On Thursday Night Football in Week 4 the Seattle Seahawks emerged from State Farm Stadium with their third win of the season, in spite of a late rally by the Arizona Cardinals.
The win, coupled with the San Francisco 49ers loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars, allowed Seattle to pull into a three-way tie for first place in the NFC West with the Niners and Los Angles Rams, who defeated the Indianapolis Colts Sunday.
When the Seahawks had the football, their offensive strategy appeared to differ greatly
when it came to personnel usage compared to the first three weeks of the season. Specifically, with fullback Robbie Ouzts on injured reserve, the usage of two-back formations dropped significantly.
Through the first three games of the season, Ouzts was on the field for the 60 offensive snaps, or obviously, 20 snaps per game. However, against the Cardinals backup fullback Brady Russell was only used on seven offensive snaps.
That certainly didn’t translate to a receiver-heavy attack, as Tory Horton, Jake Bobo and Dareke Young combined for just three dozen offensive snaps during the game. Klint Kubiak and the offense turned to the tight ends, with AJ Barner, Elijah Arroyo and Eric Saubert all getting significant playing time, while practice squad elevation Amari Kight also played the first two offensive snaps of his career.
Astute readers will quickly notice the complete lack of snaps for Bryce Cabeldue on either offense or special teams, which readily explains the very narrow margin of victory for the Hawks.
On the defensive side of the ball, many Seattle fans are more than ready for the Riq Woolen experience to be over, but Woolen played 62 of 67 defensive snaps. Meanwhile Nehemiah Pritchett and Derion Kendrick combined for exactly zero defensive snaps, while Shaquill Griffin did not dress for the game because he’s on the practice squad.
For the game the Seahawks averaged 5.03 defensive backs per snap, which in turn means that they averaged fewer than six front seven defenders per snap.
Special teams remains Brady Russell’s domain, pacing the team with 23 special teams snaps. The usual suspects were right behind Russell, including Mike Morris, Drake Thomas, Chazz Surratt, Dareke Young and D’Anthony Bell.
And now it’s on to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in Week 5.
