To be fair Shane Waldron’s been triply handcuffed. Now Russell Wilson, Dee Eskridge return
The Seahawks’ offense has been underwhelming in Shane Waldron’s first year designing and calling it.
It’s also been undermanned.
It’s not an excuse as much as an explanation: Waldron has been triply handcuffed in his play calling for half this season so far.
Losing indispensable Russell Wilson for three starts and the final period of a fourth game threatened to torpedo the entire year. Wilson missed the first games of his 10-year career, due to his injured finger and surgery last month.
Wilson is back now, to start Sunday for the 3-5 Seahawks at Green Bay (7-2).
Chris Carson missing the last month didn’t exactly enhance Waldron’s offense, either. The team’s lead rusher was central to the play caller’s plan to run effectively and consistently, to give the linemen a better chance to consistently protect for Wilson trying to throw.
Waldron also hasn’t had Dee Eskridge.
The new offensive coordinator has a section of his playbook and his play-call sheet designed specifically for the speedy, rookie wide receiver, Seattle’s top choice in this spring’s draft.
Waldron has had to ignore that enticing section, for months.
Eskridge’s rookie year has followed the template of what a heralded top draft pick is expected to do in the NFL. He was to be this team’s third slot receiver, added to DK Metcalf and Tyler Lockett. Eskridge’s speed was supposed to give defensive coordinators a new headache while facing Seattle in 2021.
Think Rams, and all the horizontal speed and outside attacks they put on defense. Waldron was one of coach Sean McVay’s top assistants in Los Angeles until January, when Pete Carroll hired him for the Seahawks.
But Eskridge missed from June until the final preseason game in late August with an injured big toe. He’d been getting up at 5:15 a.m. for dawn workouts on the field with Wilson this summer, even when he was injured. Yet he entered the season lacking game reps with Wilson and Waldron.
Then in his first NFL game, Seattle’s opener at Indianapolis Sept. 12, Eskridge got a wicked concussion. He was drilled at the sideline at the end of the second fly-sweep run Waldron called for the rookie.
Eskridge hasn’t played since.
Handcuffed
That win over the Colts in week one was the only game Waldron had with Wilson, Carson and Eskridge playing together in his offense.
It’s the only game where the offense looked like it did by design in training camp: fast-paced, diversified and based on the run.
Wilson threw four touchdown passes in Indianapolis, more than in any of his other four games he’s started this season. Carson ran for his season high of 91 yards on 16 carries that day. In just two dashes around end, Eskridge showed a dimension Seattle hasn’t had on offense.
Since then, the Seahawks have lost five of seven games. Waldron’s offense is ranked 29th in the 32-team NFL.
“He’s had a little bit of a rough go here,” general manager John Schneider said on the team’s radio pregame show last month of Eskridge — though he could have meant Waldron.
“He got blasted on the sidelines and smashed his head.”
Eskridge continued to feel affected by the hit into October. He went on injured reserve Oct. 7, the day Wilson got hurt and Seattle lost to the Los Angeles Rams. The Seahawks and their rookie consulted multiple medical experts. The team eventually sent him to a specialist in Florida.
Eskridge recently was finally able to get through extensive physical activity without ill effects. The Seahawks designed him to return from injured reserve to practice this week. His first practice in two months was Monday. Eskridge was outrunning some of Wilson’s first deep passes in the quarterback’s return from his month out injured.
Wilson and Eskridge will play for the first time in a month and two months, respectively, Sunday. Seattle will need to make two moves before the game to get Wilson and Eskridge back on the active roster.
Carson is trying to get back to join them in Green Bay. The running back still needs to prove his neck condition has made it through his first week of practices in more than a month.
It’s why Carroll said this week, coming off Seattle’s bye and a 31-7 win over Jacksonville: “We are looking as if this is a new beginning on the season.”
It’s a new beginning for Waldron, too.
Asked where his offense needs to improve with nine games left in the regular season and the scuffling Seahawks still only one game out of a playoff spot in the NFC, Waldron didn’t hesitate.
“First and foremost, we need to improve on third down,” he said. “It’s something that we have talked about, emphasized, and will need to continue to emphasize.”
The Seahawks are 31st in the league in third-down conversion rate, at just 31.3%. Only the Jaguars are worse (29.8%).
Eskridge’s “specialty”
Eskridge can help make third downs more manageable. He can turn previous third and 9s into third and 3s.
He calls the fly sweep “my specialty.” He ran it sweetly and swiftly in college at Western Michigan.
Waldron was set to use the horizontal, pre-snap motion and quick hand-offs at the snap to the wide receiver more than Seattle has had wide outs run the ball in years, maybe in a decade under Carroll.
This week, Waldron finally can look again to that special part of his play-call sheet he designed for jersey number 1. It’s a play and a number the Packers haven’t had to defend in their nine consecutive wins over the Seahawks at Lambeau Field in Green Bay, dating to 1999.
“I’m excited for him first and foremost, because I know he has had a few bumps in the road during his rookie year and had some bad luck with injury things,” Waldron said of Eskridge. “All he wants to do is be out on the field working.
“He did a great job (while out), just like he did with some of the time he missed in training camp, where he is comfortable and is in great shape, coming back from all of the stuff that he had to do to get right, ready to go.
“And he’s looking as fast as ever.”
Lockett has two words for how Eskridge’s debut season has been for the rookie: “It sucks.”
“Just him dealing with all the stuff he’s dealt with,” said Lockett, who knows long absences after breaking his leg late in 2016. “Things could have been worse than they could have been, or whatever the case.
“Just him being able to come back, being able to practice, get adjusted to everything again. Didn’t really do a lot of OTAs. Finally came back. We got to see glimpses of how great that he can be and the reasons why we drafted him.
“Having that setback, it sucks, especially when you’re a player who can understand what setbacks can do. Being able to see him back, I know that it has to give him a sense of happiness. Being able to be around us again, being able to be around the facility, being able to show his explosiveness, all the reasons of why we drafted him.
“I’m happy he’s back and just being able to get him going.”
This story was originally published November 12, 2021 at 7:04 AM.
