Russell Wilson: new Seahawks offense can be NFL’s best. Where is it 4 weeks before opener?
Much of Seattle is wondering: How long will it take the Seahawks to perfect Shane Waldron’s new offense?
Russell Wilson is wondering: Why would anyone think his new Seahawks won’t be the NFL’s best in 2021?
“I think we can be the number-one offense in football. I don’t see why not,” Wilson said at nearly the midway point of training camp.
“We’re up for it. We’re ready.”
In fact, Wilson says he wants the opener Sept. 12 at Indianapolis to be Wednesday.
This Wednesday.
“I think we’re ready to roll,” he said Tuesday. “I wish we could play tomorrow.”
This is Wilson’s 10th season as Seattle’s franchise quarterback. Waldron, the former Los Angeles Rams passing-game coordinator, is Wilson’s third Seahawks play caller. He differs from Darrell Bevell and Brian Schottenheimer in multiple ways.
1. Experience
Unlike his two predecessors, the 41-year-old Waldron has not been an offensive coordinator before this. That gives him, this Seahawks training camp and, really, Seattle’s offense for 2021 a wild-card quality.
Not just to observers. To Wilson and coach Pete Carroll, as well.
“He’s still got work to do, of course,” Carroll said of Wilson with Waldron’s new system. “This month is going to be enormous for us to keep growing.
“He has worked so hard to get to this point. He is as far along as he could be. He’s killing it and he’s really excited about it. He really understands what we are trying to do.
“The coaches have done a marvelous job of connecting on the purpose behind all of the things we do. It’s a very smart system and I’m really fired up about how far we’ve come so soon.
“Now we have to see what happens when we get to ball games. We are making the progress to set it up to how we hope it turns out.”
2. Tempo
The summary of the Seahawks’ new offense: Quick. Quick. Quicker.
Tempo has been the buzzword around Waldron’s system since Carroll fired Schottenheimer in January after three seasons leading the offense because of “philosophical differences.”
The Seahawks “being more up tempo” this year automatically makes folks think they are going to be in no-huddle offense from the opening kickoff to the final snap. It’s what many fans, and critics, of Seattle’s system have been yelling to have happen for years, to put more of games in Wilson’s hands at his improvisational best.
Waldron’s system seeks to put more of the game in Wilson’s hands — but not necessarily through no-huddle sets.
These Seahawks are likely to do that more in the first and third quarters of games and in other situations sprinkled outside of 2-minute situations at the end of halves and games.
But Waldron’s up tempo means getting out of the huddle more quickly between plays. It means snapping the ball earlier in the 40-second play clock — such as in the high teens — and being in formation for less time at the line of scrimmage.
The intent up the increased tempo and Wilson’s increased latitude to change plays at the line is to put the defense on its heels. Waldron and Carroll want defenses reacting to Seattle’s offense, rather than the other way around as it was the latter half of the 2020 season.
“I think it’s just part of everything we do,” Waldron said. “Tempo means a lot of different things. But to me, it’s the tempo in which we’re practicing, how fast we’re transitioning in and out of drills, how quickly we’re getting in and out of our routes, how quickly we’re getting in and out of the huddle, how fast we can play, how much pressure can we put on ourselves in practice to be in that up-tempo mindset all the time.”
That’s what the final half of this training camp and the three preseason games beginning Saturday at Las Vegas are for: perfecting that up-tempo mindset.
3. Varied weapons--but same issue
“We have a little ways to go here,” Wilson said, “but we’re definitely focused. Guys are zoned in. ...
“DK (Metcalf) and Tyler (Lockett) look better than ever. Having Gerald (Everett, Seattle’s new, versatile tight end from the Rams) out there, too, and he can really get open and do some great things in the passing game.”
Wilson said tight ends Will Dissly and Colby Parkinson, the team’s 6-foot-7 draft pick from Stanford last year who missed the majority of last season, “have been exceptional.”
“I’ve been training with them all offseason. We’ve been ready to roll, too,” Wilson said.
“And then our running backs, obviously Chris Carson is one of the best in the game. To have him back this year (on a new two-year, $14.7 million contract) and to have him rolling, feeling good, is a really good thing for us.
“I think we have all of the pieces that we want in terms of playmakers and trying to really make plays, and they’ve been exceptional. We’ve been on it in terms of getting ready and guys are really smart out there.”
The key remains the offensive line—the unit Wilson brought into increased scrutiny when he said very publicly in February “I’m frustrated with getting hit too much.”
Duane Brown is continuing to watch practices instead of participating in them, his “statement,” as Carroll said, about wanting a new contract. Wilson upped the urgency this past weekend when he said, “We’ve got to figure that out because we need Duane Brown.”
Veteran fill-ins Jamarco Jones and Cedric Ogbuehi are injured. That has rookie sixth-round pick Stone Forsythe starting at left tackle during what was supposed to be his learning and grooming time from Brown.
Tuesday, Seattle signed former University of Louisville offensive tackle Lukayus McNeil, an undrafted rookie in 2019. He’s 6 feet 6, 328 pounds. He has yet to play an NFL game. McNeil was with the Raiders as an undrafted free agent in 2019. He then signed with Dallas that year and onto Atlanta’s practice squad in October 2019. McNeil was not on an NFL roster last season.
The Seahawks also signed wide receiver Anthony Ratliff-Williams. They waived recently signed Darece Roberson and basketball player Michael Jacobson, signed last week for a short try at tight end.
Nothing from the first half of camp suggests Kyle Fuller is not going to be starting center for the opener over 2020 starter Ethan Pocic, who’s been injured. Fuller’s first NFL start at center was in November.
They—and we—likely won’t truly know how much better this new offense is making Wilson and the Seahawks until after week five of the regular season. Seattle hosts the Rams on a Thursday-night showcase Oct. 7.
Until they figure out how to consistently keep Aaron Donald and the Rams’ defense from wrecking their seasons, as they did in January in the NFC wild-card playoff game in Seattle, the Seahawks haven’t done what hiring Waldron and changing the offense set out to do.
Yet Waldron’s new system, and the weapons at receiver and running back in it, has Wilson talking about being the NFL’s best offense this season.
“We have a lot in the playbook. We’ve got a lot there,” he said. “There’s a lot of good stuff we want to do.”
This story was originally published August 10, 2021 at 1:06 PM.
