After Offensive Implosion, Pete Carroll Wants Seahawks to Emphasize Run Game in 2021
Putting the ball into their star quarterback's hands like never before, the Seahawks 2020 season couldn't have possibly gotten off to a faster start as the team ushered in the "Let Russ Cook" movement.
Through the first eight games of the season, Seattle topped 30 points in all but one game, racing out to a 6-2 record atop the NFC West. Russell Wilson threw 28 touchdown passes, putting himself squarely in the MVP discussion, while receivers DK Metcalf and Tyler Lockett were both on pace for 1,500 receiving yards and 16 touchdowns.
But at the midway point, Wilson began to battle turnover issues and his play dropped off tremendously. The offensive line dealt with injuries, rotating different starting lineups seemingly by week, and pass protection started to suffer. Receivers began to have a significant case of the drops. Penalties consistently derailed drives on first and second down, preventing drives from consistently being sustained.
Through it all, coach Pete Carroll remained confident Wilson and the offense would figure things out in time for the playoffs. But ultimately, that didn't happen and the Seahawks season came to an abrupt end with an ugly 30-20 Wild Card loss to the Rams on Saturday.
Reflecting on a bizarre season during his final press conference on Monday, Carroll regretted the coaching staff's inability to adapt well enough or quick enough to how defenses were playing against them.
"I felt like we lingered in the glow of the first half of the season," Carroll said.
Shortly after hitting the halfway mark, opponents started deploying more two-deep safety looks such as Cover 2, Cover 4, and Cover 3 Cloud in an effort to eliminate the Seattle's vertical passing game. The NFL is a copy cat league, and after the New York Giants held Wilson and company to 10 points in a Week 13 upset at Lumen Field, other teams began using the same strategy with similar success.
While Carroll seems to understand it isn't what most Twitter coaches want to hear, looking back at the offense's poor performance throughout the second half, he believes running the ball more will help dictate the coverages opponents will be able to play against them and get them out of some of the two-deep looks that stifled the team over the past couple months.
"It's really a football thing, it's a scheme thing," Carroll remarked. "I want to see if we can run the ball more effectively to focus the play of the opponents and see if we can force them to do things like we'd like them to do more, like we have been able to do that in the past. That doesn't mean we're going to run the ball 50 times a game, it means we need to run the ball with direction and focus and style that allows us to dictate the game. Frankly, I'd like to not play against two-deep looks all season long next year, so we have to be able to get that done."
To avoid misconstruing Carroll's overall message, while he wants to see Seattle run the ball with improved efficacy, he rightfully understands there's more to it when it comes to cracking the code against two-deep looks. After struggling with indecisiveness in the second half, Wilson has to do a better job unloading the football and play calling has to be better adjusted to counter those schemes.
"It's not just the running game. It is the style of passes that will help us some," Carroll added. "But we have to get after it a little bit differently. As it unfolded in the end of the season, it became really obvious. In the last four or five games, it became really obvious."
Facing off against top-flight defenses in the Rams, Washington Football Team, and 49ers to close out the regular season, the Seahawks did make a concerted effort towards utilizing the short-to-intermediate passing game to neutralize their quality pass rushes and avoid turnovers. Though they scored just 20 points in two of those games, they indeed won the turnover battle each week and with their defense playing at a high level, they won all three contests to wrap up the year with a sterling 12-4 record and an NFC West crown.
But as the Seahawks demonstrated on Saturday, such a conservative playing style isn't infallible when, as Carroll put it, you "can't control the variables." Most notably, the importance of turnovers is magnified in low-scoring affairs. Wilson threw a critical pick-six to Darious Williams in the first half, gifting the Rams seven points to help them enter halftime with a 10-point advantage. In the fourth quarter, D.J. Reed coughed up a fumble on a punt return and Jared Goff promptly hit Robert Woods for a touchdown to all but seal the game.
"I don't mind, winning 20-9, I don't mind winning 17-14," Carroll said. "I want to win controlling the game. That means we don't give them the football. We gave them the football a couple times in this game. It was the difference. It was the difference again. If we don't throw the interception for the touchdown play, the great play that he [Williams] made, and we don't give them the ball on the 40-yard line or something on the punt thing, we would have been slugging it out right to the end just like you'd have loved it."
Carroll has no issues winning such defensive slugfests, but peering towards 2021, he'd obviously prefer the Seahawks to have an explosive offense that can put points on the board in bunches as they did in the first half. To achieve that goal, the team must do a better job of being balanced and executing against whatever opponents do schematically against them.
From Carroll's perspective, though there's not a formula to run-pass ratios on a week-to-week basis, it all starts with improving Seattle's ground game and ultimately having the flexibility to move the ball against all types of defenses.
"We need to run more with focus and direction and count on it a little bit differently that we did," Carroll explained. "It isn't going to be 50 runs a game, we're not doing that. I don't want to do that. I want to explode with the throwing game, but we need to dictate the way we're being played better… We have to make sure we don't get stuck. You can get stuck on running the football too much, you can get stuck on throwing the football, you can get stuck on how you're throwing the football. We just have to be more flexible. It's why balance is so important, so you have what you need when it's time to go to it."
Interestingly, with Carroll doubling down on running the ball more next year to compliment and support Wilson, the Seahawks have some decisions to make with their running back group as well as the offensive line that blocks for them.
In the backfield, starting running back Chris Carson and reserve Carlos Hyde will both be unrestricted free agents in March. Behind them, Rashaad Penny played in only three games coming off a torn ACL and the former first-round pick has yet to emerge as a viable lead back in large part due to injuries. He's entering the final year of his rookie contract and the team has to decide whether or not to pick up his fifth-year option.
Up front, starting left guard Mike Iupati and center Ethan Pocic are scheduled to become unrestricted free agents. Reserve tackle Cedric Ogbuehi will also hit the market after his one-year deal expired, leaving several potential holes for the front office to fill along the offensive line.
It will be fascinating to see what the Seahawks opt to do with both of those positional groups during free agency and the draft in upcoming months. But regardless of who returns and what new players are added, expect a bit more of the run game returning as a staple for the team's offensive approach to help Wilson get back to cooking at peak efficiency.
