Seattle Seahawks

Seahawks offense has a coaching problem

Published Jun. 30, 2017 6:28 p.m. ET

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If the Seattle Seahawks offense is going to get things turned around, the coaches first have to look in the mirror and recognize they are part of the problem.

There is plenty of blame to go around for why the Seattle Seahawks offense has been rather putrid for much of this season. Wilson’s injuries and mistakes haven’t helped, and neither has the less-than-competent play of the offensive line.

The Seahawks offensive coaching staff doesn’t deserve a pass here either. Both offensive line coach Tom Cable and offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell have contributed to Seattle’s anemic offensive production.

Good coaches put their players in a position where they can be successful. That hasn’t been happening frequently enough for the Seahawks offense.

Penalties

Penalties come in a lot of varieties. Most defensive penalties come from guys being aggressive, and it is tough to take issue when it is just guys trying to make plays.

The Seahawks offense is getting killed by avoidable penalties that don’t fall in that category. They’ve been called for 11 false start penalties, which is 11 too many. This offense cannot afford those types of mental mistakes.

The worst of Seattle’s penalty woes are the 16 holding penalties (14 accepted) by the offensive line. Most offensive holding penalties are the result of poor technique, and thus are avoidable as well.

The big issue here is that Seattle’s offensive line is completely undisciplined. Both mentally and physically, this unit does not regularly do what they need to do in order to be successful.

At some point, that falls on the coaching. We are well passed that point.

You play how you practice. Tom Cable lets guys be sloppy with their technique in practice, and thus they are sloppy during games.

Blocking scheme issues

One of the big issues that the offense has had this season has been blocking designs that set the linemen up to fail. This isn’t referring to asking talent-challenged players like Bradley Sowell to block guys like Robert Quinn either.

Instead, I’m talking about poorly designed blocking alignments that have little-to-no chance of success. Take this example, George Fant to asked to reach block a defender that is more than two positions inside of him.

Also, this next example is of a pass protection scheme that makes no sense, but it is something the Seahawks have been doing regularly (without success) all season. The Seahawks had Fant down block on the DT, and expected Ifedi to pull all the way from RG in time to pick up the defensive end coming off the left side.

As you can probably guess, Ifedi was late. The play-action didn’t hold the DE long enough for Ifedi to get across the formation, and thus Wilson was sacked.

Cable’s protection design here is overly-complicated for no reason. Even if it worked, there’s nothing to be gained by doing it this way.

Cable decided to get cute and show he can be creative, and all he did was set Ifedi and the offense up to fail.

Dec 21, 2014; Glendale, AZ, USA; Seattle Seahawks offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell against the Arizona Cardinals at University of Phoenix Stadium. The Seahawks defeated the Cardinals 35-6. Mandatory Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports

Run-Pass Ratio

I don’t like commenting on offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell, because the vast majority of the the stuff he gets blamed for has nothing to do with him. Fans act like he’s the worst OC in the NFL, which is absolutely not true.

That isn’t to say that Bevell is perfect either. He’s far from it. He’s fairly middle-of-the-road overall. I just don’t like to feed the trolls who spew venom and don’t know football.

With that disclaimer out of the way, it should be noted that Bevell called a poor game last Sunday.

For starters, the Seahawks running backs only ran the ball 14 times. That’s far too few for a Sunday in which Seattle was ahead for most of the game. Seattle’s running backs also averaged 4.5 yards per rush, so it cannot even be argued that the running game was abandoned because it was ineffective.

Sure, some of this issue was down-and-distance problems because of penalties. Some, but not nearly enough to create the unbalanced numbers that we saw from Seattle’s offense.

Pete Carroll mentioned this both after the game and in his early-week press meetings. The Seahawks are expected to get back to a much more balanced run-pass ratio starting this week.

3rd down play selection

Bevell also doesn’t seem to have a viable plan for when the Seahawks offense facing third and long. Because of the trash O-line play, they are in that situation quite a bit. Half (6 of 12) of their possession vs Arizona ended with facing 3rd-and-13 or more. There were three more last week against New Orleans.

The draw/screen plays are for field position and are about trusting the defense. That’s a strategic choice that comes from Pete Carroll. No matter what some fans think, those aren’t an issue.

The real issue comes on the plays when Seattle is actually making an effort to pick up the 1st down. In these instances, too often the play designs only barely get the ball to the sticks, if they get there at all.

Here is an example from early in Sunday’s game vs. New Orleans. The Seahawks faced third-and-16. The kept an extra blocker in to help Wilson, and ran four 14-15 yard curl routes.

Wilson completed the pass to Graham, and he was predictably tackled two yards short of the first down. It didn’t matter which receiver Wilson threw to, the play design and coverage meant that Seattle wasn’t going to be able to pick up the first here.

There aren’t many plays that will get you 17 yards when the defense is dropping everyone into coverage and sitting right at the sticks. This play isn’t one of them. Calling 14 yard play on third-and-16 isn’t setting the players up to succeed.

Overall, the Seattle’s coaches haven’t been setting the players up to be successful. Tom Cable unit has been abysmal so far this season, and he’s making their jobs unnecessarily difficult. Bevell isn’t playing to Seattle’s strength, and looks unprepared to cope with the consequences of Cable’s bad line.

Combined, those two coaches have been contributing to the struggles of the Seahawks offense.

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