Hawks Eye View Week 2: The NFL is a Passing League and Seahawks Have Given Into Trend
Today's NFL is all about the passing game. That's no longer news to anyone at this point.
The league has been slowly changing for decades, notably to suit the palate of television audiences. Students of the game may enjoy breaking down defenses, but even casual fans love seeing those 40-yard catches and teams lighting up scoreboards. Any NFL team that wants to keep up with the times has invested in a quarterback and talented wide receiver corps, and in Week 2, passers found their groove and let the pigskin fly.
In Week 1, only five NFL quarterbacks surpassed 300 passing yards, two of them being Matt Ryan and Russell Wilson in their shoot out of a season opener in Atlanta. In Week 2, that number bumped up to 11 teams, which is nearly 30 percent of NFL quarterbacks. Astonishingly, only four of those quarterbacks actually won their games.
Now let's look at the top five passing leaders in Week 2. Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott sits atop the list with a whopping 450 yards in a historic 40-39 win over the Atlanta Falcons. I say "historic" because according to ESPN, "since 1933 - when team turnovers were first tracked - teams that scored 39 or more points and had no turnovers in a game were a combined 440-0. Until Sunday." Prescott's prolific comeback makes the case he has rightfully earned the distinction as face of the franchise for years to come - but it also makes the case that Falcons head coach Dan Quinn should lose his job.
Dak Prescott evades Falcons linebacker Dante Fowler Jr. as he throws on the run.
To be fair, passing isn't everything, and it doesn't necessarily win games. We saw that last week when Matt Ryan's 420 yards only wrought 25 points, while Russel Wilson's efficient 322 yards resulted in four touchdowns. It was the same in Week 2: only two of the top five passers yardage-wise actually won their games, and they only won by a field goal or less. Bills quarterback Josh Allen secured a 31-28 win over the Dolphins with 417 air yards, remaining the only undefeated team in the AFC East.
The other three quarterbacks on that list - Cam Newton, Teddy Bridgewater, and Gardner Minshew II - all threw for more than 330 yards and their offenses all scored at least 30 points. Every guy in the top five is a high-scoring talent, but passing ability alone is not enough to win games. There's no more proof of that than in the embittered Sunday night brawl between the Seahawks and the Patriots.
To be fair, the Patriots almost eked out a win. 2015 Cam Newton has been resurrected, as the new New England quarterback passed for 397 yards and a touchdown and rushed for 47 yards and two touchdowns. Julian Edelman broke his single-game record for receiving yards with 179. If Patriots running back James White had been there, maybe the headlines would be different. But for all their rejuvenated offense accomplished on Sunday, it wasn't enough to overcome a five-touchdown Wilson game - even if he did only pass for 288 yards.
That's the story here for Seattle fans: it's not that the NFL is suddenly a passing league, but that the Seahawks are suddenly a primarily passing team.
It's not like Wilson hasn't been cooking his first eight years in the league. After all, he just surpassed 30,000 passing yards in his ninth season. Wilson has an average of 3,717 passing yards per season, which translates to 232 per game. That's a fair amount for a team that has prioritized running the ball, but this year's stats are sky-high compared to years past.
In 2020, Wilson has 610 total passing yards, averaging out to 305 in two games. That's an extra 73 yards per game, or roughly the difference between DK Metcalf burning Stephon Gilmore for a 54-yard touchdown and the talented receiver missing out on that catch.
The Seahawks are still running - the team garnered a total of 154 rushing yards on Sunday - but notably, the rushing attack didn't score them any points. The biggest, flashiest plays were from Wilson and his receivers, but the offense still remains balanced. As surprising as it may be considering the stats, the Seahawks offense is still playing by old football tenets at times: run, and pass when you must.
The important thing here is that teams have capable quarterbacks that can read defenses, make game-time adjustments, and analyze the open field accurately to minimize the risk of turnovers. The Seahawks have that guy in Wilson, and he doesn't need a whole lot of passes to get it done. He fit five touchdowns into 21 completions, while Newton only logged one in 30 completions. The numbers support Wilson's precision, as he is the only 2020 quarterback with a Top Five QBR two weeks in a row. Wilson's current QBR average of 137.6, the highest average in the league, proves that he he has clearly been the best at his trade through two weeks.
Wilson's stat map indicates he secures first downs as well as 40+ yard touchdowns.
As the season progresses, it will be interesting to see how much Wilson throws the ball week-to-week, as the Seahawks still want to the run game to be a major part of their attack. On Sunday, Schottenheimer mixed the old and the new, relying on run-game foundations and 2020's most consistent, electrifying quarterback to dominate one of the strongest secondaries in the league. For those who want to see Russ keep cooking, hopefully that type of mix is here to stay for the long haul.
