Since the first week of the NFL season, Seattle Seahawks fans have been anxious to get the rushing attack back to its dominant form. That hasn’t happened though. Through 16 games Seattle has yet to “establish the run” or even have a consistent running game. This week we’re going to take a look at a couple of plays that worked for the run game and one that failed based on execution.
Flashes of Greatness: The Seattle Seahawks Rushing Attack
First and Ten, San Francisco 45, Second quarter
Formation: Single back with fullback and tight end offset left
Personnel: Two running backs, a tight end and two receivers
Early into the second quarter, the Seattle Seahawks were trying to jump start the rushing attack. Facing the worst rushing defense in the league, the Seahawks were hoping to get Thomas Rawls and Alex Collins heavily involved. On the second rushing attempt of the day for Rawls, the Seahawks came out in a single back formation. Brandon Williams was offset to the left of the line and Marcel Reece offset in the back field.
San Francisco shows their base defense, a 3-4 scheme on this play. Playing in a 3-4 means that you have three lineman who are assisted by four linebackers. On this play, five players are on the line of scrimmage for the defense. This forces Seattle to either check out of the play called to a new one or adjust their protection for the blitz.
The play call for Seattle is a stretch run to the left. The point of the play is to find a crease for Rawls to run through by washing the defensive line to the left. By forcing the defense to cover from the left hash mark to the sideline it should open up sizable gaps. The blocking assignments are fairly simple. Right tackle Garry Gilliam blocks to the left leaving number 55 Ahmad Brooks unblocked on the end of the line. Next to him Germain Ifedi is supposed to move to the second level and block a linebacker that could threaten Rawls. George Fant and Mark Glowinski are tasked with double teaming DeForest Buckner.
Gilliam doesn’t get a clean block on Tank Carradine and gets his hips turned so he can’t block for more than a second. Ifedi gets to the second level and is in position to lay a good block on Michael Wilhoite. Glowinksi (blue) tries to assist Fant with Buckner but falls over on the play. Rawls, seeing a crease open between Gilliam and Ifedi, tries to shoot the “C” gap between them.
Ifedi, who was setup for a solid block, misses Wilhoite completely and doesn’t even slow down. Gilliam, who got thrown aside, allows Carradine a quick path to Rawls along with Brooks looping around to help out. The gap that Rawls saw when he made his cut closed almost instantly because the Seattle offensive line couldn’t sustain blocks on the worst rushing defense. Rawls strength and momentum carry him for an extra two yards on the play.
A four yard run on first down isn’t necessarily bad, but if Rawls could make it through there was a much bigger gain available. Had Rawls gotten past the defensive line the only player left to beat was safety Jaquiski Tartt. While not a bad run by Rawls, it was played well by San Francisco and blocked poorly by Seattle.
Quickly approaching the wildcard match up with the Detroit Lions, the Seahawks will need to execute on simple plays like this to make a deep playoff run. While the Lions aren’t great against the run, this kind of execution wont allow Seattle rushers any chance.
Second and Ten, Seattle 48, Second Quarter
Formation: Shotgun with strong left side
Personnel: One running back, one tight end, three wide receivers
After being down 14-3 through much of the first half, the Seahawks stormed back to take the lead at 19-14. Again, looking to get the running game going they went to the ground with Alex Collins. The previous week at Arizona, Collins showed some promise with hard running when nothing seemed to be working.
In their standard shotgun set with Collins to the right of Wilson, the Seahawks were ready to run. Being in the shotgun with three receivers made the 49ers honor the threat of pass while spreading out the defense. With the passing threats on the field, it forces San Francisco to come out in something other than their base defense.
San Francisco had four lineman, two linebackers and a safety in the box with their nickel package on the field. Seattle should have the numbers advantage in the run game, however they’d been having trouble all game regardless of the numbers in the box. Playing in a Cover 1/3 shell meant there was a safety playing deep center field from sideline to sideline.
A trend for Seattle is to have a tight end line up on the strong side of the offensive line and then pull him to the weak side to block. The Seahawks utilize that concept on this play, with Luke Willson coming from the strong side to seal off the backside. Ifedi and Gilliam combine for a double team along with Justin Britt and Glowinski doing the same. Fant is left on his own to handle the defensive end on the far side away from the play. On the right end of the line Ahmad Brooks is left unblocked for Willson. The concept behind this play is to use misdirection by having Collins fake left and cutback right. The offensive line is tasked with washing their assignments to the left away from the play.
The offensive line executes the blocks well, even allowing Glowinski and Gilliam to peel off and make follow on blocks. The key blocks for the play to succeed are that of Willson and Gilliam. Gilliam, after assisting Ifedi with the double team, demonstrates good awareness and moves on to Wilhoite. Willson pulls across the formation and gets a diving cut block on Ahmad Brooks. In the process, this opens up a perfect lane for Collins to run through almost untouched.
Once Collins is through the hole provided by Gilliam and Willson, he clears the lineman and linebackers. Due to the cover 1/3 shell mentioned earlier, once Collins is past the initial surge only the safety and corners are left to tackle him. This is one of the advantages to the misdirection play. If done right, the defense will flow the opposite way of the play. Collins demonstrates great burst and speed getting through the hole and to the next level, a trait that wasn’t present earlier in the year. Coach Pete Carroll commented after the game that Collins had lost about ten pounds and reshaped his body during the season.
As Collins gets further downfield, speedy receiver Paul Richardson catches up to be a lead blocker for the rookie running back. Five 49ers defenders are closing in on Collins and Richardson as they get further down the field. Not being left any routes out, the running back drags tacklers with him for an extra six yards.
Looking forward the Seahawks need to consistently block on the level they did in this play. Not every run will go for a 26 yard gain such as this one, but giving the running backs consistent opportunities can only go well. Over the course of the season each lineman has shown they can be a force on the line, they just need more plays such as this one. Not one lineman failed on their blocks allowing the big run from Collins.
Second and six, Seattle ten, Fourth quarter
Formation: Shotgun with strong left side
Personnel: One running back, one tight end and three receivers
As the Atlanta Falcons were blowing out the Saints to secure the number two seed in the NFC, Pete Carroll decided it was time to pull his franchise quarterback. All Carroll needed from Wilson was to gain some yardage and give rookie Trevone Boykin room to breathe. Seattle lines up in a Seahawks classic: shotgun with two receivers stacked on each other outside the numbers. Seattle uses this formation to spread the defense across the field, making it harder to concentrate on the run. The only blocking to be especially aware of is Glowinski sliding across to lay a block next to Ifedi.
Much like the first play we looked at, the 49ers have five players on the line of scrimmage showing blitz. This time, however, they are trying to overload the left side of the line attempting to take advantage of Williams on the end of the line. Again in a single high safety look, the yards are there for the taking if Seattle can capitalize.
Once again, the blocking is executed well by the offensive line. Mark Glowinski slides to the right on this play waiting for the opportunity to make a key block. Collins takes the hand off and heads towards his gap, but stutters at the line ever so slightly to give Glowinski time to make a block and clear the gap. The gap was only open because Britt drove his man past Ifedi, allowing Glowinski to slide over. Collins demonstrates the same traits that assisted him on the previous play and explodes through the hole onto open field. Seeing nothing but turf for ten yards, Collins heads down field.
The rookie running back splits the difference between the two deepest defenders trying to outrun them both. However, he can’t outrun them and is contacted around the 20 yard line. He refuses to give up and drags his tacklers with him until finally he is body slammed to the ground. Since he has no blockers in front of him, he has to try and make two players miss, which is a hard feat for any back.
This is another example of the kind of solid offensive line play that Seattle will need to demonstrate consistently to make a run in the playoffs. Although this was against the worst rushing defense in the NFL its improvement over previous outings. Seattle continues to flash in the running game but fails to establish a consistent rushing attack relying more on Wilson’s arm than previous years.
Consistency through the Playoffs
Seattle is set to host the Detroit Lions on Saturday night. This is the best possible matchup for the Seahawks. Detroit is the worst ranked defense among NFC playoff teams this year and almost as bad as the 49ers against the run. Time and time again, Seattle has shown it can have the dominant running game from years past, from the two touchdown, 106 yard performance of Rawls against the Panthers, or the 152 yards rushing amassed against the Eagles. The key to Seattle’s run game is simple blocking schemes that maximize the strengths of their players and put them in positions to succeed.
