This is a guest article by Curtis Allen…
The Seattle Seahawks are in the Super Bowl.
I keep repeating it to myself like some kind of realization exercise. If I stop saying it, I will wake up and snap back to reality. Reality being where the team has been for the last six or seven years. Desperately needing major changes, while the messaging from Headquarters was consistent: We are just a bounce away and next year will be our year.
Major changes have been made. Upheaval. It’s refreshing and the rebirth has been accomplished. The defense has returned to its rightful place as a tough, balanced and aggressive unit that is among the league’s best. On offense, the run game has returned — complemented by an explosive passing game.
Cherish these moments. Thirty other teams and their fanbases are spending this time focusing on how to get where the Seahawks are right now. One game away from glory.
All that stands in their way are the New England Patriots.
The Seahawks are favored to win the game for several reasons. Not the least of which is they have weathered a much tougher test – with better results – than the Patriots have.
That is not to say that this game should be considered a cakewalk, even if that is how the game plays out on Sunday. Mike Vrabel-coached teams are thoroughly prepared, well-motivated and fundamentally sound. They are not to be taken lightly. Seahawks fans know this as well as anyone.
This is too big a game to do just one Watch Points post. We are going to present one for each side of the ball, starting with the New England offense vs the Seahawk defense.
What do the Patriots present on offense?
This season, they ran out a 47/53 run/pass mix, fueled by a two-headed monster at Running Back and Drake Maye’s ability to use his legs to push another dimension of his game onto defenses. Rhamondre Stevenson and TreVeyon Henderson are generally akin to Zach Charbonnet and Kenneth Walker, with Stevenson getting tough yards between the tackles and Henderson using his speed around the edges and getting good angles.
They are likewise very balanced in the passing game. They do not have a Christian McCaffrey, a Trey McBride or a Jaxon Smith-Njigba. What they have is depth and an Offensive Coordinator in Josh McDaniels who knows how to spread out their attack to keep opponents guessing.
Drake Maye is not a checkdown merchant. He leads all Quarterbacks with 9.1 air yards per intended target. He takes full advantage of the middling pressure rate (21.8%) that opponents have managed to bring. Stephon Diggs is his go-to Wide Receiver, Hunter Henry is the designated First Down Machine at Tight End, Kayshon Boutte is the deep threat and they are complemented by the Running Backs, along with Wide Receivers Mack Hollins and DeMario Davis.
It is Maye that ties it all together though. He is accurate on deep balls and is not afraid to either check it down or take off running. Josh McDaniels likes to use misdirection and rollouts to keep defenses off guard and get them out of position. In essence, they spread the touches as well as any offense in the NFL and force defenses to have multiple keys, which means multiple opportunities for coverage breakdowns and missed tackles.
They will be facing a defense that is one of the NFL’s best. The Seahawks have the best rushing defense in the NFL. They generate turnovers, get pressure without blitzing excessively and have a defender to match up with any player on your roster. Edge setters, interior pressure creators, speedy linebackers and corners who can both cover and tackle. It is all tied together with the Swiss Army Knife that is Nick Emmanwori, who can do it all.
It will be fantastic matchup.
How can the Seahawks come out on top?
Win On First Downs by Preventing Explosive Plays
The most effective way to disrupt their offense is to keep them from making good gains on First Downs.
The Patriots are one of the NFL’s best on First-and-10. They are third overall at 6.75 Yards Per Play (the Seahawks are the best at 6.84) and Drake Maye is especially dangerous.
How dangerous?
He has a 78.8% completion rating, a 129.1 Passer Rating and is gaining 10.6 Yards per Pass Attempt. Just to illustrate how good that is, Sam Darnold is the closest to Maye, at 69.4%, 116.7 and 10.0, a healthy step down.
Just for good measure, when he runs, he is picking up 5.1 yards per rush.
He was easily the best player in the NFL on First-and-10s in the regular season.
When you add Henderson’s 5.5 yards per rush and Stevenson’s 4.4 on First-and-10 plays, the Patriots have an offense set up to run their entire playbook on Second and Third Down.
That is the bad news. Now for the good news…
The Seahawks defense is alternately one of the best at First-and-10 plays. They are top ten at almost all those numbers we quoted for Maye: 5.09 YPP (#4), 65.8% completions (15), 6.2 YPA (6) and they concede 4.0 yards per rush, good for #2 in the NFL.
They have the versatility to match what the Patriots want to do on offense. They can play tough between-the-tackles football, they can create pressure without blitzing and they have players who can match up with targets, be they Running Backs, Tight Ends or Wide Receivers. If and when the defense can be successful right out of the gate, it will limit Josh McDaniels’ ability to mix up his playbook and build some themes he can exploit later in the game. Tempo and rhythm are strong weapons when you have a young Quarterback in a high-stakes game – even more so when it is on a neutral field.
The Seahawks should be able to contain those early-down explosive plays and limit their effectiveness overall.
What gives us such confidence? It has already been done in the last two games.
In the Wild Card Round, New England had 6.89 Yards Per Play on First-and-10, powered largely by three explosive Drake Maye passes that gained 118 yards. Take those away, and they gained 2.5 YPP and the offense was very average.
In the Divisional Round, Houston limited them to a meager 2.92 YPP on First-and-10 plays enroute to only conceding 248 total yards of offense in the game.
In the AFC Championship game, the Broncos took it to another level with only 2.67 YPP and the Patriots only picked up 206 total yards.
There is evidence that New England can play well (and get explosive plays) on other downs of course. But if the Seahawks can employ their patented blend of run-stopping and getting pressure on the Quarterback without sacrificing their coverage principles, it will be a very successful day for the defense.
Defending Drake Maye
Maye excels at hurting defenses in three ways:
1 — he regularly throws downfield, challenging defenses and creating explosive pass plays
2 — he only has 10 Interceptions against 35 touchdowns this season. Those are MVP-caliber numbers
3 — he scrambles more than any Quarterback in the NFL. More than Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen and Justin Herbert
It will take a complete defensive effort to contain him.
We talked in the Warren Sharp link above about how flooding coverage can work against Maye — and yes that is something the Seattle defense excels at.
Getting interior pressure will do a world of good against Maye. It closes off his lanes and changes his eye level. The linemen will have to work at keeping gap integrity when it is just the standard rush. If Maye escapes containment he can become an explosive runner. This is where stat guys like me can get a little stuck. Pressure and sacks are great. But keeping the Quarterback under wraps and forcing short checkdowns that can do minimal damage or throwaways are also effective. With the speed the Seahawks have at the second level, they should be able to keep things in front of them and limit explosive off-schedule plays.
Mike Macdonald will have a plan to handle this. My guess is he will instruct his linemen to keep their gaps as a priority and only abandon them when Maye is within arm’s reach. He will also disguise some of his coverage and rushes to keep Maye and the linemen focused on what is happening in front of them rather than downfield.
I do think he will cook up some schemes to ‘bait’ Maye into running. Perhaps the linemen split a gap and leave it wide open and have a blitzer take a two-count after the snap and rush the open gap. Ernest Jones, Drake Thomas and Nick Emmanwori can fill this role nicely.
It should be noted that the Patriots are rolling out rookies at Left Tackle and Left Guard. There will be opportunities there to win one on one battles without any exotic scheming. Evidence: Maye has been sacked fives times in each of his three playoff games. As you can see, it is a mix of blitzing, coverage and pass rush being well aligned and some clear one on one battles being lost. It is not unrealistic to think the Seahawks can keep that streak going and sack him at least five more times in this game.
Another statistic to underscore coverage and getting pressure without blitzing is critical: Maye’s sack percentage when blitzed (10.3%) vs when not (8.05%) lends itself to being very selective in blitzing. It is not necessary to get sacks solely from blitzes. That style is right in the defense’s wheelhouse.
Something has been revealed in those three games: Maye is vulnerable to being stripped of the ball. He only had eight fumbles all season. In the last three games? Six more. That is fourteen in total. Sam Darnold – derided as a turnover machine most of the year – has twelve. The Patriots have benefited from “fumble luck” in that some of these have been jumped on teammates in the right place at the right time. One or two of these bounce the Seahawks’ way and we could have a rout on our hands.
Other Game Notes
— Josh Jobe has been targeted for explosives in the passing game and we all know that Tariq Woolen had a huge blunder in the NFC Championship game. Do not think Vrabel and McDaniels failed to notice that. Jobe will have to be ready to be targeted mercilessly. Woolen will probably have Diggs in his ear all game long, trying to provoke him into another stupid penalty. A fantastic performance by both will make this game far, far easier.
— McDaniels loves to use motions to distract the defense from what his true intentions are. He will use Stephon Diggs to pull focus and bootleg Maye in the exact opposite direction for a layered pass with short (a RB) and deep options (Hunter Henry) on crossing routes. The edge defenders will need to counter this with their instincts and smarts. Having had three full games against the masters of pre snap deception in Shanahan and McVay, I think this defense is as experienced in deciphering intent and keeping disciplined as any. Holding the edge and sniffing out Maye booting out will be critical at times. This sounds like a tailor-made play for DeMarcus Lawrence to cause some havoc.
— Keeping the running game in check will be critical for one factor in particular: Maye is the second-most effective passer in the NFL off play action at 10.18 yards per pass attempt (Darnold is #1 at 11.33). If the defense can put more of the game in Maye’s hands, the factors for pressures, sacks and turnovers increase dramatically.
We will be streaming our Super Bowl preview show at 2pm PT today, you can watch it below:
