Film Breakdown: Assessing Seahawks Pass Rush Busts

Pass rush was once the go-to area of blame when debating Seahawks defensive woes. Bruce Irvin, signed in free agency to be the speed rusher for 2020, suffered a season-ending knee injury in Week 2. His projected backup Darrell Taylor still hasn’t played a down of NFL football. Taylor was Seattle’s preferred pass rush target in the draft; he is yet to comfortably recover from the shin splint surgery he underwent last January.

The free agency period was bizarre. The Seahawks were far apart from Jadeveon Clowney’s own valuation. Meanwhile, the odd waiting-out-process led to Seattle missing out on some of the free agent rushers available earlier. The Seahawks could have had names like Dante Fowler, Robert Quinn, Emmanuel Ogbah, Everson Griffen, Mario Addison, and Markus Golden. They ended with just Benson Mayowa - a solid rotational rusher - and Irvin. This looked borderline ridiculous from an offseason where John Schneider’s own stated goal was to improve the pass rush.

Seattle’s blockbuster trade for Jamal Adams and Week 8 addition of Carlos Dunlap for a fifth round pick massively boosted the pass rush. With the defense still struggling, attention soon turned towards terrible pass coverage performances. Passing game busts remain prominent at the time of writing.

It’s obvious the pass rush has got better from the Week 1 showing. However, looking at the numbers provides some much-needed context. The Seahawks are tied seventh in the NFL sack total with 40 - the best is Pittsburgh with 47. That number benefits from Seattle’s 10th-highest blitz rate, where the Seahawks sending five or more rushers 35 percent of the time - the blitz-heaviest team is Baltimore at 42.9 percent.

Seattle’s 21.6 percent pressure rate, tied for 20th in the league, and 8.4 percent hurry rate, 21st in the NFL, are less gaudy figures for the pass rush - flawed metrics as they may be. There are schematic explanations for these lower numbers too, but it’s clear the Seahawks are still missing talent in this area. Their stock four-man rush runs hot and cold. It appears especially vulnerable to play action.

We are now in Week 16. The defensive issues still mainly get attributed to the pass coverage. Yes, a heavy dosage of criticism should be applied to busted assignments from the cover defenders. (Indeed it has been: read my post-week 9 article and my piece from yesterday)

The victory over the Washington Football Team was labored from Seattle. It wasn’t just the pass defense that allowed Dwayne Haskins back into the game.

From a play calling standpoint, blitzing was frustrating. It felt like the Seahawks were trying to see what worked, putting stuff on tape of future opponents. The New York Jets game also featured this sensation. Haskins was able to establish a rhythm, with his first read open, plus quick and simple pitch-and-catch beaters being successful.

An equally big issue was the pass rush busts. The ability of individual personnel is immaterial when one player fails to execute their basic assignment. The busts allowed Haskins some easy scramble opportunities to get big chunk plays and keep drives alive.

Seattle has run a ton of bear-esque fronts this season, adapting their defense to opposition offenses and their own available talent. It removes the interior run bubbles in the B and A gaps, the aiming points for most runs. Meanwhile, it enables the second-level defenders to slow play most run action more and be in less run-pass conflict. These bear fronts are still run out of the Seahawks’ 4-3 or 4-2-5 personnel. The spacing of the bodies down at the line of scrimmage can be 9t-3t-0t-3t-9t (“stick” in base; “falcon” in nickel), 9t-3t-0t-4i-9t (“rocky”), or 9t-4i-0-4i-9 (“tite” or “bumped rocky”).

K.J. Wright goes down at the line of scrimmage, mainly to the boundary, as one of the edge defenders. Opposite him, often aligned to the field, is the LEO, usually Carlos Dunlap. The interior three are usually the nose tackle, the big end, and the three technique-type defensive tackle, which could be Bryan Mone, L.J. Collier, and Jarran Reed.

When rushing four, it makes sense that the coverage ability of Wright is often the one to drop off the line of scrimmage into coverage. The defensive lineman next to him is placed in an important role by the tight spacing of these fronts. By starting in an alignment inside of the tackle (3-technique is outside shoulder of the guard, 4i is inside shoulder of the tackle) the defense is left without an edge defender to that side once Wright has dropped. In order to set an edge and contain quarterbacks in the pocket, this defender must wrap outside after reading pass to contain the QB.

Seattle has done this well this season, most notably in the second matchup with the Arizona Cardinals and the dynamic Kyler Murray. The first half versus the Football Team was no exception.

Disappointingly, the second-half saw the pass rush lose the designed contain on Dwayne Haskins. Rush lane discipline was lost in desperation of getting pressure on the quarterback. Taking the path of least resistance proved costly.

Playing in the spacing of these fronts requires a lot of discipline and patience from the contain player. It can even lead to some mush-rush reps. That’s part of what Pete Carroll meant when he talked about getting stuck in base defenses that still respect the run.

Haskins finished the game with three carries for 28 yards. All of these were the scrambles in the above video. This isn't a massive total, but it gave unnecessary life to a Washington offense that looked terrible in the first half.

Snacks Harrison’s disappointing performance in particular partially explains the decision to leave him inactive versus the Los Angeles Rams. Against that quality of opponent, Seattle must not let Jared Goff get bail out yardage when the coverage has eliminated the passing concept. The Washington busts were evidence of the importance of complimentary football: the back end and defensive front must execute together.