State of the Seahawks...special teams edition

Have the Seahawks significantly improved this offseason? This team needs to elevate to a 12-13 win team, with that they are in the HFA picture for the playoffs. When they have had that, they have gone to the Superbowl. Every single time they have hosted the NFCCG, they won. The biggest regression has been the special teams. They special teams have played an impact in losing games the past few years....whether it's dumb decisions on changing the long-snapper, missing XP or FGs, and not showing effort to tackle. This has cost the Seahawks 1 or 2 wins each of the past two season. Have they done enough to overcome their deficiencies on special teams?

Ooooooh, a topic that will undoubtedly bring some controversy.

For more than a year I've been kvetching about the ST coaching. There needs to be new approach as the coaching can't keep up with the talent or effectively use it properly. Dickson regularly out kicks the coverage and the team can't figure it out or to tackle the returner. They have not replaced Lockette with a gunner who is noticeably effective. They don’t stop Dickson from kicking deep or adjust the coverages when he does. The ST have not had a scoring return for 2 seasons now to my recollection but have given up a few. Lockett has either been figured out in terms of what moves he will make or has lost a step b/c he’s rarely breaking free and it seems the returning is declining in productivity. It seems as if Pete is overly loyal to another underperforming coach. The ST coaching can't recognize weak kicking or fix a kicker with the yips.

To me it is a team weakness and an area with good average talent that is underperforming. The ST have not been good for a few seasons now. It's time for a leadership change on ST.

Locket t took one to the house in 2017 the final game of the season against Arizona but your right. I think Pete blaming injuries instead of recognizing Schneider is not an elite special teams coach is a problem.

I think you're wrong about Dickson. I think it was that Cardinals game that messed him up,before then he was leading the nfl in net punting. Then it carried over to the dallas game. We've changed punters, kickers almost everything the one consistent issue is our st coach.

I’m not complaining about Dickson one bit as to me he was a punting high light film last season, but the coverage schemes are exposed when he kicks deep, as they are picked up, and allow significant returns I think Dickson and the puntingi is one of the few areas of the ST that is exceptionally good, the field is regularly flipped by him b/c of his directional punting. We’ve only seen the beginning of tricks from him.

You are right about the coaching being the negative factor of continuity.

As to above about NoE I think he is still an excellent returner but the scheme is not creating lanes for him to break out where he becomes dangerous. Those initial blocks are not often effective to allow a break out.

Agreed with above posts.

The kicking side appears to be in good shape with Dickson and Myers. Coverage needs work both in blocking and tackling.

I don't have much to add other than returning KOs is rare. Only 5 were last year. Lockett did return one for 84 yards. Just using that as some sort of barometer isn't the way to go.

It will be interesting to see if they retain Mingoh, who was our leading special teams tacker.

Consistently using the kicking game to secure points and to flip field position certainly is and there the ST have been not very specialat it for the past few seasons. Dickson is a true weapon and isn't being consistently utilized. In fact even Ryan who is a good punter had too many returns allowed b/c of weak coverage. In fact though the punting part of ST has been the strongest of it, notwithstanding the often poor coverage.

The difficulties at PK started in Hauschka's final season but he'd had moments of frustrating inconsistency the year before that and nothing the staff did helped. Walsh was a horror show wide left, wide right, then short, and both of them cost the team games. Keeping Walsh at all was a huge personnel error as was in retrospect keeping Janikowsi over Myers, and if Myers reverts to his average it will be because of weak kicking coaching.

Having an effective return game statistically improves the O's chance of scoring in a huge way thus starting at the 35 0r better on each KO should be the goal, there we are often beten by opposing team who then put more pressure on our D to stop them. Lockett is a good returner but to me it seems the ST blocking has been figured out or the lead blockers are failing to accomplish their goals w/o correction or modification. Change needs to occur.

We have to take into account the new KO rules, which basically discourage returns and make them more difficult to exploit.

Not sure if coaching or scheme can overcome that. I suspect the NFL is on a course to eliminate them like in the AAF league. I would hate that.

Dickson is great! Punting coverage is horrible!! Time and time again we get gashed from missed tackles and open lanes for returns. I agree the entire special teams coaching should have been shown the door last year at the latest, yet here we go again. It has cost us games. We try onside kicks with Janakowski who hasn't made a successful one in 7 years BEFORE the rule changes made it even harder?? Why??? That is a pathetic example of how out of touch we are at times during the game. That is also how we made our 2nd Superbowl.....yet here we flounder again and again.

At least the ST coaches gave up on Sebass and went to the rookie mostly for the late year onside kick attempts, but that was a pure example of futility and it rests upon Schneider who hasn't had a new idea in a long while.

Save for the recent place kicking blues which betrays a true lack of judgment about kickers, it's the scheme for blocking, the blocking, the schemes for coverage, and the tackling which are all often truly suspect. when you see the open lanes fr returns which gash the team it's more than often the scheme rather than an individual failure which is exposed. That says to me the coaching and schemes need to be changed.

I hope Myers has reached a reset in his career average and can continue being good at his job, because Dickson is special and then there is a base to be built upon.

I don't know I'd say the ST are an embarrassment but they sure aren't championship level or even close, and haven't been for at least 3 seasons.

A couple things, our ST's were at their best when we had our best players also participating, that has been put on the back burner since they aged and were not all completely healthy, then you have the back up's playing and F.A.'S holding down those spots.

Throw in new rules for Kick returns and needing to ferret out a scheme that can exploit something on them we see what we have. We have not found a scheme nor has most teams that can find a way to take advantage of the new rules for our benefit as of yet.

Kicking and punting we have been using musical chairs until Dickson signed although we had a good punter before, coverage is again the key which I addressed above.

Throw in changing Long Snappers, Holders and all that with different guys and you see miss queues and inconsistency. Hopefully we resign Ott and Dickson will be more comfortable on the right side, he held before but never from the left like last year.

Like most teams, you don't really think about special teams unless bad things happen, we have had a lot of bad happen the last 5 years or so.

I expected Brian Schneider to get fired, but they fired the strength & conditioning coach instead.

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