Inability to Implement In-Game Adjustments Remains Critical Deficiency for Seahawks

Stop if you've heard this before: The Seahawks coaching staff admitted adjustments should have been made earlier last week in a loss to the Giants. Far from the first time that's happened this year, it's a critical flaw that has cost the team a few games this already and could prevent a potential playoff run next month.

Throughout the course of the 2020 season, the Seahawks have managed to produce eight victories in 12 games despite consistently struggling to implement in-game adjustments offensively and defensively.

Earlier in the season, as Seattle's secondary was carved up to a tune of 362 passing yards per game in the first nine weeks, coach Pete Carroll consistently harped on the need for his staff to help a dormant pass rush with pressure packages. Yet, such adjustments didn't happen until a Week 8 victory over the 49ers, one week after the Seahawks allowed the Cardinals to erase a 10-point lead late in regulation and eventually win in overtime thanks to a flawed game plan featuring minimal blitzing and soft coverage on the outside.

Now, coming off a crushing 17-12 loss to the Giants in Week 13, the tables have turned with offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer and quarterback Russell Wilson struggling to explain why the Seahawks weren't able to make obvious adjustments fast enough while being held to a single offensive touchdown on Sunday.

With New York scheming two-deep and 3-cloud looks to provide extra support in coverage against star receiver DK Metcalf while also taking away Seattle's vertical passing game, Schottenheimer mystifyingly stuck with a "formula" catered around long-developing deep routes that clearly wasn't going to work in this game.

In the process, Wilson held onto the ball far too long and took five sacks as a result, with a pair of them losing 11 yards and consequently destroying promising drives. Additionally, the star quarterback was flagged for intentional grounding late in the first half, ruining yet another drive that could have yielded points before halftime.

“I probably could have adjusted a little bit better and thrown more of the underneath stuff,” Schottenheimer admitted. “We were hunting and we were trying to go get them and they were sitting back there and that led to us having to hold the ball a little bit. I think they did a really nice job of trying to prevent us from doing that. In those situations, we have to do better with the play calls."

While it's good that Schottenheimer acknowledged the obvious lack of adjustments to a short, quick passing game to offset the Giants defensive strategy, it's a troubling pattern that has plagued Seattle's coaching staff as a whole this season.

In this particular case, it was obvious early on that New York wasn't going to allow Metcalf and Tyler Lockett to beat them vertically and the secondary executed defensive coordinator Patrick Graham's game plan to near-perfection. While Lockett did have a 24-yard reception on the first drive of the game that yielded three points, coverage tightened up from that point and receivers weren't coming open deep before the pass rush got home.

“You want to trust your game plan going into it,” Wilson told reporters on Thursday. “It’s the first half next thing you know the score is only 5-0. Normally we’d been doing really efficient football, which, the first drive we moved up and down the field. We didn’t score a touchdown but we moved the ball really well.”

Yes, the Seahawks moved the ball some. But the reality is that they held the football for over 16 minutes in the first half - more than the Giants had - and produced three total points. That should have been more than enough evidence to recognize accommodations needed to be made for the offense to get on track.

Yet, coming out of halftime, Schottenheimer continued to dial up vertical passing concepts to no avail. Wilson obliviously kept hanging onto the ball as his receivers were covered up downfield by Giants defenders like blankets and eating big losses on sacks. Seattle didn't score a single point in the third quarter as New York scored two touchdowns to build a 14-5 advantage heading into the final period.

Adjustments were finally made at that point to an extent and Seattle was able to finally find the end zone with roughly six minutes left in the game. But it proved to be too little, too late, as Wilson took another critical sack on the final drive of the game and his 4th and 18 heave ultimately was swatted to the ground, bringing one of the biggest clunkers of the Carroll era to an abrupt end.

As has been the case all year, the inability to adapt on the fly when necessary remains problematic for the Seahawks. With only four games left, as exhibited again against an inferior team last weekend, it's the type of deficiency that could derail any hopes for a deep run in January.