For all the understandable focus on the disappointment of the last four minutes of the Seattle Seahawks’ 17-13 loss to the San Francisco 49ers on Sunday, the first 56 offered lots of reason for angst, as well.
Most of it was courtesy of the Seahawks’ offense, which scored only six points over the last eight possessions and finished with just 230 yards.
That’s fewer yards than all but one game in 2024, when the Seahawks were held to 208 in a loss to Green Bay in which quarterback Geno Smith was sidelined with a knee injury midway through the third quarter and replaced by Sam Howell.
Suffice to say, it was not the debut first-year offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak was looking for, nor quarterback Sam Darnold.
Let’s address a few questions that developed along the way:
Why wasn’t the running game better Sunday?
Preseason performances against the Raiders and Kansas City led to the hope that the Seahawks’ rushing attack, focused around an outside zone scheme, will be markedly better this season.
It wasn’t Sunday as the Seahawks rushed for just 84 yards on 26 carries, an average of 3.2 yards per attempt.
That was fewer yards per carry than all but four games last season, which turned out to be Ryan Grubb’s lone year as offensive coordinator. They didn’t have a run of longer than nine yards, which came from Darnold.
Coach Mike Macdonald said he thinks the problems are fixable.
“It seemed to me when we get it targeted and we’re all on the same page, we’re doing a lot of good stuff,” he said of a scheme that requires the offensive linemen to work in unison. “When we have some indecisiveness, that’s when things got twisted a little bit, but a lot of positives. Guys were finishing plays the right way, and there’s a lot of stuff that we can build on, moving forward.”
Some observers were surprised the Seahawks didn’t seem to do more outside zone.
According to Pro Football Focus, 14 of their 26 runs were zones. When the Seahawks ran to the outside they gained 49 yards. They managed 35 yards on 12 attempts in-between the tackles/tight ends.
According to NFL’s Next Gen Stats, the Seahawks ranked 19th last weekend in runs outside the tackles at 50%.
Macdonald said he wouldn’t get into why they decided on how many times they ran zone or gap, but said: “I’ll tell you this, when we ran it (outside zone), I thought it was effective. That’s what we are, we’re an outside zone team with inside zone and gap complements, and that’s what we’re going to be.”
What did go to plan was the run-pass balance, something Macdonald wanted the team to even out this year after the Seahawks threw it 62% of the time in 2024, fifth-highest in the NFL.
The Seahawks ran it 26 times Sunday – which includes one scramble by Darnold and one designed run by Darnold – while throwing it 23 times, or a 48% pass percentage, which ranks 26th.
Should they have used more play-action?
According to Pro Football Focus, the Seahawks used play-action (when the quarterback fakes a handoff before dropping back to pass, a tactic designed to deceive the defense) on just two of Sam Darnold’s 26 dropbacks, or 7.6%.
According to ESPN, they used play-action 20% of the time a year ago.
One resulted in a 21-yard completion to Jaxon Smith-Njigba. The other was a 5-yard scramble by Darnold.
While it wasn’t thought Kubiak would be among the league leaders in play-action, it was thought it would at least be a regular aspect of the game plan.
Macdonald indicated that ideally, it will be used more often.
“We need to [play] action more,” Macdonald said. “We need more movement; we’ll call it (and) we’ll execute it when called.”
Some wondered if using more play-action would have helped a passing attack that aside from Smith-Njigba’s 124 yards on nine receptions was largely nonexistent.
Smith-Njigba was the target on 13 of Darnold’s 23 passes, or 59.09%, by far the highest target rate in the NFL this week according to SumerSports.com. Baltimore’s Zay Flowers was next at 47.37%. That’s not a sustainable number for the Seahawks to have much offensive success this season.
Darnold’s 150 passing yards were fewer than all but two of the 54 games Smith started for the Seahawks in which he played the entire way.
One reason for that may be that Seahawks’ passing game seemed to consist largely of quick passes. Darnold’s time to throw was just 2.48 seconds, according to SumerSports.com, 21st in the NFL.
Asked on Monday his assessment of how Darnold played, Macdonald said: “I thought he played fast, I thought he played decisive, took care of the ball. He put us in a lot of great positions, but unfortunately, let’s go close it out.”
Who is the lead running back, anyway?
One question that permeates the fantasy football community is which of the Seahawks’ top two running backs – Kenneth Walker III or Zach Charbonnet – will emerge as the No. 1 back?
Sunday did little to answer that question as the two appeared to play interchangeably, often trading off by series.
Walker started and got the first carry of the game. Charbonnet was the first back on the field for the second series. Walker got the first carry of the next two series.
Charbonnet played 30 of the Seahawks’ 52 offensive snaps and Walker 21.
Charbonnet may have gotten more carries because he appeared to still fill the role of primary third-down/two-minute back.
He was the primary back on the field for the eight-play, 55-second drive that ended in a field goal at the end of the first half, for instance.
Charbonnet finished with 47 yards on 12 carries and Walker with 20 on 10.
Walker was a key to the eight-play, 34-yard drive that got the Seahawks to the 19 in the fourth quarter and set up Jason Myers’ go-ahead field goal, with four carries for 16 yards.
And advanced stats show Charbonnet had far more room to run than did Walker. Via Pro Football Reference, Charbonnet averaged 3.9 yards before contact and Walker just 1.8. Charbonnet got nine of what were classified as the 14 zone runs, which seemed more successful than the runs between the tackles.
Macdonald said Monday there is no concrete formula for divvying up the carries between Walker and Charbonnet.
“We’re not tallying reps as the game goes on,” Macdonald said. “But a lot of it’s based on how the game’s going and what plays guys run better and things like that. But it’ll be adjustable as the season unfolds.”
That won’t help fantasy players, but the Seahawks hope it eventually gives them a solid and versatile running attack.
What of Jalen Milroe?
The game appeared to give a definitive answer that the Seahawks will usually have Jalen Milroe on the active 48-man gameday roster with a plan to use him in some specialty packages.
Milroe got one snap Sunday on the third play of the game, taking a shotgun snap with Darnold split out wide to the right. Milroe kept the ball and ran up the middle for a 1-yard gain on second-and-six.
Macdonald said Milroe had an option to pass (looking at the replay, probably most logically to Walker in the flat).
“He had the option to throw there, the option to use his legs, and he made the right decision in that moment,” Macdonald said. “We had more plays up for him, we just didn’t get to them.”