Keys for Seahawks at Colts: Russell Wilson vs. Carson Wentz, Gerald Everett, stopping run
Pete Carroll has seen just about everything there is to see in football.
After all, he began coaching when Richard Nixon was president. Carroll turns 70 this coming week.
Yet his Seahawks opener Sunday at the Indianapolis Colts (10 a.m., channel 13) is, to use the word of the NFL’s eldest coach, “special.” In multiple ways.
Sunday’s game is the unveiling of the most sweeping overhaul of Seattle’s offense in the 12 years Carroll has led the team. First-time play caller Shane Waldron has remade the system with quicker, up-tempo, run-based and quicker-passing schemes.
Yet no one — including Carroll and Waldron — truly knows what this new offense looks like. They kept Russell Wilson, and 16 of the team’s 22 starters overall, out of all three preseason games. They debut against the Colts.
“I would say I’m curious about the whole thing, the offense, too. I’m curious about how it all fits together,” Carroll said, “because you start all over and create a whole new life about this team. I’m anxious and excited to see our guys go because we have guys in all of the right spots that we love. We are really looking forward to them pulling off the game plan. On both sides of the ball, it’s like that.
“Maybe it’s a little special for the offense because it’s brand new.”
The other reason this opener is special: every Seahawk is available for it.
A by-product to Carroll having most starters skip all preseason games for the first time in his Seattle tenure: all 53 players on the game roster are healthy. Not one was on the injury report for the game, a clean sheet.
“I don’t remember another time. I don’t,” Carroll said Friday before the team left for Indiana. “The best year we ever had for guys staying healthy was 2014. That was our best year.”
That was the Seahawks’ second consecutive, and last, Super Bowl team.
Not playing most starters all preseason worked out in this way, too. Only two players went on season-ending injured reserve because of injuries sustained in a preseason game: reserve linebacker Ben Burr-Kirven and reserve wide receiver John Ursua.
“I think it contributed, yeah,” Carroll said.
“It did help us out.”
The Colts have quarterback Carson Wentz coming off foot surgery in early August following an injury in training camp. He’s full go to start Sunday in his Indianapolis debut, a reunion with his former Super Bowl play caller from three years ago in Philadelphia, Colts head coach Frank Reich.
But Indianapolis will be missing Pro Bowl left tackle Eric Fisher. The Colts’ prized offseason signing from Kansas City practiced with his new team for the first time this past week, on a limited basis. But he’s going to miss the Seahawks game recovering from a torn Achilles tendon he got in the AFC championship game in January.
Pro Bowl left guard Quenton Nelson is questionable because of a sore back. Nelson also had foot surgery in early August, to remove a piece of bone.
Reich told reporters in Indiana Friday: “Hopefully he’s ready. Quenton’s the kind of guy if there’s any way he can be ready, he’ll go. So, we’ll just see how he feels (Saturday).”
The Seahawks’ keys to Sunday’s opener; Carroll is 6-5 in openers leading Seattle:
1. Play to your (huge) advantage: Fact is, the Seahawks are clearly better in this game at the sport’s most important position.
Wilson is coming off Seahawks records of 4,212 yards passing and 40 touchdown throws in 2020. He says he has more of the playbook at his disposal at the line of scrimmage to change plays to under Waldron.
“He’s a wizard,” Wilson said of his new offensive coordinator.
Wentz is 0-5 in his career against Wilson and the Seahawks. He’s been sacked by Seattle 15 times in those five games, with six touchdowns and six interceptions. Jadeveon Clowney knocked him out of the last meeting, on a hit to Wentz’s head early in an NFC wild-card playoff game in January 2020.
2. Unleashing Gerald Everett: The versatile tight end and former four-sport athlete (football, basketball, baseball plus high-jumping and triple-jumping in track) is the most unique tight end Wilson has had in his 10 years leading the Seahawks.
During training camp Waldron split Everett out wide on the line as an “X” wide receiver. He had Everett in the slot. He had him in tight bunch formations and various pre-snap motions. He’s poised to be a weapon Wilson hasn’t had, all over the field.
The Colts’ strength is their defensive front: rush linebacker Darius Leonard, tackle Deforest Buckner and rookie end Kwity Paye, Indianapolis’ first-round pick. Everett across the middle in short and intermediate zones could be a quick target often Sunday, to get the ball out of Wilson’s han quickly against the Colts’ pass rushers.
2. Stop some running Colts: Jonathan Taylor romped for 1,169 yards and 11 touchdowns in 15 games last year as the Colts’ rookie second-round pick.
He’s 226 pounds. He’s likely to run straight at Seattle’s defensive tackles, one of the Seahawks’ thinner positions.
Seattle has three proven tackles: Al Woods, Poona Ford and Bryan Mone. And that’s about it. The Seahawks are already missing Jarran Reed, their starting defensive tackle they asked to take a pay cut this spring then released when he declined.
Taylor and the Colts’ run game with change-of-pace back Nyheim Hines
Woods might be the league’s freshest 34-year-old lineman. He opted out of last season with Jacksonville because of COVID concerns and a new baby daughter at home.
This is the kind of game where Woods and his run-stopping over the guard and center will be huge. And Woods is already 6 feet 4 and 330 pounds.
3. Kerry a new day: New defensive end Kerry Hyder has gone mostly unnoticed to outsiders through Seahawks training camp. Yet Hyder, who had 8 1/2 sacks last season with San Francisco, has a key role for Seattle’s defense. He’s the strongside pass-rushing defensive end opposite Carlos Dunlap, a position of minimal production for Seattle in recent years.
If Hyder and Dunlap have the impact coaches expect and the team is spending just under $5 million combined to get, including Sunday against Wentz, Jamal Adams won’t have to blitz as much as he did last season while setting an NFL record for defensive backs with 9 1/2 sacks. That will leave fellow safety Quandre Diggs and the deep back of Seattle’s pass defense less exposed to the huge plays that plagued the Seahawks for the first half of last season.
This story was originally published September 11, 2021 at 7:09 AM.
