Seahawks foes singling out Devon Witherspoon to block. Mike Macdonald’s scheming solutions
Devon Witherspoon still has the swagger.
He struts and woofs. He wags his finger at the offense. He makes everyone know number 21 for the Seahawks absolutely is on the field.
That’s just in practice.
But what the Pro Bowl cornerback as a rookie a year ago does not have nine games into this season: Big plays.
“I haven’t gotten home all year yet,” Witherspoon said two days before the Seahawks (4-5) left Saturday to play at their NFC West-rival San Francisco 49ers (5-4). “So that’s really the main issue.”
Getting “home” is sacking the quarterback. The most dynamic player on Seattle’s defense has zero sacks on 16 blitzes from his nickel back and outside cornerback spots this season.
Many of the same folks who shined on the fifth pick in the 2023 draft as a league star in his debut season last year are scrutinizing him this year for having no interceptions, three passes defensed, no sacks and one quarterback hit through nine games.
Through his first nine games last season he had a wowing, 97-yard interception return for a touchdown in October against the New York Giants, 13 passes defensed, three sacks and four hits on quarterbacks.
Witherspoon says unlike last season, opposing 300-pound offensive linemen, not 200-pound running backs, are pointing him out before snaps then sliding out to block the 190-pound cornerback. That’s when coach Mike Macdonald has Witherspoon up in “the box” crowding the line of scrimmage showing a blitz before the snap.
“Teams have been ID-ing me, man,” Witherspoon said. “So, as soon as I get into the box they slide to me first.
“So, I mean, it’s hard when they when they point you out every time you get in there.
“Yeah, way different, man.
“They are going ‘21!’ first. Then they go on down the line,” Witherspoon said. “So, just kind of hard.
“It’s been a hard year this year. But, hey, that’s what it comes with.”
He said a former blitzing Seahawks defensive back from Seattle’s defenses told him it would be like this once Witherspoon has success getting past running backs and tight ends and sacking quarterbacks.
Safety Jamal Adams set an NFL record for defensive backs with 9 1/2 sacks his first season with the Seahawks in 2020. Adams had zero sacks in 22 games over his final three seasons with Seattle. The team released the former All-Pro safety this spring.
“Jamal told me it was going to be like that, anyway,” Witherspoon said.
Aligning Devon Witherspoon
Through injuries to starting cornerbacks Riq Woolen and Tre Brown, Macdonald has had Witherspoon lined up outside as a cornerback for 207 snaps this season. Witherspoon has been inside as a slot, nickel defensive back 366 times.
“I think I’m versatile, and they trying to use me as much as they can,” Witherspoon said. “So, whatever they need me to do, they put me in that spot, and I feel like I could just do it.”
Many times when Witherspoon has been the nickel with three defensive backs on the field, Macdonald has taken out an interior defensive lineman. But in the Seahawks’ 36-24 loss to San Francisco last month at Lumen Field, Macdonald used “big nickel.” That is, a third safety as the fifth defensive back, with Witherspoon outside at cornerback.
That third safety was K’Von Wallace. He played a season-high 42% of Seattle’s defensive snaps in that San Francisco game Oct. 10, against 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan’s heavy offensive formations for running the ball.
But the Seahawks put Wallace on injured reserve this week. He injured his ankle in the Seahawks’ last game, on a kickoff against the Rams Nov. 3, before Seattle’s bye.
For this rematch against the 49ers, the Seahawks have only three healthy safeties on their active roster. Rayshawn Jenkins, who started that first game, is on injured reserve. Love and Coby Bryant, who played only eight defensive snaps as a sixth, “dime” DB in the first 49ers game, are the starting safeties now. The lone reserve is Jerrick Reed. He’s been injured and on special teams in his 1 1/2 seasons in the NFL since Seattle drafted him in the sixth round last year.
Rather than “big nickel” with so few safeties, Macdonald is likely to feature Witherspoon in the conventional nickel alignment Sunday.
Play your best player more.
Witherspoon is one of the best “chase” tacklers the Seahawks have had since their “Legion of Boom” heyday 10 years ago. He runs down ball carriers with anticipation from a keen sense of what the offense is going to do.
On Sunday, Shanahan is likely to scheme 49ers tackle Trent Williams, fullback Kyle Juszczyk and Christian McCaffrey directly at Witherspoon when they see him inside near the line in Seattle’s nickel.
“They like to get the runs going one way and cut it back,” Witherspoon said. “But all 11 got to get to the ball with these guys. So that’s really the main thing.”
Mike Macdonald praise for Devon Witherspoon
Macdonald, the rookie head coach, talks about Witherspoon in glowing ways he doesn’t speak about any other Seahawk on his defense.
“(You talk about) the lack of stats, but I will tell you what: This guy, you have ‘force multipliers’ on your football team, that is Devon Witherspoon,” Macdonald said, the son of a West Point graduate again using one of his favorite military terms.
“He’s an elite competitor. He’s a guy that, hopefully he’s leading the charge for us for a long time here. He’s worth the shout-outs.
“All the energy. We feed off this guy and how competitive he is. Plays the way we want to play. You kind of want to play him everywhere; that’s probably my biggest compliment to him. So it’s, trying to figure out how to play him best to affect the game. We’re thinking through that lens.”
As Macdonald sees it, if he can scheme Witherspoon into better opportunities, the defense and season will take off for the last-place team in the NFC West that is only 1 1/2 games out of first in the division.
“Frankly, it’s nothing that he’s not doing that’s not creating production. Probably, you can put it on me to get him in better spots, so he can go affect the game,” Macdonald said. ““But that’s definitely a focus.”
This story was originally published November 16, 2024 at 11:12 AM.
