Seahawks Assistant Sanjay Lal Breaks Down DK Metcalf's Top Plays
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Seahawks receiver DK Metcalf may not have been in attendance at mandatory minicamp— a decision "he had to make,” as described by head coach Pete Carroll—yet the star wideout's game still received plaudits.
The praise demonstrated how excited receivers coach and passing game coordinator Sanjay Lal is to work with Metcalf again, following Lal’s one-year exodus in Jacksonville. The popular-among-players Lal even described two of his favorite Metcalf moments during the pair’s first stint together in 2020.
“I’ve told people he’s the best receiver I’ve ever been around that took the techniques from practice into the game,” Lal responded to a question on what area Metcalf has grown in the most. “If we ran a stutter-hinge versus [former Cardinals cornerback] Patrick Peterson, how it looked in walkthrough, how it looked in an individual period, how it looked in team, is exactly how it looked against Arizona.”
On paper, the 22-yard catch Lal referenced is not mind-blowing. However, watching film of Metcalf’s technique on the play is more impressive, as Lal attested to. It’s a shame we don’t have the practice footage of Metcalf honing the route from walkthroughs and so on.
The Seahawks' offense came out on their first drive of the second half up 16-14 looking to re-extend their lead after a Cardinals touchdown. Metcalf aligned as the X receiver—the single receiver away from the pair of tight ends and the trips-side of the formation. His stutter technique was beautifully designed for working against Peterson—a corner who loves to play press and press-bail.
With Arizona running a 3-deep, 3-under fire zone, Peterson was essentially one-on-one with Metcalf on the backside and opted for his press-bail technique in his deep third zone.
Metcalf exploded low off the line of scrimmage, attacking the blind spot of Peterson in his first few steps. During this phase, Peterson kept his eyes on Metcalf to clear the possibility of a three-step drop from the quarterback and a quick game route from the wideout.
After this process, Metcalf—still attacking Peterson’s blind spot—stuttered in his route and Peterson throttled down with this. Then Metcalf attacked vertically.
By this point, Peterson was 100 percent thinking Metcalf was running an outside release go route deep down the field; he had cleared quick game and Metcalf, presumably, was stuttering to then gain a step on Peterson deep. Peterson worked to gain depth and width to the outside, aware of Metcalf’s speed.
With Metcalf continuing to attack Peterson’s blind spot, selling vertical and outside, the receiver threw on the brakes and worked back to his quarterback on the 15-yard hinge route, catching the ball away from his frame.
Metcalf’s cushion to Peterson and working back to the ball created a two-way go that the receiver was able to maximize. The corner missed the tackle and Metcalf maximized the yards after catch.
“You can look at the tape,” Lal continued. “I’ve actually made cut-ups of, here’s how he did it here, and here’s how it looked in the game.”
The second Metcalf play Lal spoke about was more splashy. It was the receiver's Week 2, 54-yard touchdown grab versus the Patriots and then-reigning defensive player of the year Stephon Gilmore.
“The Stephon Gilmore ‘V’ route, pylon route that he caught—we’ve got walkthrough reps of him running it exactly like that,” Lal described.
I wrote about the Seahawks' schematic approach in that game:
“Gilmore was shown a ton of looks where Metcalf was thrown the ball underneath, with Seattle establishing that it was willing to attack the short-to-intermediate stuff when Metcalf was left in a clear one-on-one, regardless of whether he was up against the shutdown corner or not. Just one minute after that slant catch from Metcalf against Gilmore came the play. Seattle wasn't content with merely working Gilmore underneath. It desired humiliation and touchdowns. The ball was snapped and Metcalf, aligned in the slot, exploded off the line of scrimmage. Gilmore’s defensive back dividers told him to align with outside leverage on this route and flatten any vertical release to his deep free safety, defending the slot fade first and foremost. Naturally, Gilmore moved to undercut Metcalf’s deep crossing route. After all, Metcalf is a very fast player and Gilmore needed to gain leverage on the route across the field. He also needed to become the underneath player in the coverage, with his safety helping over the top. That’s how the corner gets so many interceptions. Here, Gilmore was doing everything right, everything that has seen him receive the highest NFL honors.”
Lal provided detail of how Metcalf’s route technique made that Gilmore undercut happen.
“He had to get a yard inside the hash,” Lal assessed. “He had to get his eyes back for a count. Otherwise, Stephon would not undercut him. It’s very rare for a receiver under duress, under the lights to go do that in a game and he did it perfectly.
"You watch the clip, as soon as he touches the hash, his eyes come back inside, Steph goes underneath, and he puts his foot in the ground and goes over the top. Had it been one yard off, that play wouldn’t have worked. Even with all that precision, it was still a bang, bang play downfield. So he’s the best I’ve seen at that.”
“Metcalf was running across the field and the route distribution looked just like Y-cross or similar deep crossing concepts,” I continued on the schematic elements. “The Seahawks love these kinds of routes and called stop-variations of them in this game too.
“Except Metcalf then established himself as one of the most dominant receivers in the league. After feeling Gilmore begin his cut-off move, Metcalf broke upwards, stacking Gilmore, and then cut towards the pylon on the flag route. Gilmore recovered as well as any defender could in this situation. But Metcalf in this position is just too fast and too big.”
These two plays are a reminder, then, of Metcalf’s dominance. It’s easy to overlook the impact of the 24-year old's surgery-requiring foot injury in 2021. Hopefully, Metcalf will be fully healthy in 2022 and beyond—plus signed to the Seahawks way beyond this coming season as well.
