An 0-2 team coming into Seattle with a young quarterback making one of his first few NFL road starts.
Used to be that was an automatic Seahawks win.
That was 10 years ago.
Their Super Bowl-seasons heyday is long gone. These Seahawks (1-1) remain in the early stages of establishing playing the way they’ve redesigned themselves to play on offense. They remain inconsistent. And they still have big problems winning at home. Astoundingly, the team that owned the league’s most lopsided home-field advantage a decade ago has lost seven of its last eight home games. That includes to the New York Giants, a 7 1/2-point underdog, at Lumen Field 11 months ago.
The 0-2 New Orleans Saints are 7 1/2-point underdogs for Sunday at Lumen Field.
“I think that ‘Any given Sunday’ quote is something that’s just so real and believable in this league,” Leonard Williams, Seattle’s 11th-year, Pro Bowl defensive end, said. “Literally any week, any team can win.
“So, you never want to overlook a team. You never want to underlook a team. It’s like we literally have to prepare every Wednesday the same, every Thursday the same, every Friday the same. I think that’s what will take us to that next level.”
Williams and the Seahawks have a 37-year-old head coach in his second season who doesn’t know the meaning of letting up. To win at home for a change, he is trying to instill physicality.
This week, Mike Macdonald had his Seahawks in full pads to practice. They didn’t do that before the opening loss to San Francisco. They didn’t do that last week before they went to Pittsburgh and beat the Steelers.
So why now, before the 0-2 New Orleans Saints with young QB Spencer Rattler come to Lumen Field for a 1:05 p.m. game Sunday (CBS television, KIRO channel 7 locally) — and before they have to turn around five days later and play a Thursday night game at NFC West-rival Arizona (2-0) next week?
“I just felt like we need it,” Macdonald said. “We need to stay sharp. …There’s things on both sides of the ball that we are always chasing.”
Macdonald’s defense has allowed only 17 points in each of the first two games. It’s the fewest points Seattle has allowed through two games since 2017.
Yet the Seahawks missed tackles again in Pittsburgh, including three on Steelers running back Jaylen Warren’s 65-yard catch and run in the second half. On offense, they are still striving for consistency in running the ball. The coaches and linemen believing better targeting of their run blocks, hitting defenders precisely as the play call dictates moving them in the prescribed direction, will help that.
So, full pads in a game week. It’s relatively rare in today’s NFL. The league’s collective bargaining agreement with its players limits the number of full-pads practices in season to 14, and a maximum of 11 in the first 11 weeks.
“It’s going to be important for us to practice with physicality,” Macdonald said. “Working on pad level. I think the fundamentals are really important.
“If the fundamentals are strong, it lends itself to play with more physicality.”
That’s the first key to the game Sunday against the Saints: Can the Seahawks approach the physicality on offense and defense Macdonald demands?
It’s only happened in spurts so far. 2.
Run more consistently
Coaches and Seattle’s training staff are managing a foot issue lead back Kenneth Walker has had from the summer. It’s related to the high-ankle sprain that put him on injured reserve last December to end last season.
That’s meant reduced playing time. Walker is coming off his eighth career 100-yard rushing day last weekend in Pittsburgh. Yet he has played less than 38% of the team’s offensive snaps through two games. Number-two back Zach Charbonnet has played the majority of the offense’s snap so far.
Charbonnet missed practice Wednesday and again Thursday with a new foot injury he apparently got while rushing 15 times for just 10 yards against the Steelers. If he can’t play, George Holani is in line to get his first snaps on offense this season at running back.
The Seahawks have run the ball as new offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak intends to for only about 1 1/2 of the eight quarters they’ve played so far this season.
Expect Kubiak to game-plan running the ball with Walker, and some with Holani or Charbonnet, behind left tackle Charles Cross and rookie left guard Grey Zabel early and often against the Saints, the team he called plays for last season. More consistently running effectively will give Seattle shorter third downs, and more opportunities for quarterback Sam Darnold in the play-action-pass game the Seahawks signed him to operate.
“Look, our run game right now — when we’re on the same page, we’re targeting it right, all 11 are determined to finish the play the right way and sustain blocks, we have an effective run game,” Macdonald said. “When we’re missing parts of that equation, our run game isn’t where it needs to be. And I think that’s very clear on tape.
“I think it should be a point of optimism for our guys to understand there’s a lot of room for growth.”
Alvin Kamara, two dimensions
Alvin Kamara has been in issue in the past for the Seahawks while playing the Saints.
And not just the lead running back’s rushing. He’s averaging 74 yards per game the three times he’s played Seattle. Kamara, now 30, is coming off a 99-yard game on 21 carries last weekend in New Orleans’ home loss to the 49ers. That’s more than twice the yards Walker and Charbonnet got running against San Francisco the previous week.
New Orleans’ quarterbacks have targeted the 30-year-old running back an average of nine times a game with passes in those Saints-Seahawks matchups. New Orleans has won all three meetings. That’s the most the Saints have thrown to Kamara on average against any league opponent.
Seahawks defensive coordinator Aden Durde has been scheming against Kamara for years. Durde was on the coaching staff of the Atlanta Falcons from 2016-20, so his first NFL job was in the NFC South.
“I’ve seen that guy quite a lot, obviously, when I was in Atlanta when he was in New Orleans. To me, he’s like an elite route runner with elite contact balance, quickness, lateral quickness, and vertical speed,” Durde said. “He’s got great hands and is an all-around back. Him and Christian (McCaffrey, of the 49ers) both were in that division when I was there.
“When playing those guys, they’re a problem. You have to prepare for them. You have to get ready for them. And you have to get to the football.”
The 24-year-old Rattler, the 2024 fifth-round draft choice, is likely to throw quickly and short to Kamara to combat Seattle’s pass rush that has the league’s best pressure rate through two games — by using only a four-man rush with down lineman 83% of the time.
The Seahawks’ defense has had problems recognizing, covering and tackling pass catchers out of the backfield through two games. Warren’s catch and run through flailing Seahawks last weekend in Pittsburgh was the latest example.
Guess what Durde and Macdonald have been drilling his defense on this week in Seattle’s practices.
“We know we need to be better on the catch and run stuff, especially with the backs,” Macdonald, the head coach and defensive play caller, said.
If they are better Sunday against Kamara, they’ll likely win.
The pick
The Seahawks succeed early running Walker against a Saints defense that has allowed the Cardinals to rush for 146 yards and 49ers for 77 yards so far. Seattle continues to be a left-handed offense, with Cross and Zabel again plowing wide rushing lanes. Darnold spreads the ball around more with his play-action passing off those runs.
Saints running back Alvin Kamara gets his, again, on Seattle’s defense. But the Seahawks play with the lead and wear down New Orleans in the second half — which is exactly Macdonald’s and Kubiak’s design for this Seattle season.
Seahawks 20, Saints 13
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