Maybe it wasn’t a straight line to get there, but the Seattle Seahawks did indeed get back on track Sunday with a 30-24 win over Tennessee, rebounding after the loss to the Rams the week before.
The Seahawks are 8-3 this season, 18-10 under coach Mike Macdonald, 14-2 in its last 16 road games and 12-1 under Macdonald on the road and 30-11 in its last 41 10 a.m. starts.
What did the snap counts tell us about Sunday’s game?
Two things stood out — that Kenneth Walker III indeed got more opportunities, as Macdonald said last week he deserved. The Seahawks again used three cornerbacks regularly, continuing to get Riq Woolen on the field substantially despite his relegation to third cornerback status with the return of Josh Jobe and Devon Witherspoon from injury in recent weeks.
First, Walker.
The fourth-year running back played 30 of the 48 offensive snaps, or 62%, his highest percentage of the season. His previous high was 56.9% against Washington on Nov. 2.
Zach Charbonnet played 15 snaps, or 31.1%, his lowest percentage of the season.
The Seahawks had neither on the field for three plays.
Walker got 14 touches — 11 rushes for 71 yards and three receptions for 30 — as well as another target (the pass to the sidelines that could have been picked off had he not broken it up).
Charbonnet had six touches, all carries, for 35 yards, including a 5-yard touchdown in the third quarter that put the Seahawks ahead 30-10.
Said Macdonald of the running-back play: “I thought he (Walker) did a great job. It was great to see Zach punch it in the red zone. We wanted to run — those guys played well together. Thought they protected the quarterback well. We caught it well out of the backfield. Yeah, I felt Ken today. He made some explosive plays for us, which was great.”
As for the cornerbacks, it was the second straight game that Witherspoon, Jobe and Woolen all played 60% or more of the snaps.
Witherspoon played 72 of 76 snaps (95%), while Jobe played 59 (78%) and Woolen 48 (63%).
Woolen has played 86.5% of snaps for the season, available for 10 of 11 games, while Witherspoon missed five games and Jobe one game.
Woolen has indeed seen his snap counts decrease with all three available the last two weeks.
He played 68.6% against the Rams. Jobe played 60.8% against the Rams, so the roles were slightly reversed against the Titans.
Teams obviously play three cornerbacks all the time. But there was some question if the Seahawks would once all three were healthy because Nick Emmanwori has emerged as an every-down player as a nickel back, as well.
Emmanwori played 74 snaps, as the Seahawks had six defensive backs on the field as their dominant defensive alignment.
What’s the latest on the Seahawks’ playoff positioning?
Since the Rams won, beating a beat-up Tampa Bay team 34-7, the Seahawks are in the same spot as a week ago — the No. 5 seed in the NFC.
And just as last week, that would have the Seahawks heading to Tampa Bay for a wild-card playoff game.
The Rams are now the No. 1 seed at 9-2 with the Eagles losing to fall to 8-3.
The manner in which the Rams dominated the Bucs only reinforces how much the Seahawks may look back at last week as an especially grating lost opportunity. The game was there to be had against a Rams team that has the largest point differential in the NFL at plus-127 (the Seahawks are third at plus-107 with the Colts second at plus-112) and the betting favorite to win the Super Bowl.
The Seahawks are already likely to be in a must-win position when they host the Rams on Dec. 18, but they may not be able to count on much help from anyone else to hand L.A. a loss to finish ahead of them without the aid of tiebreakers.
But the Seahawks can keep winning and then hoping.
Sunday, the Seahawks host a Minnesota team that fell to 4-7 with a decisive loss to Green Bay — and may be without starting quarterback J.J. McCarthy, who is in the concussion protocol — the Rams will travel to Charlotte to play a better-than-expected Panthers team but one that will be coming off short rest, playing at San Francisco on Monday night.
Both are expected to win handily with the Seahawks 8.5-point favorites over Minnesota and the Rams as 9.5-point favorites against the Panthers.
The Seahawks have a 91% chance to make the playoffs, via The Athletic’s Playoff Simulator, and at 15% to win the division.
How did injuries affect snap counts at safety and linebacker?
Each spot looked different than it had all season.
First, safety, where Ty Okada, who has been filling in for the injured Julian Love, left with an oblique injury in the first half.
Okada played 27 snaps before departing with D’Anthony Bell — who’d played only 16 snaps over the last seven games — replacing him and playing 42, each working alongside Coby Bryant, who played all 76 snaps.
Throw in Emmanwori’s snaps, and the Seahawks had three safeties on the field for almost every play.
At linebacker, Drake Thomas, who took over the green-dot role for the injured Ernest Jones IV, played all 76 snaps.
Patrick O‘Connell, who played the other inside linebacker spot with Jones and Tyrice Knight sidelined, played 42 snaps. He’d played only eight on defense in his career before Sunday.
Macdonald praised the play of Bell and O’Connell following Sunday’s game and Pro Football Focus agreed.
O’Connell had the fourth-best defensive grade of any Seahawk defender at 81.3, including 82.4 for tackling, while Bell had the sixth-best grade at 76.6, including 83.3 for tackling.
What else stood out among the grades from Pro Football Focus?
Here are a few:
• Rush end Derick Hall had the best defensive grade at 91.1 getting credit for eight pressures as the Seahawks had 42 for the game.
• Witherspoon had his best grade of the season at 83.3, including 86.3 for coverage.
• Brandon Pili, seeing increased time at nose tackle with Jarran Reed on injured reserve, had his best grade of the season at 80.0 in 18 snaps.
• As you might expect, receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba had the best offensive grade at 91.9. Walker was next at 85.5 and Charbonnet third at 70.4.
• Rookie left guard Gray Zabel returned from a knee injury suffered against the Rams and played all 48 offensive snaps. He said later he felt he was “humbled” by Titans veteran Jeffery Simmons. But PFF didn’t grade him too harshly. Simmons had three pressures on 28 pass rush attempts. Zabel gave up one pressure and hit in 29 pass blocking snaps and had an overall grade of 57.7.