NFL First Thoughts: Seattle Seahawks
Seahawks hinting they'll utilize running game more than in 2022.
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First thing you need to know, the Seahawks had their highest pass rate last year since Russell Wilson came into the league. It was also their highest-ever pace per play, and highest-ever yards per play. That’s hard to imagine. They had Russell Wilson for so many years, then switched to journeyman Geno Smith, and suddenly they’re a far more explosive offense.
Last year, no team other than the Chiefs ran more multiple tight end pass plays than the Seahawks. Smith constantly threw out of multiple TE formations and was extremely effective doing so. He used play-action at a top 6 rate, he was top-6 in intended air yards. Everything was fairly aggressive and he had a ton of time to throw mostly due to those formations. Seattle is undergoing what seems to be a significant change in terms of how they handle personnel.
They drafted Jaxon Smith-Njigba who will give them for the first time in several seasons real depth and opportunity to run three-WR sets. OC Shane Waldron has been hinting at how this can all come together. With Tyler Lockett, DK Metcalf and now JSN, there’s a lot of depth at receiver. This could really open things up for the Seahawks.
But there’s an underlying problem. Pete Carroll, in a mid-May interview, was asked about drafting two running backs in the 2023 class. Carroll said, “We want to run the football. We want to have that aspect of our team and it gives us that stability that fits in. That’s how I see it. The running game helps our defense and special teams and everything, but it also sets up and complements what we want to do in the throwing game as well as protecting the quarterback. We want to run the football more.”
Now, this is not something that is unusual for Carroll to say. But what stood out is we’ve heard two sides of Waldron this year. He’s talked about having great depth at receiver, and about Smith taking shots down field and opening up the offense even more. But then you also hear him doing other media where he talks about the running backs competing for jobs within a run-centric scheme that they’ll put on the field in 2023.
What is likely to happen is we see more three wide receiver sets. They’ll also run the football more than the 40 percent of the time we saw last year out of three WR sets rather than heavy personnel. As we know, when running from spread formations, that’s when you tend to see explosive plays. With the depth that Seattle has, even though they might operate slower, we’re going to see a lot less heavy personnel. This will result in Seattle being more effective and more efficient, but perhaps slower moving down to down compared to what we saw last year.
This could be a big year for Smith, but you might see more running in 2023.