Jamal Adams, Pete Carroll vow changes for Seahawks’ ransacked defense ‘starting this week’
Jamal Adams is like Pete Carroll, Bobby Wagner, you, your dog and anyone else who follows or likes the Seahawks.
He’s had it.
“Starting this week, things will change,” Adams said Thursday.
This week brings the Seahawks the first of two, supreme challenges inside the NFC West within four days. Adams and his ransacked Seahawks (1-2) defense try to get right at the San Francisco 49ers (2-1) on Sunday.
Then Thursday, the conquering Los Angeles Rams (3-0) come to Seattle. They just handed Tom Brady and the defending Super Bowl-champion Tampa Bay Buccaneers their first loss.
Until the Seahawks beat the Rams that beat them in Seattle in January’s playoffs, they won’t be fully where they need to be this season.
How are they going to get there, after allowing 985 yards and 63 points the last two games in losses to Tennessee and Minnesota?
What are the changes of which Adams and coach Pete Carroll have spoken this week?
“We’re working on it. We have plans, yes. We have plans,” Carroll said this week, without divulging them.
“I can answer that effectively and clearly that we have plans.”
There are two readily apparent options, including a precedent.
Cornerback D.J. Reed said after Seattle basically did not defend the Vikings passing game last weekend it felt like the Seahawks’ loss at Buffalo last November. Seattle allowed 44 points in losing to the Bills that day, the most of the 12 years Carroll has been its coach. It appeared those Bills, and the Vikings last weekend, knew everything the Seahawks were going to do on defense — and it appeared Seattle’s defensive players didn’t know what exactly they should be doing.
“They schemed our ass up,” is the way Reed put it outside the locker room in Minnesota.
After the Buffalo debacle in November, Carroll met with defensive coordinator Ken Norton Jr. on the team’s long flight home and decided to simplify the schemes. Less blitzing of Adams. Less disguising of blitzes and coverages. Less of defensive ends dropping into the flats in zone-blitz coverage. More base 4-3, and standard nickel defense with five defensive backs.
That — and the arrival of two-time Pro Bowl pass rusher Carlos Dunlap in a trade from Cincinnati at about the same time — transformed Seattle’s 2020 defense. Sacks and increased pressure on quarterbacks from Dunlap and the front four allowed the Seahawks to cover with Adams and six others in the back. The gaping holes in coverage mostly disappeared.
The Seahawks won the NFC West and got a home playoff game, until their offense face-planted them quickly out of the postseason.
The concerning part of this season’s issues on Seattle’s defense is it hasn’t blitzed Adams or anyone else as much this season, yet has still gotten shredded.
Since signing his $70 million extension, richest ever for a safety, this summer Adams has no sacks, no quarterback hits and no real influence through three games.
Like in that Buffalo game last November, Adams is meeting offensive tackles and getting blocked instead of running around backs on his blitzes. That’s the result of his 9 1/2 sacks last season, most in league history for a defensive back in one year.
“Obviously, they’re going to slide a protection my way or they’re always looking for me,” Adams said. “I’ve got to disguise a lot and do what I do best. The coaches are putting me in those positions to make those disguises and what not. I understand who I am as a football player, and I understand what the opposing offensive line or quarterback is going to do. It’s just how the game goes.
“It’s not an excuse for me. I’m all about making plays and doing whatever I can to help the team win.”
Two weeks ago, Titans wide receiver Julio Jones and A.J. Brown beat Reed, opposite cornerback Tre Flowers and the Seahawks secondary multiple times over the top for huge plays. That is Carroll’s cardinal rule of pass defense: Don’t get beat deep.
Last week, Carroll (it’s his defense) and Norton had the defensive backs way deep in coverage to avoid giving up the long pass. Of 10 times the Vikings passed on third down, a cornerback was off his receiver at least as far as the line to gain and often farther. On a third and 4 in the third quarter Flowers was 9 yards off his man.
Quarterback Kirk Cousins and Minnesota’s receivers simply took all Seattle was giving them. The routes and passes were simply in front of the deep-dropping defensive backs, who give room even while teammates blitzed. Cousins completed 30 of 38, mostly easy passes for 323 yards and three touchdowns.
“It’s about just gaining the confidence back,” Adams said. “When you drop two games early in the season, you have guys who might hang their head.
“We’ve got to continue to stay confident. We’ve got to continue to understand what our goals were at the beginning of the season because it’s a long season. We can still reach all of our goals. We can turn this thing around. It’s happened before, even when I wasn’t here. It happened last year, getting started late.
“Obviously, we don’t want these late starts, but sometimes it happens. Everybody’s not going to be perfect in the league, but at the end of the day, it’s who’s playing the best football in December. That’s what it’s about.”
Besides simplifying scheme, Carroll can and likely will make changes in personnel.
“We’ll look at everything,” Carroll said.
That includes Sidney Jones at cornerback.
The Seahawks traded with Jacksonville for the former Washington Huskies star Aug. 30. The acclimation for Jones to learn Carroll’s defensive system is over.
Asked following the Minnesota game what’s keeping Jones from playing, Carroll said “not much.”
Don’t be surprised if Jones makes his first Seahawks Sunday at San Francisco, perhaps for Flowers at right cornerback opposite Reed. And former New York Jets starter Bless Austin, whom Seattle acquired a week after they got Jones, could be the next change at cornerback, for Reed.
Wagner said one more thing needs to change on the defense: communication before plays.
“I spoke to everybody. I feel like we’re all on the same page. I think that was the most important thing, communication is definitely the number-one thing,” the team’s All-Pro middle linebacker and co-captain said.
“We’ve just got to get out of our way. These last two games defensively we’ve been in our own way. Whether it’s the penalties or our execution, we need to get out of our own way.
“We have the talent. We have the players. We have everything we need to be a great defense. We just need to get out of our way.”
The mood around the Seahawks this week is, as Adams said, enough’s enough.
“It’s real serious,” Carroll said. “They want this to go the way our expectations are designed. That means we have to play better, and everybody knows that. ...
“Everybody is tuned in. We are trying to tune in forever, but I think there is a little bit of a different feel about it. They want to prove it. They want to prove that we are on the right track and that we are going to win a bunch of different games.”
