RENTON — Seattle Seahawks defensive coordinator Kris Richard can’t even remember his reaction on the sideline when Kam Chancellor knocked the ball out of Calvin Johnson’s arm to save the day Monday night against the Detroit Lions.
“It’s almost a pass-out kind of situation right there,” Richard said with a smile following Thursday’s practice at the Virginia Mason Athletic Center. “It was a remarkable play.”
And it was exhibit A as to how much of a difference Chancellor’s presence makes to the Seahawks’ defense.
Seattle’s defense has been lights out the past two weeks, and it’s no coincidence it happens to correspond with Chancellor returning to the fold.
It’s hard to argue the Seattle’s defensive numbers with and without Chancellor in the lineup this season. The Seahawks have now played two games without Chancellor and two with him. The breakdown:
— Scoring: The Seahawks’ defense allowed 54 points in its two games without Chancellor and a mere three in the two games with Chancellor. The only touchdown Seattle allowed in the two games Chancellor played was on a fumble recovery.
— Yardage: Seattle gave up 713 yards to its opponents in the two games without Chancellor, and allowed just 402 in the two games with him. The numbers are better both in terms of passing (510-251) and rushing (203-151).
— Defensive drives: In the two games without Chancellor the Seahawks had 22 defensive drives which resulted in five touchdowns, six field goals, six punts, four fumbles and one kneel-down. In the two games with Chancellor, Seattle had 20 defensive possessions, resulting in 18 punts, a forced fumble and a field goal.
The difference is stark. Is it all because of Chancellor?
“It sure looks like it, doesn’t it?” Seahawks coach Pete Carroll quipped during his Wednesday press conference.
“We’ve just played really good football, and the guys are starting to get that feeling,” Carroll added. “It takes time to develop and get that sense, but they really are starting to get that feeling. … Up until this point the turnaround has been obvious, and (Chancellor) has been instrumental.”
Chancellor missed all of training camp and the preseason, as well as the first two games of the regular season because of a holdout that lasted 55 days. While Chancellor was expressing his dissatisfaction with the four-year, $28 million contract extension he signed prior to the 2014 season, the Seahawks were busy dropping their first two games against the St. Louis Rams and Green Bay Packers.
Chancellor returned four days before Seattle’s game against the Chicago Bears, and it’s been as if he was never gone as he brought that punishing physical presence back to Seattle’s secondary.
“The one thing that I missed the most was the crossing route ran by Megatron and he popped him,” fellow safety Earl Thomas recalled about the big hit Chancellor delivered on Detroit’s Calvin Johnson early in the fourth quarter Monday. “The whole stadium felt it, I felt it, and you need that energy in the game. Especially when you don’t win and the conditioning gets harder and harder. That kind of breathes life into the whole defense.”
Granted, the two games with Chancellor came against winless teams. With the Bears having no passing attack (29th out of 32 teams in the NFL at 190.0 passing yards per game, and playing without starting quarterback Jay Cutler because of injury) and the Lions featuring no running game (dead last in the league in rushing yards per game at 47.0), Seattle’s task on defense was much less difficult than in its first two games, particularly against Aaron Rodgers-led Green Bay in Week 2.
But it’s hard to imagine Chancellor, a three-time Pro Bowler who was the team’s defensive captain last season, didn’t have something to do with it. Chancellor was barely called into action against the Bears, as he recorded just a single assisted tackle. However, Chancellor was forced into duty much more against the Lions, even before his game-saving play. Chancellor finished second on the team with seven tackles (six solo, one assist), with Carroll praising Chancellor’s ability to get to the perimeter and limit Detroit’s gains.
“It certainly doesn’t hurt to have him out here,” Richard said. “But yeah, it’s been a breath of fresh air, essentially, when he stepped back out there. There’s no doubt about it. We all know the type of player he is, the presence and impact he has for our football team. It’s outstanding.”
Chancellor himself said he doesn’t think he’s quite back to full speed following his lengthy holdout.
“I’m pretty close,” Chancellor said. I don’t think it’s 100 percent from a visual standpoint, but very close.
“The more visual part (is slower to come back),” Chancellor added. “The physical part I think has a lot to do with how you train. The mental standpoint is, ‘Want to.’ You have to want to run hard, you have to want to hit people.”
So physically and mentally Chancellor is there. The closer Chancellor gets to getting the visual aspect back to maximum capacity, to more trouble it spells for Seattle’s opponents.
Check out Nick Patterson’s Seattle Sidelines blog at http://www.heraldnet.com/seattlesidelines, and follow him on Twitter at @NickHPatterson.
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