A football nerd’s guide to the Seattle Seahawks’ 2020 season (2024)

Editor’s note: Prior to the start of the season, Sheil Kapadia will provide in-depth analytical breakdowns for all 32 NFL teams. You can find the teams he’s already covered here.

While the Seattle Seahawks’ season ended in the divisional round against the Green Bay Packers, perhaps the most memorable scene was from their Week 17 loss to the 49ers. Russell Wilson completed a fourth-down pass to set up first-and-goal from the 1-yard line and spiked the ball. That left Seattle with three plays and 22 seconds to win the game. But they inexplicably took a delay-of-game penalty and failed to score from the 6, losing out on the division and settling for a wild-card berth. It was the latest in-game error during a season filled with them.

Perhaps the most impressive stat of the Pete Carroll/Wilson era is that they’ve held a lead or been within one possession in the fourth quarter in 138 of 143 games together (postseason included). They’re pretty much always competitive. The Seahawks have won 50 regular-season games over the past five seasons — tied for the fifth most. Yet during that span, they’ve failed to advance past the divisional round. Going into 2020, most fans fall into one of two categories.

Category A: They remember darker days — like when the franchise made the playoffs once from 1989 to 2002. They appreciate the current run of success that has included eight straight winning seasons, seven postseason berths, two Super Bowl appearances and one championship.

Category B: They realize Wilson is on a Hall of Fame track and want to maximize the chances of winning another Super Bowl while he’s in his prime. They can’t take another second-and-10 run or fourth-and-1 punt. They want a bright, shiny offense like the Chiefs or Ravens. The days of the “Legion of Boom” are over. It’s time to let Wilson cook and live with the results.

This offseason, the Seahawks made mostly minor tweaks to rebuild their offensive line and fill holes on defense. As of this writing, Jadeveon Clowney is still a free agent, and it seems unlikely he’ll return.

Below is a preview of the Seahawks’ upcoming season that includes analysis of 2019, their offseason moves and their offensive and defensive schemes. Expected points added (EPA) and coverage data is courtesy of Sports Info Solutions. You can find a primer on EPA here or just view it as a success metric that measures a play’s impact on the score of the game. All other numbers are from Sportradar, unless otherwise noted.

Offensive snapshot

The Seahawks ranked fifth in offensive efficiency — fourth in passing and sixth in rushing — according to Football Outsiders’ DVOA metric. They got hit hard by injuries at running back late in the season, but overall the Seahawks ranked 12th in injury luck on offense.

They could be looking at five new offensive starters, including three on the offensive line. The Seahawks signed center B.J. Finney to a two-year, $8 million deal. Finney started 13 games in four seasons with the Steelers and will compete with Joey Hunt for the starting job. Damien Lewis, a third-round pick, will compete with veterans Ethan Pocic and Chance Warmack at right guard. Brandon Shell started 40 games in four seasons with the Jets. The Seahawks signed him to a two-year, $9 million contract to play right tackle.

Seattle took a flier on veteran Phillip Dorsett. He’ll compete with David Moore, Freddie Swain and John Ursua to be the third wide receiver. And it signed tight end Greg Olsen, who is 35, to a one-year, $7 million deal.

Brian Schottenheimer enters his third season as the Seahawks’ play caller.

The Seahawks are a big 11 personnel (one running back, one tight end, three wide receivers) team. Twelve personnel (one running back, two tight ends, two wide receivers) was their second-most popular grouping, followed by 611 (six offensive linemen, one running back, one tight end, two wide receivers) and 610 (six offensive linemen, one running back, three wide receivers).

Rushing offense

While Schottenheimer is the play caller, the offensive philosophy is set by Carroll. That means a focus on running the ball, producing explosive plays in the passing game and avoiding turnovers. The Seahawks ranked sixth in rushing DVOA but were 19th in EPA per snap. There are a few reasons for the discrepancy. One is that the Seahawks got crushed by fumbles (that applies to the passing game, too). They lost seven fumbles on run plays — most in the league. DVOA adjusts for fumble randomness, while EPA measures exactly what happened. And it wasn’t just that they fumbled. Opponents capitalized on the Seahawks’ turnovers. Seattle allowed five defensive touchdowns — the second most. Per TruMedia, only the Giants were hurt more than the Seahawks by fumbles last season. So while the run game was good on a snap-to-snap basis, the bad plays really hurt them.

Another factor is schedule strength. The Seahawks faced the third-toughest slate of opposing defenses. Again, DVOA tries to adjust for that while EPA does not. And finally, the Seahawks got hit hard — 28th, per TruMedia — by pre-snap penalties on offense.

In terms of tendencies, the Seahawks were one of the most run-heavy teams in neutral situations.

There’s a strong case to be made the Seahawks would benefit from putting the ball in Wilson’s hands on first down.

When Wilson passed the ball on first and second downs, the Seahawks produced a positive EPA 59.2 percent of the time, which ranked third. Yet 21 teams called passing plays more often than the Seahawks on early downs.

On second-and-10 (or more), the Seahawks ran the ball 42.3 percent of the time — the seventh-highest rate. Those runs produced a positive result (EPA) just 32.6 percent of the time. Passes in those same situations produced a positive result a league-best 59 percent of the time.

Chris Carson led the Seahawks with 1,230 yards but had a fumbling issue (seven in 15 games) and is coming off of a season-ending hip injury from Week 16. Rashaad Penny had 370 rushing yards but tore an ACL in Week 14. The Seahawks used a fourth-round pick on Miami running back DeeJay Dallas and still have Travis Homer. And they recently added Carlos Hyde.

Hyde will be on his fifth team in four years. He produced a career-high 1,070 yards in 16 games with the Texans last season, averaging 4.4 YPC. He produced a positive EPA on 41.6 percent of his runs — that ranked 23rd out of the 50 backs who had at least 75 carries. Hyde turns 30 in September. He’s unlikely to be a difference-making back but will offer the Seahawks competency and complement Carson.

The table below shows EPA ranks for the Seahawks when rushing out of different personnel groupings.

Another reminder of how fumbles hurt the Seahawks. Out of 11 personnel, they were generally efficient running the ball, producing a positive play over 47 percent of the time. But their EPA per rush was low because of the fumbles.

The Seahawks used six offensive linemen more than any team, doing so on 171 attempts. When they used an extra offensive lineman instead of a second tight end (611 personnel), the results were ugly. They produced a positive play just 36.4 percent of the time. They ran the ball well out of 12 personnel and had success — albeit in a small sample — when going with six offensive linemen, no tight ends and three wide receivers.

Football Outsiders uses a metric called adjusted line yards to measure how well the run blocking and scheme are working. The Seahawks ranked 16th.

Situationally, the Seahawks ranked 11th in rushing efficiency in the red zone and 14th in short yardage. They were better on under center runs (positive EPA 46.5 percent of the time) than shotgun runs (42.1 percent).

Bottom line: It’s difficult to predict what kind of run game the Seahawks are going to have, considering their top two backs are coming off of season-ending injuries and they could be looking at three new starters on the offensive line. But when they weren’t fumbling, the run game was efficient last season. The Seahawks probably need to think more about when they’re running the ball instead of how they’re running the ball.

Passing offense

Before the Seahawks faltered down the stretch, Wilson was in the MVP conversation. He finished the year fifth in QBR and eighth in adjusted net yards per attempt (ANY/A).

Next Gen Stats tracks a metric called completion percentage above expectation. It looks at the probability of a completion on every throw, based on factors like how far the throw is, how open the receiver is and how much pressure the quarterback is under. It then comes up with an expected completion percentage and compares that number to the quarterback’s actual completion percentage. Wilson ranked fourth out of 39 quarterbacks. It’s worth pointing out that the expected completion percentage on throws he attempted was 61.3. That ranked 37th out of 39 qualifying quarterbacks and suggests that the scheme wasn’t producing a lot of high-percentage throws.

On the decision-making front, Wilson’s interception percentage (1 percent) was tied for second lowest. But he fumbled eight times and was sacked at the fourth-highest rate. Wilson produced a negative result (interception, sack or fumble) on 8.9 percent of the plays in which he had the ball. That ranked 16th.

Below is a look at how Wilson performed out of 11 and 12 personnel — the only two groupings the Seahawks used for at least 50 pass plays.

One more time: The Seahawks got dinged in EPA per dropback in large part because they lost six fumbles after completions — more than any team. Wilson performed well out of 11 personnel, but he was outstanding out of 12 personnel. The Seahawks are counting on Olsen to start. Will Dissly has had season-ending injuries (patellar and Achilles) the last two seasons and has appeared in a total of 10 games. The Seahawks used a fourth-round pick on Stanford’s Colby Parkinson and a seventh-round pick on wide receiver/tight end Stephen Sullivan out of LSU. They also still have Jacob Hollister.

Tyler Lockett continues to be one of the more efficient wide receivers. He’s averaging 11.23 yards per target over the past two seasons — second best among all wide receivers. He’s caught 77.2 percent of his targets during that span — third best. And his 18 touchdowns are tied for second. Lockett has been productive both on the outside and in the slot, where he’s lined up 54.9 percent of the time.

DK Metcalf had a strong rookie season with 900 receiving yards, although his hands were an issue. Metcalf dropped 10.8 percent of his catchable targets, which ranked 67th out of 80 qualifying wide receivers.

The Olsen signing was risky. During the Super Bowl era, only five tight ends — Tony Gonzalez, Antonio Gates, Shannon Sharpe, Ben Watson and Jason Witten — have had at least 500 receiving yards at age 35 or older. Olsen has appeared in just 30 games over the past three seasons. And last year — granted, he was not getting great quarterback play — Olsen averaged 1.38 yards per route, which ranked 25th among 67 qualifying tight ends. Maybe Olsen can find some magic for one more season, but it’s fair to wonder whether the Seahawks would have been better off spending that $7 million on a wide receiver or offensive lineman.

Here’s a look at how Wilson performed against both man and zone.

Wilson was better against zone. The Seahawks specifically struggled against Cover-1 — man coverage with a single high safety. Wilson ranked 24th out of 32 qualifying quarterbacks in EPA per dropback against Cover-1. One coverage he picked apart was Cover-4 — a four-across zone with three underneath defenders. Wilson ranked second in EPA per dropback against Cover-4. Overall against zone, Wilson produced a positive play 59.2 percent of the time, which was third best.

On average, 18.6 percent of Wilson’s throws were into tight windows (defined as passes where a defender is within 1 yard of the target). That was the 10th-highest percentage for any starter. He was aggressive pushing the ball downfield — Wilson’s average throw traveled 9.4 yards from the line of scrimmage, which ranked fourth. And his deep-ball accuracy saved the Seahawks on many occasions. Sports Info Solutions marked Wilson as on target with 60 percent of his passes that traveled 20 yards or more from the line of scrimmage. That was the top mark among the 22 quarterbacks who threw at least 50 passes downfield.

The Seahawks used play-action at the ninth-highest rate. Wilson produced a positive EPA on 59.4 percent of play-action snaps, which ranked third.

Here are Wilson’s splits when inside the pocket versus outside the pocket.

While Wilson’s EPA per dropback was higher on throws outside the pocket, he was more likely to produce a positive play on throws inside the pocket (51.1 percent to 44.5 percent). Again, that is another case of the especially bad plays weighing down his EPA numbers inside the pocket. Overall, Wilson produced a positive play on throws from the pocket at the 10th-highest rate of any quarterback.

If it felt like Wilson was constantly bringing the Seahawks back late, well, that’s because he was. The Seahawks had a minus-18 point differential in the first halves of games. Wilson led all quarterbacks in EPA in the fourth quarter when tied or trailing. Per Football Outsiders, the Seahawks ranked third in offensive DVOA in the fourth quarter and fourth in offensive DVOA in late and close situations. It’s nice to have the ability to come back, but it’s also fair to wonder whether the Seahawks could strategically be doing more earlier in games to not put themselves in those situations.

Up front, the Seahawks are back to having major questions on the offensive line. It’s true that Wilson will probably always take a high number of sacks because he doesn’t give up on plays and is often trying to make plays outside of structure. He’s very good at that, so the benefits outweigh the minuses of the sacks. But ESPN’s pass-block win rate measures simply whether protection holds up for 2.5 seconds. The answer to that question too often was no as the Seahawks’ offensive line ranked 28th. It’s also worth noting that Wilson got the ball out in 2.5 seconds or less on 38.6 percent of his pass plays, which was just about league average. Yet he was hit or sacked on 25.8 percent of his pass plays, which ranked 30th out of 34 quarterbacks.

Offensive line statistics are imperfect, but Sports Info Solutions tracks how often each lineman blows a block. Here are the percentages and ranks of the Seahawks’ projected starters in pass protection.

The numbers don’t look bad, but age and lack of continuity are concerns. Left tackle Duane Brown turns 35 in August and has missed 14 games over the past four seasons. Left guard Mike Iupati is 33. He didn’t have much of a market and re-signed on a one-year, $2.5 million deal. Finney has never started more than four games in a season. Lewis is a rookie. And the Seahawks are hoping Shell’s best days are ahead of him.

Bottom line: Wilson’s accuracy, decision-making and ability to connect on plays downfield give the Seahawks a high floor. If Lockett and Metcalf stay healthy, they are positioned to once again have an efficient passing game. But they are thin at wide receiver and have questions on the offensive line. The most likely outcome is that the passing offense will look a lot like it did last year.

Defensive snapshot

The Seahawks finished 18th in defensive efficiency — 15th against the pass and 26th against the run. Per Football Outsiders’ adjusted games lost metric, they were the seventh-healthiest defense.

Carroll’s defensive principles were shaped during his time working under Monte Kiffin, but their philosophies differed. Kiffin played with two deep safeties, while Carroll preferred Cover-3 — a single-high safety, three-deep zone. When Carroll had the talented “Legion of Boom,” his defense was dominant. Richard Sherman and the cornerbacks took away fades down the sideline. Free safety Earl Thomas denied all posts and seams. Kam Chancellor was an enforcer. And the Seahawks generated pass rush without having to blitz. It was the perfect match of personnel and scheme.

But as the organization has transitioned to a new group of players, the defense has been mediocre, ranking 18th, 14th and 13th in DVOA over the past three seasons. Seattle’s ranking has fallen in five consecutive seasons, and last year’s, ranking 18th, was the lowest since Carroll’s first season in 2010. Seattle got a big boost with takeaways last year, or the numbers would’ve looked even worse. The defense finished fourth in EPA on turnovers.

Looking ahead to 2020, the glaring weakness among the projected starters is with the pass rush.

Missing from last year are Clowney (he remains unsigned) and Quinton Jefferson (who signed with the Bills). The team could still add an edge pass rusher.

The Seahawks brought back Bruce Irvin, and he’s expecting to assume his old role as strong-side linebacker on base downs and defensive end in sub-packages. If that happens, either first-round pick Jordyn Brooks or veteran K.J. Wright would get bumped from the starting lineup. L.J. Collier, a 2019 first-round pick, played 152 snaps last season but should compete for playing time. The Seahawks used a second-round pick on defensive end Darrell Taylor and a fifth-round pick on defensive end Alton Robinson.

The team acquired Quandre Diggs during the 2019 season and traded for corner Quinton Dunbar earlier this offseason.

Seattle stayed in its base defense on 68.2 percent of its snaps — the highest percentage for any team. Per The Athletic’s Michael-Shawn Dugar, the Seahawks could slide Dunbar inside in nickel and play Tre Flowers on the outside. Or second-year player Ugo Amadi could earn the nickel job.

Situationally, the Seahawks ranked 23rd in red zone defense and 22nd in short yardage.

Rushing defense

The Seahawks’ decision to stick with their base defense must have helped stop the run, right? Not exactly.

Ninety percent of the runs Seattle faced were against their base defense. They ranked 29th in EPA per rush out of base. They ranked 26th when teams ran out of 12 personnel. And the Seahawks’ ranking (18th) against 11 personnel is a bit deceiving, considering they still allowed opponents to produce a positive play 52 percent of the time, which ranked 31st. Put simply: Staying in base defense did not give the Seahawks any kind of advantage against the run.

Bobby Wagner’s 88 tackles were fourth-most against the run, and Wright’s 69 were tied for 20th. The defensive line was not a strength, ranking 21st in adjusted line yards. Defensive tackle Jarran Reed missed six games due to suspension and having him for the full year should help. But the Seahawks will undoubtedly miss Clowney’s disruptive abilities against the run.

One area where the Seahawks struggled was against running quarterbacks. Only the Browns had a worse EPA against QB scrambles than Seattle, according to TruMedia.

Bottom line: The Seahawks don’t need to have a great run defense to be a Super Bowl-contending team. Unless Brooks steps in and has a big impact right away, it’s tough to see them making a leap to anything but mediocre there.

Passing defense

With the additions of Diggs and Dunbar, the Seahawks’ secondary will look different than it did at the start of 2019. When Carroll has defensive backs he trusts, he wants to play single-high schemes (Cover-3 and Cover-1). But last year, the Seahawks mixed up their coverages quite a bit. They were in single-high schemes just 55.5 percent of the time, which ranked 16th league-wide.

The Seahawks were still a heavy zone team. Only two teams — the Chargers and Panthers — played zone at a higher rate than Seattle. Here’s how the defense performed in man and zone.

Again, the Seahawks were not a high-percentage man coverage team, but when they did play man, they performed well, ranking third in EPA per dropback. In zone, meanwhile, they were 22nd.

The Seahawks were mediocre in Cover-3 (their most popular coverage), ranking 13th in EPA per dropback. Where they really struggled was out of their split-safety zones (Cover-2, Tampa-2, Cover-4). Among the 22 teams that played at least 50 snaps of Cover-2/Tampa-2, the Seahawks ranked 21st in EPA per dropback. They were 20th out of 22 when playing Cover-4 — a four-deep zone with three underneath defenders.

Here’s a look at where they ranked in coverage against different positional targets.

The Seahawks’ big addition in the offseason was Dunbar, but the numbers suggest they weren’t bad at covering wide receivers last season. If we limit the sample just to plays when outside wide receivers were targeted, the Seahawks ranked eighth in EPA per dropback. They did not match up well against tight ends. Having Diggs for the entire season should give the Seahawks a big boost. It’s a small sample, but from Weeks 10 to 15 with Diggs, the Seahawks’ defense ranked seventh in EPA per snap and eighth against the pass, per TruMedia.

We know that the Seahawks’ run defense didn’t benefit by playing a high percentage of base, but did their pass defense get exposed by sticking with just four defensive backs?

The answer is no. The numbers help explain why Carroll wanted to play so much base defense. The Seahawks were bad in nickel. The numbers are staggering when we look at how they performed out of base and nickel against 11 personnel (one running back, one tight end, three wide receivers).

They were actually really good when they stayed in base and other teams passed out of 11 personnel. Keep in mind that was extremely unorthodox. The Seahawks faced 140 pass attempts when they were in base and the opponent was in 11 personnel. The other 31 teams averaged 10.4 such snaps the whole year. But the Seahawks’ EPA per dropback numbers in base would have ranked sixth overall compared to all teams against 11 personnel. Meanwhile, when the Seahawks were in nickel against 11 personnel, their EPA per dropback was 0.14, which would’ve ranked 28th.

Despite that success, the Seahawks are likely to transition to more sub-package defenses. Linebacker Mychal Kendricks, who played 61 percent of the defensive snaps, is no longer on the roster. It’s possible the Seahawks will still feel good about keeping three linebackers on the field versus 11 personnel. But more likely, with the addition of Dunbar, they’ll be more comfortable playing nickel.

Up front, the Seahawks ranked 16th in ESPN’s pass-rush win rate metric. That ranking suggests their pass rush might not have been as bad as the traditional numbers indicate. The Seahawks produced a sack or QB hit on 14.4 percent of their opponents’ pass plays. That was the worst mark in the NFL. But one reason why was because opponents got rid of the ball in 2.5 seconds or less on 48.3 percent of their pass plays; that was the sixth-highest percentage for any defense. One way to help the pass rush would be to play tighter coverage (and maybe more man) so that quarterbacks have to hold on to the ball longer. It’s also worth nothing that even though the Seahawks were tied for 29th in total sacks, they were 18th in EPA on sacks, meaning the ones they did get were impactful.

Clowney had just three sacks and 13 quarterback hits, but he could take over games as we saw during the first meeting against the 49ers. Clowney and Jefferson performed well in ESPN’s pass-rush win rate metric. Clowney was seventh among edge defenders and Jefferson was fifth among defensive tackles. Those rankings suggest they were winning up front, but the ball was coming out quickly.

The Seahawks signed Reed to a two-year, $23 million deal. He put up big sack numbers in 2018 but has not been as productive in his other 40 games. Last year, Reed produced a sack or quarterback hit on 3.7 percent of his pass-rush opportunities, which ranked 115th out of 172 qualifying players. The numbers on Irvin are encouraging. He produced a sack or quarterback hit on 8.5 percent of his pass-rush chances last year. That ranked 16th out of 172 players. They’ll hope that one of the rookies or rotational defensive end Benson Mayowa can give the pass rush a boost.

Carroll’s preference is to rush with four and play seven in coverage, but last year the Seahawks blitzed 27.8 percent of the time, which ranked 17th in frequency. Opponents averaged 6.3 yards per dropback when the Seahawks blitzed, which ranked 15th.

Bottom line: The Seahawks should benefit from the addition of Dunbar and having Diggs for a full season, but unless they make another move, it’s unlikely that their pass rush makes a significant leap. The Seahawks need to be better out of their split-safety zone looks and may want to consider playing more man coverage. Overall, it looks like a mediocre to slightly above average pass defense.

Overall

In-game management was a big issue for the Seahawks last year — the most high-profile gaffe being the delay of game against the 49ers. And on fourth downs, Carroll was one of the most conservative coaches despite having an offense that was superior to his defense.

Seattle is a regression candidate in a few categories. The Seahawks finished sixth in injury luck last year and eighth in fumble recovery luck (first on defense and 26th on offense). They were 10-2 in one-possession games and a plus-12 (tied for third) in turnover differential. Their strength of schedule is 16th, and their special-teams unit ranked 20th in DVOA last season.

Five teams — the 49ers, Saints, Cowboys, Buccaneers and Eagles — have better odds than them to come out of the NFC, and the Seahawks’ over/under for wins is 9.5.

In January, The Athletic’s Michael-Shawn Dugar and Ben Baldwin had a spirited back-and-forth about whether Carroll is still the right man to coach the Seahawks. Carroll has been an elite program builder in college and the NFL. He knows how to create a culture that players embrace, and his teams always play with great effort and energy. He treats players like grownups and his philosophy of promoting individualism while always protecting the team has been an unquestioned success that other coaches should adopt. In many ways, Carroll has mastered the most challenging aspects of coaching an NFL team.

But while he’s always looking for ways to gain an edge, he has not shown a willingness to budge on his core principles of running the ball and winning with defense. The problem is Carroll no longer has a roster that lends itself to playing the way he wants to play, and that’s what frustrates a segment of the fan base. Between the game management issues and the run-heavy approach, the problems seem easily fixable. Combining the aspects of coaching that Carroll’s great at with a new strategic philosophy — one that includes a prolific passing game, more aggressive in-game decision-making and an admission that the “Legion of Boom” isn’t walking through that door — seems like the best formula for getting the Seahawks back to the Super Bowl.

If that philosophy shift doesn’t happen, the Seahawks’ best hope is to stumble on to an influx of defensive talent or hope that Wilson can put the team on his back. But more likely, it would mean a high-floor, low-ceiling team for the next three to four years.