Tale of Two Halves: Dissecting Seahawks' Jekyll and Hyde Offense
Coming off a lethargic performance in a 30-17 road loss to the Vikings on Sunday, the Seahawks' defense has been under unrelenting fire and rightfully so. They surrendered north of 400 total yards and 30 points for a second straight week, allowing the opposition to erase a double-digit lead and eventually snag the comeback victory.
But as has been the case throughout the 2021 season thus far, Seattle's defense hasn't been the only culprit for coughing up big leads in back-to-back weeks. In somewhat ironic fashion, Russell Wilson and the offense have taken their 2020 performance and translated it to individual games during the first three weeks, coming out red hot in the first half only to hit a brick wall after halftime.
Starting with the most traditional of statistics, the Seahawks lead the entire NFL averaging 20.7 points per game in the first two quarters of action. But after returning to the field following the 15-minute break, Wilson and the offense have been shockingly inept, averaging a league-worst 4.3 points per game in the third and fourth quarter. That's barely better than a field goal per game.
What has caused this stark contract from one half to the next? Digging deeper into the numbers and game film, a number of factors - some out of the offense's control entirely - have caused the extensive droughts after halftime.
First, let's start with why the Seahawks have dominated in the first two quarters. In quite the changeup from earlier seasons in his career, Wilson has come out of the gates firing missiles and playing at an MVP level, completing 35 out of 45 passes for 575 yards and five touchdowns. Posting a ridiculous 155.8 passer rating, he's averaged 12.8 yards per attempt.
Reeling in passes from Wilson, Tyler Lockett has produced 228 of his 309 receiving yards and all three of his receiving touchdowns in the first half of games. While DK Metcalf has been a little better after halftime than his wideout counterpart, he also has more yardage (120) in the first two quarters and had a big first half in Minnesota with five receptions for 88 yards and a touchdown.
Away from Wilson and his talented receiving corps, running back Chris Carson has also been effective on the ground in the first half of games. Rushing 27 times in six quarters worth of play, he's amassed 155 yards while averaging a healthy 5.7 yards per carry and scoring three touchdowns. In addition, he's caught two passes for 21 yards.
Looking at the offense as a whole, with the line holding up well protecting Wilson and opening up running lanes for Carson and Alex Collins, the Seahawks have been extremely difficult to slow down in the first 30 minutes of play. They've been especially dangerous in the second quarter, where 48.9 percent of their plays have resulted in first downs or touchdowns and 10 of their 47 plays have been of the explosive variety, meaning they had seven passes of 16-plus yards and three runs of 12-plus yards.
Unfortunately, Seattle hasn't even come close to replicating its first half success after halftime. If the second quarter performance by Wilson and company has warranted an Oscar, the third quarter deserves nothing but a Razzie.
Held scoreless in three third quarters, according to Pro Football Reference, the Seahawks have ran a grand total of 30 plays and only four of those plays (23.3 percent) resulted in first downs. Wilson's yards per attempt plunge to 5.3, he's taken three sacks on just 17 drop backs, and they've ran 13 times for just 42 yards and a 3.2 yards per carry average. They also haven't been able to generate explosives in the third quarter, failing to produce a pass of 16 or more yards or a run of 12 or more yards.
Such offensive ineptitude can only be defined as... gross.
Although Wilson has thrown two touchdowns in the fourth quarter, Seattle hasn't fared much better in the final period or overtime either. Taking out a 68-yard touchdown pass to Freddie Swain that happened solely due to botched coverage by the Titans in Week 2, Wilson has been respectable with 17 completions on 26 passes.
But Wilson only averaged 6.8 yards per attempt on those passes and has led just one other scoring drive on nine possessions. Seven of those possessions resulted in a punt, turnover on downs, or the end of a half and took less than 2:10 off the clock.
Naturally, these numbers for Wilson and the rest of Seattle's offense should be taken with a grain of salt because of the defense's inability to get off the field. Tennessee held onto the ball for nearly 20 minutes in the second half in Week 2 and last weekend, Minnesota chewed up close to 23 minutes of possession on three field goal drives.
With Wilson, Lockett, Metcalf, and the rest of the offense watching helplessly on the sidelines, they haven't been able to stay in a rhythm due to long gaps between possessions. On Sunday, facing a 10-point deficit that felt like a 30-point deficit, the pressure to score fast and keep pace prevented them from being able to run the football and allowed Vikings pass rushers to pin their ears back against a short-handed offensive line.
Unsurprisingly, a sack by Everson Griffen pushed Seattle back into a 3rd and 19 situation on its first and only third quarter possession, and one play later, Michael Dickson was on to quickly punt it right back to Minnesota's unstoppable offense to let them consume another big chunk of clock against a tiring defense and unofficially ice the game.
"We got to stay on the field, you know, and when it doesn't mix right and the defenses is giving up first downs and the offense didn't convert them, it's just out of the balance," coach Pete Carroll said after Sunday's game. "What changed? They didn't do anything different and we didn't do anything different. Shoot, I was fired up about - I think we scored four times in a row or something. We were really on it the way we needed to be. Just missed our chances, and then all of a sudden the game gets away."
From Carroll's perspective, third down ineffectiveness on both sides of the ball has been the biggest reason for the huge discrepancy between offensive outputs in the first and second half of games, downplaying the lack of explosive plays as a culprit for that regression in his Wednesday press conference.
“No, that’s not the concern. The concern is not being able to convert a couple of third down shots that we had to keep moving. That’s the concern, we have to get that done. It’s worked on both sides of the ball, we haven’t been able to get off of the field on defense in the third quarter either. That’s why we have had limited opportunities. It compounds the issue when you get off but don’t go back on. It amplifies the issue, but I’m not concerned about it in any regard, we just have to get back out and get the job done. We obviously can so we have to make it happen.”
Moving towards a tough Week 4 matchup in San Francisco, Seattle has proven it has the talent on offense to put points on the board in bunches and coordinator Shane Waldron has devised quality game plans each week. But the team's arsenal has largely been kept in check in the second half.
To reverse course, the Seahawks first and foremost need to figure out how to move the chains, particularly on third down. They currently rank 26th in the NFL converting only 38 percent of third down opportunities and an argument can be made that if they could've sustained one or two more second half drives with another first down conversion or two, they could have won at least one of the past two games, if not both. The time of possession conundrum doesn't just fall on the shoulders of the defense in this instance.
Secondly, the offensive line must play better and Wilson has to do a better job of unloading the football in quick fashion. It's been obvious re-watching film that the quarterback has been under more duress after halftime, including being pressured 10 times in the second half alone in Minnesota, but there have still been times he has been partially responsible for that pressure missing receivers on check downs.
Lastly, while this won't be popular with all of the 12s out there, Waldron can't forget about the ground game as he did against Tennessee in Week 2. As both of Seattle's past two opponents showcased, running the football can be a team's best friend when holding a lead and yet, he called only two run plays in the last three possessions of the fourth quarter. Those drives didn't even last a combined four minutes of game clock, giving the Titans time to mount a comeback.
Of course, more support from a maligned defense would also work wonders. Simply having the ball more often would give Wilson and his comrades extra shots to make things happen, which is always a win for the offense. But regardless of what the defense does, they have to step up their games from an efficiency standpoint in the second half of games or with a difficult schedule looming, things could get ugly in a hurry.
