It’s only been three plays, but Seattle Seahawks rookie quarterback Jalen Milroe’s involvement in the offense has been neither smooth nor effective.
Milroe was brought in to run an option play late in the second quarter in Seattle’s 38-35 loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. His pitch to Kenneth Walker III was inaccurate and behind the running back, resulting in a loose ball and a Bucs recovery. Tampa Bay turned what was at least a field goal opportunity for the Seahawks to an eventual touchdown drive
and a 13-0 lead.
Milroe’s first snap was a run up the middle for only a yard on 2nd-and-6 during the opening drive against the San Francisco 49ers, while his second snap was another run for three yards on 1st-and-20 in the blowout win over the New Orleans Saints. Not one of Milroe’s snaps can be statistically quantified as a “successful play.”
Given the timing and lack of productivity through this limited sample of plays, it’s been wondered aloud whether it’s worth having Milroe active on gamedays if this is the extent of his contributions to the offense. For Seahawks head coach Mike Macdonald, they’re not pressing pause on the Milroe sub-package portion of the playbook just yet.
“We have more plays for Jalen,” Macdonald said. “It’s a combination of we really like the plays that we have for him, and we’re doing a lot of great things on offense when Sam’s the only quarterback in the game, too, so trying to balance that as well. Part of the reason we’re having success right now on offense is that we’re throwing our fastballs and we’re running our offense. We’re running all of our plays and Jalen’s package is a part of that, and teams have to prepare for it.
“I think that helps us and we’re executing it really well in practice, and they look good in practice. You start getting conservative and not calling stuff because you’re scared, we don’t want to live like that. The play didn’t go our way, could have made a better pitch, could have had a better pitch relationship. We want to take care of the football, that’s number one, but we want to stay aggressive too.”
Milroe has yet to play more than one snap in a game, and there’s not a ton to suggest that will change any time soon. There is, of course, the reminder that Milroe wasn’t practicing at all with the first-team offense throughout training camp and preseason, so this has all come together recently instead of as a full offseason process.
If Klint Kubiak is to continue using Milroe, then the situational play calling has to be fine-tuned. It makes no sense to bring him in on 1st-and-10 and risk something as damaging as that fumble proved to be, but the 3rd-and-1 sneak he ran in preseason against the Kansas City Chiefs would be a much preferable way to use him. At some point, the Seahawks will also have to have Milroe be a threat to throw, otherwise opposing defense have every reason to key in on Jalen as a runner.
Again, it’s just three plays, so perhaps there truly are good moments coming from the Milroe insertions as the season progresses, but thus far it’s only served to disrupt the flow of the offense.
