The mismanaging of Russell Wilson and the Seattle Seahawks offense has not gone unnoticed this season. Its pretty disappointing, to say the least. So far, Brian Schottenheimer and Pete Carroll have missed their mark. They’ve lacked the intelligence to utilize Wilson where he performs best; play-action.
Russell Wilson has used play action on 16.8% of passing plays this season, which is the 8th lowest percentage out of 34 qualifying quarterbacks.
Russell Wilson leads the league in play action passer rating (149.2).
— PFF SEA Seahawks (@PFF_Seahawks) October 4, 2018
The Mismanaging of Russell Wilson and the Seattle Seahawks Offense
Play-Action is Where Russell Wilson Shines best
Per Pro Football Focus, Russell Wilson is among the best quarterbacks at play-action passes and he has been since he entered the league in 2012. Earlier on in his career, during the Seahawks Super Bowl contention years, Wilson ranked between one and seventh among the league in play-action frequency. The problem is, he currently ranks at 25th after just four games this season. In 2016, his quarterback rating was 2nd in the league at 121.8 with play-action passes. Without, he ranked 22nd at 83.9. This season, he has an impeccable rating with such plays and a less-than-impressive rating without; thanks to Schottenheimer.
I was optimistic about a new offensive style this prior offseason when Seattle hired Schottenheimer as their new coordinator. Now, a quarter into the season, I cringe at the sound of his name. “Schotty” as fans call him, has not given the offense, or the franchise quarterback, the spark needed to succeed. While the run game is improving thanks to a healthy Chris Carson, the emphasis on the run is wasting precious time that could instead be spent with the ball in the hands of Russell Wilson. Even a few of the Seahawks touchdowns this season have been off play-action. Effectively running the ball is great, but going into the second quarter of the season, Seattle needs to take bigger shots.
The Outlook
As the past shows, the offense succeeds best when under Wilson’s control. But Pete Carroll being Pete Carroll is poor at relinquishing control. According to Mike Duggar on twitter, Carroll’s comment on the lack of play-action is that we can count on it “all coming”. I sure hope this is true because even though Seattle has started at an okay 2-2, things haven’t been good enough. The Seahawks were even close to losing to the Arizona Cardinals if it weren’t for Sebastian Janikowski‘s last minute field goal.
Last Word
Heading into their second division test of the season against the Los Angeles Rams, I can hope Carroll stays true to his word for once and that we will be seeing much more play-action and success from Seattle’s offense.
I also reached out to NFL analyst Benjamin Allbright for his comment on the subject and he simply stated what all Seahawks fans are currently thinking: “Brian Schottenheimer is an abysmal OC. Always has been. QB coach is his ceiling,” he said. Couldn’t agree more.
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