Seahawks reportedly adding Rams line coach Andy Dickerson as run-game coordinator
The Seahawks reportedly have taken another offensive assistant coach from the team that recently bounced them from the playoffs.
It’s a buddy-system coming up from Los Angeles to Seattle. Might it signal a return more toward how Pete Carroll organized his offense during their Super Bowl seasons an era ago?
Carroll is bringing Rams long-time assistant offensive line coach Andy Dickerson from L.A. to be the Seahawks’ new run-game coordinator. That’s according to a report by NFL Network’s Mike Silver Thursday night.
Dickerson, who turns 39 on Friday, has been the Rams’ assistant line coach for the last nine seasons. He’s been an NFL assistant since 2006, his first year with the New York Jets. He spent the next three seasons as a quality-control coach on defense for the Jets, then 2009 and ‘10 in the same role with the Cleveland Browns. He joined the Rams as an assistant line coach in 2012, when they were in St. Louis.
Dickerson and Shane Waldron, the Seahawks’ new offensive coordinator whom Carroll hired from the Rams this week, were college teammates at Tufts University just outside Boston into the early 2000s. Dickerson and Waldron were operations assistants with the New England Patriots under coach Bill Belichick. They were reunited in 2017 when Waldron joined the Rams as a tight ends coach.
In 2018, Waldron became the Rams’ pass-game coordinator. That’s the role he had through this past season while Dickerson remained the line coach in L.A. under head man Sean McVay.
Now Dickerson will be an NFL run-game coordinator for the first time, groomed in McVay’s varied, run-based offense in Los Angeles. Waldron will be an NFL play caller for the first time, steeped in McVay’s play-action, quick-passing game with bootlegs and crossing patterns off that rushing game, which Carroll wants to revitalize in 2021.
Dave Canales is on track to return as Carroll’s pass-game coordinator, as he was this past season for Seahawks play caller Brian Schottenheimer. Carroll fired Schottenheimer Jan. 11, after Russell Wilson and the formerly top-scoring offense in the league flopped badly in the latter half of the season and in Seattle’s home playoff loss to the Rams.
Dickerson replaced Brennan Carroll, the head coach’s eldest son, as Seahawks run-game coordinator. Brennan Carroll left the Seahawks and his dad this month to become the offensive coordinator at the University of Arizona.
New coaches and new ideas at the run-game coordinator and pass-game coordinator positions suggests Carroll could be returning in 2021 to more of the play-calling collaboration the Seahawks had from 2011-16. That was with Darrell Bevell as the offensive coordinator and play caller in title, but also with assistant head coach and offensive line coach Tom Cable having huge sway on Seattle’s running schemes and calls.
That worked out OK, including in Seattle’s Super Bowl seasons of 2013 and ‘14. The Seahawks led or were among the league leaders in rushing offense for those years—albeit with bulldozing star Marshawn Lynch and a better, more consistent offensive line than the team has had the last few seasons.
The Seahawks’ offensive linemen should not have to pass block as long as they had to while struggling in 2020 for all of Wilson’s long-developing deep throws—too many in Carroll’s mind. Wilson got sacked 48 times in 16 regular-season games. That was tied for third-most sacks absorbed in the NFL. Seattle went 58-42 in pass-run play-call percentage. That was out of whack with what Carroll wants.
With Bevell and Cable running the offense the Seahawks were 51% pass and 49% run in their 2013 Super Bowl-title season. They returned to the Super Bowl the following season running 54% of the time and throwing it 46%, in 2014.
Schottenheimer began his play-calling tenure for Carroll in Seattle running the ball 56% of the time, higher than in the Seahawks’ Super Bowl years. Seattle led the NFL in rushing that ‘18 season. The team finished 10-6 and lost at Dallas in the wild-card round of the playoffs.
The last two seasons, Schottenheimer relied more on Wilson throwing deep down the field, and went 11-5 and 12-4 in the last two regular seasons. Seattle was 52%-48% pass-rush in 2019, 58%-42% this past season. The Seahawks’ 411 rushing attempts in 2020 were their second-lowest since Carroll’s initial, tear-the-team-down season of 2010. The 2017 Seahawks ran 409 times.
This past season was Seattle’s second time in three years they went out of the playoffs in the first round.
Seattle’s offense began the season ranked number one in the league in scoring with Schottenheimer having Wilson throw bombs to DK Metcalf and Tyler Lockett each week. Then Seattle sank. Defenses moved strong safeties off the line of scrimmage. For years, foes had been combating the Seahawks’ running game with single-high-safety coverage and a strong safety playing like a run-stopping linebacker. Opponents over the latter half of 2020 didn’t fear Seattle’s rushing offense, so they moved the strong safety back and went to more two-deep-safety pass coverages. That took away Wilson’s long throws to Metcalf and Lockett.
The reason Schottenheimer is no longer the Seahawks’ play caller is Carroll felt Schottenheimer did not adapt to those two-deep coverages. Specifically, he didn’t run the ball or call enough short, quick throws to get teams out of the two-high looks and back into single-high-safety coverage.
“Frankly, I’d like to not play against two-deep looks next year, all season long,” Carroll said this month.
“I want to see if we can run the ball more effectively to focus the play of the opponents and see if we can force them to do things like we’d like them to do more — like we have been able to do that in the past.”
This story was originally published January 29, 2021 at 7:19 AM.
