This is a guest post written by Curtis Allen for the blog. Curtis is well known within the community as ‘Cha’ in the comments section. We’ve all enjoyed his quarter report cards and game specific watch-points. Many thanks to him for putting this together.
There’s no disputing 2020 has been a turbulent year for the Seahawks.
The stunning amount of highs and lows witnessed this season would make for a fascinating case study if they weren’t so stressful for their passionate fan base.
Many of the challenges they’ve faced this year have been of their own making.
The Seahawks have once again not been able to connect their end of season roster, their offseason moves and their game planning and execution with a consistent, targeted vision.
Putting a team on the field that can play in a way that delivers sustainable success has been a monumental struggle for years now, one that has left fans unfulfilled.
This season, Pete Carroll has taken to using the word “uncharacteristic” to describe his team’s play so often people are wondering if he understands the meaning of the word.
The last calendar year has been well documented on the blog and in the comments section. The Seahawks ended 2019 with Russell Wilson, short on weapons, dragging a battered and bruised team into the playoffs. Their top three running backs were injured. They had a porous defense undermined by an anaemic pass rush.
The end result was predictable.
To their credit, the front office noticed this. They went into the offseason with clear needs and were armed with a handsome amount of cap room and a full complement of draft picks.
They came back with… a team that relies far too much on its quarterback, with three running backs that are injured and a porous defense undermined by an anaemic pass rush.
— Through 12 games Russell Wilson has been responsible for a staggering 84.3% of the team’s total yards of offense. That dwarfs his 74.3% number of 2019.
— The Seahawks spent about 18% of their available cap room on tight ends. Yet through 12 games the group has produced only 5.45 catches and 3.81 first downs per game and three total TD’s. For comparison, Will Dissly had four touchdowns in 5 games last year.
— Chris Carson, Carlos Hyde and Travis Homer have missed 13 games this year due to injury and have had severely reduced workloads in several others. Carson has yet to log 100 carries this season.
— Through eight games, the Seahawks defense was on pace to shatter the all-time yards conceded mark and had recorded only 19 sacks on an astounding 366 pass attempts, or 45.75 attempts per game.
All of this has placed considerable pressure on Russell Wilson and the offense — and it shows. To the point where now, just as the defense is finally showing some signs of being even a marginally competent unit, the offense is behaving like a rubber band that has been stretched so many times it has lost its elasticity and cannot take its original shape.
It should not be a surprise to anyone that this team has returned very similar results again this year. Similar process returns similar results. The old Henry Ford quote seems appropriate here:
“If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got.”
Russell Wilson looks tentative and unsure of himself.
Pete Carroll is trying to will this team to success by cramming ‘believe’ into as many sentences as possible.
The running backs are being revered for their toughness one week and the next are being limited in their reps in the name of caution.
Raves by the coaching staff about Carlos Dunlap’s play and how the team ‘finally has a pass rusher that can get to the quarterback’ and ‘what a relief it is to get pass rush in non-blitzing situations’ has betrayed their early-season protestations that cheap part time players can fill the massive void in their pass rush.
Put another way, they’re reaping what they’ve sown. Yet again.
How can they break the cycle? How can they restore that singular vision that focuses their efforts and leads to sustainable success?
The 2021 offseason starts right now
The Seahawks need to look very closely at their team philosophy, their current roster makeup and the individual and unit results in the next four games (and hopefully the playoffs). They have a minimum of four games to get a real-world look at the results of the way this team was built in 2020, the players that are newly acquired and/or have been injured and are now coming online, what the coaching staff has done to point their players in the way of success and examine the very structure and identity of both the offense and defense.
Why such urgency?
This offseason is going to present clear challenges. They have minimal draft picks and are projecting to have very little usable cap space to augment the current roster that is under contract for 2021.
Major decisions need to be made about new acquisitions Jamal Adams and Carlos Dunlap. The long-term future of expensive veterans like Bobby Wagner need to be examined. And owing to their past couple of offseasons, they have precious few immediately available resources to draw from.
Every team in the NFL is preparing for the 2021 offseason in some way, shape or form at the moment — but this team is unique.
The Seattle Seahawks may present the biggest paradox in the NFL — they enjoy consistent relative success, yet they regularly have numerous and serious fundamental question marks that need addressing.
Thankfully, there is good news in all of this.
They have a franchise quarterback in his prime years and locked down for three more seasons.
Pete Carroll has the security of a five-year contract extension.
They have a large amount of salary cap room in 2022.
They have a soft local press and general fan base, thanks to an enormous amount of goodwill built up and star players that are extremely likeable and rooted in the community.
They have an ownership group that will likely sell the franchise in that five-year window and who may have a very enticing incentive for success. How much more value would the franchise gain if they pick up a second Lombardi trophy shortly before going to market?
The Seahawks are king in Seattle but my goodness — imagine what a second championship would do? You think the Hawks run the town now? They’d solidify their stranglehold on the town’s heart in a way never before seen — and that’s practically a license to print money.
Annually competing for a Super Bowl is within their grasp. They have both the means and the imperative to reach that goal. However, road mapping that achievement needs to start as soon as possible.
Why? Because it is going to take three fairly extraordinary things to achieve it:
1. An acknowledgement that what they’ve been doing isn’t getting them closer to a championship
The first step toward solving any problem is acknowledging it exists. And boy oh boy does it exist:
No division titles since 2016.
No byes earned since 2014.
A 3-4 playoff record the last five seasons.
Being out coached in games, outmaneuvered in the offseason market and plain outclassed by division foes with lesser talent.
A stubborn insistence on running a defensive scheme that depends on QB pressure with the front four, coupled with a resistance to acquiring the proper pieces to make it function.
A baffling inability to support one of the best quarterbacks in the game with complementary football.
In-game decisions that don’t demonstrate a clear perception of team strengths and the massive power of momentum that is available to tap.
Add them all up and you have a team that is consistently on the fringe of the Super Bowl conversation but never truly within striking distance.
We all know Pete Carroll burns to win. Yet the moves the team recently have made under his direction give the appearance of a leadership group uncertain of their charting, desperate to simply remain competitive and willing to be backed into a corner by time, circumstance and opportunistic teams and free agents rather than control their own destiny.
None of which is aided by Pete’s media presentation. Serious questions about the construction of the team and choices made under his leadership are often met with terse, almost dismissive answers that barely register as even acknowledging the premise of the question. Questions about COVID protocols, social justice and a fun locker room however, are answered with cheery brightness and clear, steely determination.
Coming to terms with the reality that they have faltered under Pete Carroll’s leadership will not be easy but on the whole, the body of proof is damning and crying out for a clear, honest appraisal.
2. The need for humility to examine every single team process objectively and courage to change those processes in order to get closer to a championship
They’re so fond of having “tell the truth Monday” in-season. They might need a whole week to examine their team-building missteps this year. How did they get here? Can they better target their aggression this offseason?
What is the core identity of this team? And why isn’t every decision and process geared toward retaining and bolstering that identity?
How can it possibly be that they spent $50 million and massive draft capital in 2020 and yet still put possibly the most inconsistent product on the field in Pete’s Seattle career? Why have they allowed their young players to have their development blocked by ‘here today, gone tomorrow’ veterans that don’t provide tangible on-field results? How do they continually struggle to make good use of their timeouts and constantly make head-scratching decisions during games? When was the last time a coordinator put together a game plan that was both consistent and creative?
Do they need to consider a different approach to the draft?
How about their organizational philosophy towards the salary cap?
For years they’ve been judicious about their cap room, gaining praise for being able to roll cap into the next season and being ‘fiscally responsible’ in order to extend key players. All the while, their competitors have freely added major pieces with far less appearance of cap room, while simultaneously avoiding the dreaded “cap jail” that seems to inhibit the Seahawks from making bold decisions to add that just-one-more weapon to an already solid group to put this team over the top.
They have a real opportunity to improve this team in a major way this offseason but it will require some boldness and cap creativity that has so far been unseen from this front office.
Do the Seahawks as an organization have the humility to look at yet another 10-6 or 11-5 season followed by a quick playoff exit and say ‘that is simply not good enough’? Do they have the courage to reevaluate their operational procedures and admit that changes need to be made?
The core desire is there but it will take an enormous effort to deviate from the pattern they have put in place.
3. A challenging and engaged ownership group that will finance the moves they deem necessary
Being bold takes ownership confidence and financial backing. That is not something every team enjoys.
Paul Allen famously had deep pockets and was willing to go get players and staff who were deemed necessary to success. Does the group under the leadership of Jodi Allen have a similar mentality? It will take those same deep pockets to both acquire talent and to pay talent who no longer fit the teams’ vision of success to go away.
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With all that in mind, what do the Seahawks need to look at in these final four games?
1. Are they truly putting their biggest player asset in the best position to succeed?
Buried in the offseason narrative about letting Russ throw more is the fact that supporting your quarterback comes in many different forms:
— Having a smothering defense to give you the ball with fantastic field position
— A run game that burns the clock and protects Russ from taking a physical toll
— Tight ends providing matchup nightmares and easy first downs
Have the Seahawks done enough to maximize the talent of their best player?
The Seahawks spent over $10 million and two draft picks on the tight end position. At one point in the offseason, there were more TE’s than Defensive Ends on the Seahawks’ roster. They clearly prioritized the position. Then the season started and that big investment became an afterthought week after week.
Have they phased TE’s out of the offense? Or relegated them to a blocking role? Or is Russ the reason they’re not getting many touches?
They will return Will Dissly and Colby Parkinson to the roster next year and Stephen Sullivan will likely return from the practice squad. Would a simple solid blocking TE addition suffice to fill the depth? Or do they need to re-commit to making the TE’s an important part of their attack?
What of the Running Backs? Can Rashaad Penny give enough glimpses this year to give the team confidence he can take on a major role in 2021? Do Deejay Dallas and Travis Homer have the ability to improve beyond third string and special teams players?
And Chris Carson. The Seahawks have an extremely tough decision to make there. He cannot stay healthy yet is a heart and soul player that sets the tone for the offense. The team is clearly not the same when he is not on the field. An honest and thoughtful evaluation of his skills, impact on the team and market value is crucial.
2. Can this defense consistently perform as constructed? Is Jamal Adams worth a giant extension?
A bad side effect of all the injuries they’ve sustained is they haven’t gotten to truly see what they talent they have assembled can do as a unit. They have four games to evaluate what they’ve got.
Jamal Adams, the biggest of the Seahawks’ offseason acquisitions, has produced some equally spectacular and troublesome results:
— He leads the Seahawks with 7.5 sacks and has provided pressure to get quarterbacks thinking about an audible to the opposite side
— He has missed four games with injury and not been 100% for other games. He is conceding a 113 QB rating in coverage and there is a cost to the scheme in having a strong safety blitz so much
Can the defense thrive with this output from the strong safety spot? Is it worth a massive extension that will force the Seahawks to cut back in other areas?
There’s been a persistent narrative that the arrival of Carlos Dunlap will balance the defense and reduce the dependence on blitzing Jamal so much. Yet in the 5 games since acquiring Dunlap, the team has blitzed Jamal just as much as before. Will that continue in the final four games and the playoffs? Will the results be different?
Adams’ acquisition and use challenges Pete Carroll’s defensive principles. Recently, when Pete was gushing about Adams’ performance, he said something of note. That Adams is a ‘risk-taker’ and that ‘he loves that about him.’
Carroll admitted that ‘sometimes the risks will get him but he’s a big part of our defense.’
Has Pete ever described risk-taking as a positive trait in his defenders? Maybe early in rookie Earl Thomas’ career? Maybe?
And how has Adams’ use impacted Quandre Diggs? Is he a good safety match for Adams? Has the scheme limited Diggs’ playmaking ability? And if so, is that an acceptable result?
3. What of the other defensive pieces?
The Seahawks cannot possibly be thinking of moving on from Bobby Wagner, can they? He is $17m against the cap next year. Is the cost/benefit leaning in the wrong direction? Or has part of Bobby’s play been the result of the front office utterly ignoring the interior DL this offseason? Would a recommitment to a stouter interior raise his play back to 2018 levels? We talk about supporting the QB. How about supporting the QB of the defense?
Can Shaquille Griffin rebound next year? Will the 2021 depressed market and his awful performance this year allow them to retain him and buy low on a possible Pro Bowl season?
KJ Wright has demonstrated time and again this year why he is such a good player. Will he price himself out of Seattle? Can Jordyn Brooks take over his role?
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The Seahawks have a huge amount of homework to do and it’s not all of the simpler ‘paperwork pushing’ variety. Serious questions need to be asked. Core principles re-evaluated. Sights need to be reset on returning to the championship discussion.
The last couple of offseasons, the team has appeared more reactionary than following a cohesive, well-design plan of attack. It’s been starkly laid bare by the product they’ve put on the field. They’ve lurched from one circumstance to another and not been able to follow their stated goals to fill crucial, potentially devastating needs.
The sooner they can outline a clear, defined plan of action, the better prepared they will be to react to what an unprecedented 2021 offseason will throw at them and succeed.
If the Seahawks are serious about contending they will know in their heart of hearts the process doesn’t start at the combine, the first day of the league year, or the draft.
It starts now.
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