RENTON — Despite what it might have looked like last weekend, Seattle Seahawks coaches are aware of the fact that Marshawn Lynch still plays for the team. And despite those maddening negative-yardage plays to Percy Harvin, the Seahawks would love to occasionally stretch the field with one of the fastest players on the roster.
Nobody at Seahawks headquarters feels good about the way the offense functioned in Seattle’s 30-23 loss to the Dallas Cowboys this past Sunday, but nobody is panicking, either.
“We’re 3-2, we don’t have all losses right now, we’re still in a great spot,” said Harvin, who lost one yard on three carries and had zero yards on three catches. “We’ve just got little things to fix here and there, but we’re going to be fine. There’s nothing where we come into the meeting room and it’s like, ‘wow, we can’t get it fixed.’
“It’s little things here and there. Unfortunately in this league, little things here and there make a big difference.”
In the case of Sunday’s loss, a lot of credit goes to the Cowboys for defending Harvin well, and in some cases better blocking or a more accurate throw could have sprung him for a big gain. However, there are also plenty of questions being asked about the way Harvin is being used in his first healthy season with Seattle.
Aside from a 40-yard touchdown catch in Washington that was called back because of a penalty, Harvin has been catching nearly all of his passes behind or near the line of scrimmage. According to STATS Inc., Harvin’s average catch this year occurs just 1.1 yards beyond the line of scrimmage, down from an average 4.6 in his career. And of NFL receivers who have caught a minimum of two passes per game, Harvin’s average of 6.0 yards-per-catch is the lowest in the NFL.
Despite those numbers, the Seahawks say they’re open to the idea of getting the ball to Harvin down the field, it just hasn’t happened yet with the exception of that penalty-negated play.
“Well, we know he’s got speed and we know he can go down the field with speed,” said offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell, who also coached Harvin in Minnesota. “He’s got great quickness, so we can use him in that. The test always is to make sure some of those guys get the ball in their hands. They’re such gamebreakers; whether it’s Marshawn, whether it’s (Harvin), and some of those (short) plays make it easier to get him the ball and make sure they’re in the stats sheet. He had a play that can impact a game.”
And since Bevell brought Lynch’s name up, what about Seattle’s star running back having just three first-half carries and 10 in the game? That wasn’t Seattle’s intention heading into the game, but how does that happen?
The Seahawks could have force-fed Lynch a bit more in the first quarter, but the bigger issue was the offense’s inability to keep the ball, as well as the defense’s ability to get it back. When the Seahawks run just 48 plays, there are bound to be complaints about somebody not getting the ball enough, whether it was the lack of Lynch in the first half or the absence of Harvin down the stretch.
“There are a lot of things that go into it,” Bevell said. “You can think just back to our first drive; we had a nice drive, moved the ball, got it in the red zone. We had two nice third down conversions, we don’t convert the one in the red zone and end up kicking a field goal. I think the next five third downs, we didn’t convert. So that’s where you start having issues of not getting enough plays and then long drives on the other side so the clocks running. So it all kind of goes hand in hand.”
While Seattle’s offense looked bad last weekend and has had two sub-par performances in two losses this season, the Seahawks don’t think they’ve gotten away from who they are.
“We don’t have any recommitment (to the run), we haven’t changed one iota about what we think, what we feel is the right thing to do,” Seahawks coach Pete Carroll said.
Carroll knows people don’t always want to hear it, but the answer to why Lynch isn’t getting the ball isn’t as simple as force-feeding him the ball.
“It’s all connected,” Carroll said. “How we’re playing defense, how we’re running the football, and how we’re converting on third down on both sides of the ball has a lot to say about what happens.
“In the games that we’ve won, we’ve almost averaged 37 carries a game and the passing has been between 26-28. And in the games that we’ve lost, we’ve passed the ball about 25-28 times, right in there, too, but we’ve ran it way less. You can see where we’re losing our attempts is when we’re not converting. … So it’s not an alarming situation to me. It’s unfortunate that we’ve had to suffer through two tough losses that way and the games have gone in kind of the same pattern. We need to keep that from happening and not let the game go that way.
“It’s not just a question of calling more runs, though; we have to make our first downs. So it really is connected and we have to play better across the board to stay out of those situations.”
Injury update
Two new names showed upon the injury report Thursday, with tight end Luke Willson (groin) and defensive end Cassius Marsh (foot) both sitting out. With Marsh’s status now up in the air, and Jordan Hill missing a second straight day with an ankle injury, there’s a good chance Greg Scruggs could see his first game action in the defensive line rotation. If Wilson’s injury is anything serious, the Seahawks could be in trouble, as starter Zach Miller, who is recovering from ankle surgery, already has been ruled out.
An encouraging sign for Seattle’s injury-depleted secondary is that cornerback Tharold Simon, who is making his way back from knee surgery, practiced fully Thursday after being limited the day before. Starting right corner Byron Maxwell sat out a second straight day with a calf injury. Percy Harvin, whose absence Wednesday was listed as non-injury related, was listed with a thigh injury Thursday. Harvin also sat out last Thursday with a thigh injury but played in Sunday’s game.
Herald Writer John Boyle: jboyle@heraldnet.com
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