Letting Russell cook (article)

This article tells us that the Seahawks offense will look to be more up tempo this season and give Wilson more opportunities.

https://heavy.com/sports/2020/05/seattle-seahawks-let-russ-cook/

I know we've talked about this ad nauseum here, but this article goes a bit in depth.

An interesting tidbit from the article reads: "Wilson admitted to ESPN 710 Seattle that he believes the team left about 15 to 20 touchdowns on the table last season."

What do you guys think? I think we're all for this, and something that should've been implented years ago. I'm tired of seeing them snap the ball with 1 or 0 on the playclock, giving the other team's edge rushers basically a starting gun to fire off the ball.

Jerhawk":2o72bp6o said:

This article tells us that the Seahawks offense will look to be more up tempo this season and give Wilson more opportunities.

https://heavy.com/sports/2020/05/seattle-seahawks-let-russ-cook/

I know we've talked about this ad nauseum here, but this article goes a bit in depth.

An interesting tidbit from the article reads: "Wilson admitted to ESPN 710 Seattle that he believes the team left about 15 to 20 touchdowns on the table last season."

What do you guys think? I think we're all for this, and something that should've been implented years ago. I'm tired of seeing them snap the ball with 1 or 0 on the playclock, giving the other team's edge rushers basically a starting gun to fire off the ball.

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I agree with you for the most part. Russ’ statement in green.... he should have said this 4 or 5 years ago.
Glad he said it, finally just wish it was said publicly sooner. Hopefully he’s handed the “Pey Pey” Manning keys to the offensive car, and they let him drive it. You know, where the playcall is merely a *suggestion*, but will go with whatever you think is best Russ.....

I completely agree that the ball can be snapped much faster than it has been. Faster snaps can also mean more off side penalties on the other side of the ball which is always an advantage.

nrayorr":vteh7ipc said:

I completely agree that the ball can be snapped much faster than it has been. Faster snaps can also mean more off side penalties on the other side of the ball which is always an advantage.

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Also means quicker 3 and outs. And handing it back over to our undermanned defense.

So would we be good going 8 and 8, and losing 38 to 35 if russ throws 50 touchdowns?

Excellent counter arguments!

I guess the way to look at it is: Do you trust this team more, led by Wilson, going into the 4th quarter down by 10, or up by 10?

This offense, if properly managed, has the potential to put up points. Lots of points. We have the QB and the weapons to do this.
But you guys are right, a more up tempo offense can result in quicker drives and exposing the defense.

IMO, the defense would do better preventing a comeback and stopping the pass than preventing the other team grinding the clock with a punishing ground game.

Jerhawk":2jg1t6kl said:

I guess the way to look at it is: Do you trust this team more, led by Wilson, going into the 4th quarter down by 10, or up by 10?

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Clearly there is such a thing as a really, really bad question.

AgentDib":2qmrmg78 said:

Jerhawk":2qmrmg78 said:

I guess the way to look at it is: Do you trust this team more, led by Wilson, going into the 4th quarter down by 10, or up by 10?

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Clearly there is such a thing as a really, really bad question.

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Thanks for your well thought out input and contribution AgentDib!
Care to elaborate?

We typically get up to the line with plenty of time. More make a lot of sight adjustments. I'm sure nobody else will agree, but one of the reasons we take a long time is because Russ likes to survey the defense a lot. I'm not sure him spending less time at the LOS is going to be good for him. There are definitely times when we are stagnant that we need to force the tempo and see if we can get Russ to play a bit more free, but I don't see it as a really beneficial full-time strategy.

Jerhawk":3dgvag5d said:

I guess the way to look at it is: Do you trust this team more, led by Wilson, going into the 4th quarter down by 10, or up by 10? ... Care to elaborate?

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Sure, let's dive into the two situations your question proposes.

Scenario 1: Seahawks trailing by 10 points going into the 4th quarter. NFL teams win 7% of the time in this situation. The Seahawks have been in this situation 27 times under Pete Carroll, and have won 3 times (11%), including the 2013 comeback against the Buccaneers. This is a completely awful situation for any team to be in, regardless of the QB.

Scenario 2: Seahawks up by 10 points going into the 4th quarter. NFL teams win 93% of the time in this situation. The Seahawks have been in this situation 50 times under Pete Carroll and have won 49 times (98%), with the sole loss being the 2011 OT collapse at the Bengals. This is a fantastic situation for any team to be in, regardless of the QB.

This would be a boring but fine question if you were actually trying to figure out which scenario was better. What makes it a bad question is that you aren't.

Thanks for the stats on those scenarios, AgentDib! FTW, once again!

So, theoretically, Seattle and SF both had 93%-ish win scenarios going on in SB49 and SB54, respectively, with 10 point 4th quarter leads. For all the good it did us.

AgentDib":968y7tjy said:

Jerhawk":968y7tjy said:

I guess the way to look at it is: Do you trust this team more, led by Wilson, going into the 4th quarter down by 10, or up by 10? ... Care to elaborate?

Click to expand...

Sure, let's dive into the two situations your question proposes.

Scenario 1: Seahawks trailing by 10 points going into the 4th quarter. NFL teams win 7% of the time in this situation. The Seahawks have been in this situation 27 times under Pete Carroll, and have won 3 times (11%), including the 2013 comeback against the Buccaneers. This is a completely awful situation for any team to be in, regardless of the QB.

Scenario 2: Seahawks up by 10 points going into the 4th quarter. NFL teams win 93% of the time in this situation. The Seahawks have been in this situation 50 times under Pete Carroll and have won 49 times (98%), with the sole loss being the 2011 OT collapse at the Bengals. This is a fantastic situation for any team to be in, regardless of the QB.

This would be a boring but fine question if you were actually trying to figure out which scenario was better. What makes it a bad question is that you aren't.

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Excellent post! No argument against solid numbers!
I appreciate you taking the time to share these numbers, that's incredible. And I humbly accept your criticism.

Now, given these stats, do you feel that a more up tempo offense would create more Scenerio 1s, or Scenario 2s?

Thats the whole gist of this thread, if an up tempo offense would actually help the team. Would scoring more points result in more wins?
I'm on the side of yes, it would help, and create more scenerio 2s, going into the 4th quarter with a lead.

However, the counter argument, brought up by others, is it would expose the defense and basically put us into a shootout every game.

It's a fascinating debate and will be really interesting to see unfold, assuming they actually go through with it.

I'm on the side of up-tempo and scoring faster would result in more wins.
IF we can do it without committing a higher rate of turnovers.
The reason is that our opponents will need to score faster to keep up with us, and will be a little more predictable.
That is assuming we wind up with quality DBs and an actual pass rush, and generate opponent turnovers.

But, we must be able to run the ball successfully in the 4th quarter for this to work. In theory, wearing down the opponent D by running a higher number of plays during the first 3 quarters *should* set up a solid 4th quarter running game against a worn out opposing Defense.

Taking the other side for a moment, the ultimate counter-point against this general approach would be the 28-3 comeback by the Patriots over the Falcons, three SBs ago. People have said that Dan Quinn's Falcons essentially run the Seattle defense. If a worn-out Seattle D, in an up-tempo game, would look like the Falcon's D in that 4th quarter, that would be pretty ugly to watch.

Tical21":1wqk5boq said:

We typically get up to the line with plenty of time. More make a lot of sight adjustments. I'm sure nobody else will agree, but one of the reasons we take a long time is because Russ likes to survey the defense a lot. I'm not sure him spending less time at the LOS is going to be good for him. There are definitely times when we are stagnant that we need to force the tempo and see if we can get Russ to play a bit more free, but I don't see it as a really beneficial full-time strategy.

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They break the huddle so often under 10 seconds, there isn't time to do jack.

Get the freaking play in or give RW more play call control so he actually has a long time to look over the D and make adjustments

Part of the problem is that when posters say "up tempo" they could be talking about many different concepts, each of which has it's own benefits and drawbacks. Faster play in general results in more plays, more points for and against, and larger point differences as a result. Slower play lowers the number of plays and possession and results in tighter games. If we care about winning games rather than scoring points than neither is better on it's own merit without looking at the other factors.

Getting to the line of scrimmage quickly
Getting to the line of scrimmage promptly is mostly about execution. There are a lot of little things that happen in a row. The play caller has to pick a play and personnel group, the team has to substitute in that personnel, and then everybody needs to hear the play in the huddle and get up to the line of scrimmage. That isn't a big deal when the offense is coming onto the field after a change in possession, but it can get hectic in many scenarios, such as long completions or debatable plays where the ruling is unexpected or things are getting confusing.

The Seahawks had a couple of critical errors last season that were understandable in my view, such as Marshawn not realizing he was part of a specific personnel package when he hadn't been with the team all year. This is an area where every NFL team is always trying to improve. When I see people remarking about this specifically it reads like saying they should play better. Completely true, but something that we all already agree with and not a useful piece of strategy to discuss.

The two elements of strategy applicable here are whether the team substitutes, and whether they huddle. There are pros and cons to both. Substituting makes sure you have your best personnel group for the situation as the down and distance probably just changed, and keeps your offense less predictable by showing different looks. The drawback is that the defense is allowed to substitute in response which allows them to stay fresher with personnel rotations.

Fans love the no-huddle but they tend to completely disregard whether it is even feasible or not. If you're playing in a noisy opposing stadium then huddling is a huge asset to make sure everybody actually knows what the play is. It usually looks good because teams tend to go no-huddle when trailing big in games and they rack up a lot of yards against soft coverages.

Working the line of scrimmage
Once at the line of scrimmage, the QB wants to spend time reading the defense. This can be assisted by sending a player in motion and seeing who on the defense moves in response. The QB may want to audible to a different call depending on what they see, and the offensive line will be making protection calls based on the play call and defensive alignments.

The discussion around this point strikes me as odd, as the many of the people in favor of speeding this part up also seem to think Russ is a good QB. It could just be that they like his arm and mobility more than they respect his football IQ, but as Russ gets older the way he will stay an elite QB is if his increased experience is leveraged to offset his declining mobility. I get that the national view on Russ is that he is a physical marvel who excels in chaos and shouldn't be overthinking things too much, but that sandlot version of Russ has a shelf life.

olyfan63":3kksmhuz said:

I'm on the side of up-tempo and scoring faster would result in more wins.
IF we can do it without committing a higher rate of turnovers.
The reason is that our opponents will need to score faster to keep up with us, and will be a little more predictable.

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Other teams have been abandoning the run for years already. They're well-used to operating as a pass-first offense without sacrificing schematic unpredictability. It's basically the way NFL offenses work now.

I could care less one way or the other, but it would not surprise me for Seattle to become pass-first and nothing to change at all, because 1) the offense hasn't been bad to begin with (#5 in DVOA last year), and 2) because there's lots of factors playing into this. People keep making the error of implicitly assuming that offensive philosophy is by far the most influential factor in an offense's performance, and it just isn't.

I see us just getting plays in faster and then out of the huddle, we will still run, but snapping the ball at say 5 seconds or god forbid 10 seconds left on the play clock so a defense doesn't just watch till 1 second to go.

I could see us shift to a no huddle more.

Being able to say have 20 points in the first half and then play aggressive defense instead of protect the lead mentality would be a help also, Turnovers and a score is the fastest way to take a teams heart.

This also sets up more rest time for Vets and experience for rookies if you have a good lead also.

chris98251":3815ib5w said:

I see us just getting plays in faster and then out of the huddle, we will still run, but snapping the ball at say 5 seconds or god forbid 10 seconds left on the play clock so a defense doesn't just watch till 1 second to go.

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I just don't agree this was an actual problem for the team last year, and if posters re-watch the games with an eye for the clock they'll see we were pretty good at getting to the line quickly as well as snapping the ball early.

I only charted this for the second half of the season last year, but here's the breakdown in the final playoff game against the Packers:



82% of our snaps occurred with 5 seconds or more left on the clock. 46% occurred with 10 seconds or more left on the clock. We snapped the ball with 1 second remaining twice, with one going for a first down and the second resulting in an easy touchdown. We never had 0 seconds left on the clock, and the latest we ever got to the line was with 8 seconds remaining.

That being said, I acknowledge there is a widespread belief that the Seahawks are bad at this. My theory is that we don't pay much attention to the play clock unless it is becoming a problem, and then those few instances are the ones that stand on in the memory rather than the vast majority where everything went exactly like fans are asking for it go.

Statistics and facts provide the best foundation from which to begin this sort of discussion. Thanks for doing this and for sharing.

chris98251":3kcikzip said:

I see us just getting plays in faster and then out of the huddle, we will still run, but snapping the ball at say 5 seconds or god forbid 10 seconds left on the play clock so a defense doesn't just watch till 1 second to go.

I could see us shift to a no huddle more.

Being able to say have 20 points in the first half and then play aggressive defense instead of protect the lead mentality would be a help also, Turnovers and a score is the fastest way to take a teams heart.

This also sets up more rest time for Vets and experience for rookies if you have a good lead also.

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This is my thought also,just change the sequence of when we snap.
I love the no huddle..We can just stand there and still grind the clock
while they can't sub.. :irishdrinkers: