Don’t look now… the Seattle Seahawks offense is evolving.
Don’t push ‘B’.
Seattle pulled off a blockbuster to secure the services of All-Pro guard, Quenton Nelson. One that many speculated about after Indianapolis signaled to the league that they were ready to embrace their rebuild already.
Terron Armstead thinks that his impact will be on par with that of JSN’s in the receiving corps.
In the short term, with no Charles Cross at LT (ankle), new surroundings for Nelson, a new position for new RG, Grey Zabel and the returns of Jadarian Price and Zach Charbonnet: expect the Seahawks to lean into the run game before settling in to let this line gel.
Former Colts center, Jeff Saturday ,discussed what it would be like for Grey Zabel moving to the right side. “Conceptually, it all makes sense. There are times when you’re uncomfortable in your set. But, as well as Zabel has played already, I would not think it would be overly challenging.” Indy’s former interim Head Coach went on to talk about how muscle memory will build, but until then: “I’m probably telling the center to look right a little bit, early. Just peek so that he gives up that inside.”
Offensive coordinator, Brian Fleury made his expectations for Grey Zabel flipping sides clear, saying that “he’s had a lot of experience with that in college. He’s got a lot of versatility, so I’m sure the learning curve will evaporate pretty quickly.”
Sometimes the antidote to OL uncertainty is to just let your guys go out there and MASH. Good thing that’s exactly the way the Hawks want to operate, to alleviate situations for Sam Darnold and the 3rd-down efforts of the point-scoring unit.
What else can we expect?
Cooper Kupp was asked about Sam Darnold getting through his progressions, and he spoke to how receivers are also responsible for that. Kupp said that “you might not have time to be creative in your route. You might need to just get to your spot, and if you’re not there, then there’s an opportunity for Sam to move on, for you to pull coverage. and for other guys on the back end to be creative and have time to find the open space. We all work in conjunction with that. So, it’s not just Sam playing fast — which I thought he did an unbelievable job — but it’s also all of us really owning what we’re trying to get done.”
One of the receivers who was criticized for a lazy route that could’ve led to an OT INT against the Broncos, and a drop against the Chiefs was Tory Horton. Mike Macdonald on Horton filling in for Rashid Shaheed (knee) this week was succinct: “He’s got more of an opportunity. We expect him to take advantage of it.”
Seattle likely does not want to take the ball out of JSN’s hands, but distributing the ball a bit more seemed to work well against Kansas City. Fleury was asked about heightened TE involvement last week, and he refused to make it just about that position, even though A.J. Barner played a pivotal role (his 42 yards were second only to Smith-Njigba, adding to his 3 “Barn-Yard” tush push conversions). “There’s been a deliberate approach to try and get everybody a little bit more involved”, Fleury explained.
Remember how the acquisition of Rashid Shaheed changed how defenses played the Seattle offense last year? He didn’t even play well, and it still changed the defensive structures that Seattle saw! The run game took off and produced a Super Bowl MVP.
They are trying to flip the script and dictate terms on offense, halfway through the season once again. The Seahawks would love to knock teams out of cloud coverage, and get them to commit more to stopping the ground game.
Mike Macdonald, during his weekly radio show, talked about JSN getting doubled: “We’re getting a lot of ways to allocate two people to him, as they should, and he’s still finding ways to get open. We got to still keep finding ways to manipulate those coverages so that either the ball goes somewhere else — I’ve got a great opportunity to hit Tory on the in-cut early in the game, and I really expect Tory to make that play. We’ve really got to hit on those types of plays if teams are going to play those types of coverages against us, we can make them pay.”
If there’s any legitimate thought about trading for Jonathan Taylor, Price and Charbonnet will be under the microscope over the next two games against the Bears and Cardinals. If Charbo doesn’t look the same after a serious injury and Price displays a continues problem with either fumbles or injury, the Taylor talk could get louder.
Ultimately, the offense is attached to a defense that is putting up historical numbers. They just had unprecedented success against a Sean Payton-led offense and handed Patrick Mahomes the biggest beatdown of his professional offensive life. If the Seahawk offense can control the ball, move it forward and play complimentary ball, this could be a very dangerous team.
With Nelson and Jones playing key roles this week, we can expect more bully ball. The type of ball that will punish those who seek to go all in on stopping the reigning OPOY, Jaxon Smith-Njigba.
