Fly sweep has created a buzz around Seahawks’ offense

Published 10:31 pm Thursday, September 11, 2014

RENTON — Percy Harvin laughs when he’s asked about the “new” wrinkle in Seattle’s playbook that has everyone talking after the Seahawks’ Week 1 victory over the Green Bay Packers.

It isn’t that Harvin minds talking about the jet sweep — or fly sweep as it is sometimes called — it’s just that for him, it’s been a staple of offenses he has played in since his days at Florida. In fact, Harvin’s first touch from scrimmage in the NFL came on a similar play, an 11-yard run in his Minnesota Vikings debut in 2011.

“I sit back and laugh all the time,” Harvin said. “That play has been in existence for a long, long time. It’s neat to have so much talent around here where we can implement it.”

But even if the jet sweep is old hat for Harvin, it is indeed an exciting — and thanks to Harvin missing almost all of last season with injuries — relatively new part of the Seahawks’ attack. That’s why there has been so much buzz this week about the play the Seahawks used several times in a dominant win over Green Bay.

Against the Packers, Harvin had gains of 13, 9 and 16 yards running the jet sweep — the play in which he lines up as a receiver, then goes in motion and takes a handoff from Russell Wilson while running at full speed. It’s a simple play, one that is used regularly at the college and high school levels, but is rarely seen in the NFL in large part because defenses are simply too fast and too disciplined to be beaten by a play that involves so much horizontal running.

But with a player with the rare speed and shiftiness of Harvin, even NFL defenses have trouble keeping up.

“Colleges are doing it all over the place,” said offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell, who also called the play for Harvin in Minnesota. “Oregon State has been doing it for a long time. I think we have a piece of the puzzle that can do it very effectively with great speed, great quickness. He really runs like a running back runs, he doesn’t run like a wide receiver. To be able to find the right guy sometimes to fit into it is a big deal.

“You can run it with a lot of wide receivers but a lot of wide receivers are just that, they’re wide receivers. They run long-legged, so to speak. Percy’s a guy that runs more like a running back. He has quick feet. His feet are closer to the ground. He’s got a good base. He can break down and change directions so he’s got good toughness to be able to run it up in there. There’s a lot more that goes into than just handing it to a wide receiver.”

And it’s not just Harvin’s speed and elusiveness that make the jet sweep dangerous. Dealing with Harvin would be hard enough, but when the Seahawks use the jet sweep as part of a read-option look, teams not only have to contend with Harvin’s speed, they have to worry about one of the league’s best running backs in Marshawn Lynch, as well as a quarterback who is a legitimate running threat. Commit too many resources to containing Harvin and Lynch and Russell Wilson likely will gash you; load the box to stop the read-option threat and Harvin is liable to get to the corner and pop a long run.

“Just having the dual-threat quarterback, that changes the whole defense itself,” Harvin said. “You add the running game and receivers who can move around, we think we can be pretty dangerous. … It’s a quick way to get into open space. I don’t know how you stop it other than to shift your whole defense that way, but that’s why we’ve got ‘Beast Mode’ (Lynch) back there. If they do that, he’ll have a big gap in the middle.”

Wilson, the man in charge of making decisions and selling the fakes both on the jet sweep and on traditional read-option plays, has noticed a difference when Harvin goes in motion.

“Yeah, it definitely affects the defense,” Wilson said. “Just to see the guys freeze or they’ll run one way and the ball will be going the other way. … Also, we do so much motion and shifting anyway they don’t really know what’s going to happen.”

Added tight end Zach Miller, whose blocking has helped spring several long runs on the jet sweep: “They’ve got to respect the speed on the edge, because if he gets around the corner, it could be a touchdown pretty easily. So teams have to make sure they play the perimeter, then that opens up lanes on the inside.”

The Seahawks are very much still committed to being a power running team — some of Lynch’s best runs last week came behind fullback Derrick Coleman — but this new twist to their offense only makes Seattle that much more dangerous in 2014.

The jet sweep is also a reminder that NFL offenses, once considered far more conservative than their college counterparts, are more willing to break from tradition, or perhaps more accurately, borrow what works so well at the college level. Two years ago the Seahawks were part of that trend as one of a handful of teams using the read-option as part of their running game. Now they’ve added the threat of Harvin to that same play, and even borrowed a play from Auburn’s playbook, having Wilson throw out of the read-option, with the “pop pass” to Ricardo Lockett resulting in a 33-yard touchdown.

“Four, five years ago, this type of thing was unheard of (in the NFL),” Harvin said. “College plays couldn’t work. There’s been a lot of teams to show it can work. As long as you have great execution and guys willing to put the time in to learn the system, you should be fine.”

Herald Writer John Boyle: jboyle@heraldnet.com.