The Patriots travel to Seattle in Week 2 to take on Russell Wilson and the Seattle Seahawks on Sunday Night Football.
The Seahawks are one of the top teams in the NFC and this was especially evident after they beat the Falcons 38-25. Offensively, Seattle racked up 406 yards of total offense in the win.
Wilson was especially impressive completing 31 of 35 passes for 322 yards and 4 touchdown passes. The Seahawks have been transformed from a run first, balanced offense to a pass first offense with Wilson being the center piece.
As well as Wilson and the offense played last week, Seattle’s defense was just as bad. The Seahawks secondary surrendered 450 yards to Matt Ryan and the Falcons receivers. It was a discouraging performance for a defense that added Jamal Adams prior to the start of the season.
Of course there will be no fans in the stands due to COVID-19 so crowd noise will not be an issue. Usually you have to practice your silent count when playing in Seattle. Not this time.
Here is a brief overview of what to look for on Sunday from the Seahawks offensively and defensively.
Offensively: Offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer runs a diverse multiple offense which features a variety of formations, shifts and motions. The Seahawks don’t do a lot with personnel. They are primarily an 11 and 12 personnel team. On occasion, they will get into 10 and 13 personnel. They don’t run as much 21 and 22 personnel as they did under former coordinator Darrell Bevell.
In terms of the running game, the Seahawks are predominately a zone running team. They will run inside zone and stretch (outside zone).
Here is an example of stretch against Atlanta.
Diagrams 1 & 2: The stretch play is out of 12 personnel. Seattle dressed it up with jet motion and a token fake by Wilson before he handed it to Chris Carson.
Diagram 3: Seattle uses their zone running game to set up their naked bootleg passing game. This is a prime example of that. Seattle scored their first touchdown against Atlanta on a naked bootleg flat pass to Carson.
Schottenheimer does a good job developing series off of staples plays. He runs stretch, boot off of it and then throws screens off of it as well.
Diagram 4: Here, Seattle runs a throwback screen off of naked bootleg to the running back.
When it comes to the drop back passing game, Seattle likes to attack the middle of the field. Schottenheimer uses a lot of West Coast concepts in the five step passing game.
Diagrams 5, 6 & 7: These diagrams are examples of how Seattle stretches the field on the outside with two verts and puts pressure on inside linebackers and safeties by running dig concepts like Triangle (Post, Dig) and Drive (Dig, Crosser). As I mentioned earlier, these are all effective modern West Coast offense concepts.
Defensively: Seattle is a base 40 defense but through the years, Pete Carroll has morphed into a multiple front coach that utilizes a variety of fronts based on down and distance.
Diagrams 8&9: As I mentioned, Seattle is a 40 base. They like to screw the strong safety (Jamal Adams) down pre-snap and play a lot of eight man fronts. They will do this to the Patriots because of how well they ran the ball last week.
The Seahawks will play a lot of Cover 3 and even some Man Free (Cover 1) tonight. They will have to because if they don’t, the Patriots will gash them in a six or seven man box.
Seattle will give the Patriots some 30 fronts as well. They did it last week against Atlanta.
Diagrams 10 & 11: Here they are in what we call a Double Eagle. They have two 3 techniques and a 0 nose. Atlanta is in a one back formation and it’s second and medium. Despite that, Seattle wants to be aggressive so they get into a 30 front and screw down Adams late. They played Cover 3 behind it.
Diagrams 12 & 13: In long down situations, Seattle will get into 40 split front and play either quarters (Cover 4) or a combo coverage (Cover 6). Here, Atlanta is in empty. Seattle lines up in a split 40 front and plays a combo coverage behind it. Combo coverage is Cover 2 and quarters.
Seattle doesn’t blitz a lot but when they do, it is usually a five man pressure. Sometimes they will bring a six man pressure but very rarely. They do however twist a lot along the defensive line and they do utilize wide rush techniques by their defensive ends.
As you can see, the Seahawks do pose some scheme problems for the Patriots. However, New England will pose some problems for them as well, especially their defense. This will be a fascinating coaching match up. I look forward to the back and forth between these two coaching staffs.