This is a guest article by Curtis Allen…

Life sure comes at you quickly in the NFL.  The ‘Any Given Sunday’ trope is alive and well this season for all teams — and that includes the Seahawks and Jaguars.

A brilliant game by Sam Darnold was undone by a secondary plagued by injuries and an equally brilliant game by Baker Mayfield.  The ‘Seahawks cannot win at home’ narrative is alive and well unfortunately.  The silver lining might be they can keep the ‘Seahawks are excellent on the road’ narrative going.

Meanwhile, Jacksonville recorded a signature win in prime time against a legacy team and are riding a wave of positivity at 4-1 under the leadership of new Head Coach Liam Coen.

Fuelling the Jaguars’ early-season success is an incredible run of takeaways on defense and an offense that relies on quick passing and some explosive running by Travis Etienne.

Both teams have a belief they can play with anyone.  Both also have new Offensive staffs that have been very effective and defenses that have more than their fair share of highlights.

You could argue Jacksonville has the edge from the momentum of beating Kansas City and the Seahawks have to fly across the country and play in warm, muggy weather with a 10am body clock.

You could equally argue that the Seahawks have the edge, given how they have already experienced a letdown at home and bounced back heartily on the road (Weeks 1-2) and that Jacksonville might have a bit of a letdown on a shorter week after winning such a hard-fought game.

It should be a fantastic matchup.  How can the Seahawks come away with a win?

Control the Game

There is a straight line between the Jags’ success and their ability to generate turnovers on defense.  It goes far beyond just keeping their opponents out of the end zone.

So far this season, the Jacksonville defense has only had to play 15 of their 311 snaps of football while behind on the scoreboard.  They have been able to force offenses into an unbalanced mix on offense.  No defense in the NFL has faced fewer rushing attempts through five games.

And yet when they do, they are conceding 4.6 yards per carry, good for only #22 in the NFL.  A well-executed run game plan (of which I think we can all agree the team is overdue on) can put a lot of pressure on both the Jags’ offense and defense.  Pressure that through five weeks, they have experienced very little of.

How would they respond?  They have not all that well so far:  In those fifteen snaps mentioned above, they are conceding an NFL-worst 8.87 yards per play.  Yes, that is an incredibly small sample size.  But if the Seahawks expand that sample size by using the run game to balance their offense, the odds swing dramatically in their favor.

That is not to suggest the Seahawks should come out and run the ball at a crazy rate.  But teams have been able to move the ball when they incorporate doses of running into their offense.  A series or two of some runs setting up some explosive pass plays to gain a lead early could be just the thing to turn this game on its head.

Bonus stat:  The Jags have conceded ten runs of ten yards or more so far this season.  Five of them have been by Quarterbacks scrambling.  They run a lot of zone defense, and running slants and crossers opens up space for scrambles to gain first downs and keep that clock moving.

How can the Seahawks control the game on defense?

Coen is constantly changing the eye level of defenses.  He loves to mix fly sweeps and screen passes that test the edges with runs between the tackles and quick slant passes in the middle.  And with the element of Brian Thomas being able to work downfield, there are multiple attack points that need to be defended on every play.

He has Trevor Lawrence making decisions very quickly, averaging 2.2 seconds from snap to throw when he drops back and his average depth of target is among the lowest as well.  As a result, he is facing a league-low 10% pressure rate.

The downside is in his fifth year, Lawrence is still a one-read Quarterback.

Coen has taken a lot of the burden of carrying an offense off of Lawrence’s shoulders.  The Seahawks need to put it all back on.

The Linebacking group and Nick Emmanwori will be key players.  Their speed will determine whether some of these screens and sweeps will be effective.  Edge players like Demarcus Lawrence and Uchenna Nwosu will also be critical in keeping their teammates clean and forcing those horizontal plays towards the sidelines.

Keeping the game in front of them and not allowing easy throws to gain chunks of yards will swing the control in their favor.

That is not to say Lawrence is some noodle-armed checkdown merchant.  He has the arm strength and touch to put the ball where he wants to at times.

But there are two major weaknesses the Seahawks can exploit by making the success of the offense dependent on his arm.

One, he is still regularly throwing interceptions.  In five games this season he has five.  It is a downside of his adjustment to yet another new offense and his crippling dependence on his first read.

And two, this:

Lawrence’s receivers are dropping balls at a prodigious rate.  It is only a matter of time before someone really makes them pay for it.

Win the Battle of the Backups

The injury reports this week were not great for the Seahawks.  Tariq Woolen and Derrick Hall will not play and key defenders Devon Witherspoon and Julian Love are doubtful.

We know what this means for the Seahawks, especially given the difficulties they had in the secondary last week.

Josh Jobe, Ty Okada, Shaq Griffin and Nathaniel Pritchett must come up with solid performances.  All the work we described above can be undone with some over the top deep passes to tilt the field.

Jacksonville has potential obstacles to overcome as well.

Brenton Strange was Lawrence’s top target in the passing game at the time he was injured.  He will miss this game.  While Hunter Long has had some clutch catches, he is a long way from filling Strange’s shoes.  Will having his top option out hinder their offense?

Also notable is Center Robert Hainsey is doubtful to play with a hamstring injury.  He has started all five games this year and been a very solid addition to the team.  Rookie Jonah Monheim would be the fill-in should Hainsey not be able to go.  Monheim had a few snaps against Chris Jones last week and would now face Leonard Williams, Jarran Reed and Byron Murphy.  If he is in, the Seahawks must take advantage and push the pocket into Lawrence’s lap.