Seattle run game lags behind Seahawks’ standard
The standard in SeRENTON, WA S H . attle has been that the Seahawks are going to be among the better teams in the NFL at running the football.
Except this year. And it’s not as simple as Marshawn Lynch no longer being around.
Going into Sunday’s game against their division rivals the Arizona Cardinals, the Seahawks are near the bottom of the league in a number of rushing categories. Seattle is 25th in the league, averaging just 88.8 yards per game, and 30th in yards per attempt at just 3.2.
They are very un-Seahawks-like numbers.
“We’re OK. We just need more emphasis added. We just need more turns,” head coach Pete Carroll said. “We need to run it more. We just need more numbers.”
There are a number of reasons that Seattle’s run game is off this season, from a revamped offensive line to presumptive starting running back Thomas Rawls suffering a hairline fibula fracture in Week 2. Christine Michael is Seattle’s leading rusher with 354 yards, but 106 of those yards came against San Francisco in Week 3.
The biggest culprit in derailing the run game could be Russell Wilson — or, more specifically, the ankle and knee injuries that have slowed him early in the season.
Through five games, Wilson has just 35 rushing yards and no run longer than nine yards. Compare that with the first five games of previous years and it’s clear what’s lacking. Through five games last year, Wilson had 198 yards rushing. In 2014, it was 221 on the ground.
“It’s a different run game that we’re using right now,” offensive co-ordinator Darrell Bevell said. “It’s still a part of us, it’s still something that we’ve always had, just the zone read part of it is not been used as much as we’ve gone to other styles of runs.”
Yet the Seahawks are struggling to find consistency with that different style. Seattle has 140 rushes in five games and only 11 have gone for 10 yards or more. The revamped offensive line has shown flashes of being the bullying unit offensive line coach Tom Cable wants, but also moments where simple blocks aren’t being made.
“We’re doing some nice things in terms of being on the same page, staying on schedule, meaning the down and the distance,” Cable said. “But you certainly would like to have more consistency when you run the football.”