something that we do really, really well. And so to keep that tempo and pace I think is something I’m going to really try to study a lot this off-season and see how do we continue to put our foot on the gas and everything else along the way.
“I think that’ll help us.”
Thing is, it’s hard to go no-huddle when you are 0 for your first 8 and 3 for 14 overall on third downs, your quarterback is getting sacked five times, your offensive line is committing six accepted penalties, and it’s second and 25 multiple times.
All that happened to the Seahawks’ offense Saturday. And that was with Rams All-Pro tackle Aaron Donald out for most of the second half after Wilson sat on him. Donald had hit Wilson as he was throwing too deep, overthrowing Metcalf on what would have been a touchdown early in the third quarter.
Yes, on another deep pass. The Seahawks had just three completions that went for between 10-19 yards. Three, among Wilson’s 27 pass attempts.
They should have run Chris Carson more, right at the Rams pass rush. They started to, in the third quarter when it was still a 20-13 game. Carson ran three times for 18 yards then caught a swing pass designed for him. It appeared Seattle and Schottenheimer were finally featuring their lead back in the final game of his contract, and the Seahawks were at midfield.
Then, inexplicably, Carson waved himself out of the game. Carlos Hyde entered. Hyde got stopped on an inside run, as he did repeatedly Saturday. Seattle punted. Again. Momentum, and game, lost.
Fingers pointing are like excuses and reasons when a 12-4 season ends like this. They are everywhere.
“Teams know that we throw it down the field well and stuff like that,” Wilson said.
“Also, too, what they fear is our pace, the tempo, and all that. I think that I feel when the game is on the line, 2 minutes in the game or whatever, teams obviously fear that because of the feeling of me going and all that stuff.
“I think that is something I think along the way that we kind of lose track of a little bit. I think we kind of lost track of that maybe along the way. I think that could have helped.”
Then, Wilson’s look of defeat turned defiant. He spoke with the most decisiveness of his wholly malfunctioning end to his ninth NFL season, his sixth consecutive one of Seattle not advancing past at least the divisional round of the playoffs.
“You guys can write whatever you want,” Wilson said, “but the reality is we have a great football team. And I think we have the guys.
“But we didn’t play great today. That’s what matters most. ...
“I believe I’m a winner. I always want to be one—and always will be.”
This story was originally published January 9, 2021 at 9:33 PM.
