Analysis: What Happened to Seahawks' Screen Game Under Shane Waldron?
In 2021, the Seahawks said goodbye to a three-year relationship. Pete Carroll and Brian Schottenheimer’s divorce over irreconcilable, “philosophical" differences would be solved in Seattle by a rebound: a new, fresh way of thinking that would tenderly heal past trauma. For onlookers, the new fling in offensive coordinator Shane Waldron promised much, including the possibility of running better screen plays. Easy yardage for Russell Wilson! A quick fix for the underperforming yards-after-catch numbers!
After all, the newlywed Waldron arrived from a Rams attack stocked deep with effective screens. The Rams’ proficiency on screen plays was especially obvious versus the Seahawks themselves, where the Seattle defense experienced repeated difficulty versus these concepts. Surely Waldron would be able to introduce similar screen success to the Pacific Northwest?
The honeymoon period has now ended. We have seen five games of 2021 NFL football, including Waldron encountering his mentor Sean McVay, and fast approach Week 6 of the season. The Seahawks are not experiencing success on screen plays. Deleting Schottenheimer's number has not achieved the desired effect. And now Wilson, surgically-repaired middle finger and all, is out of action for the foreseeable future.
In the Seahawks' last three games, they have called 11 screen designs with Wilson as their quarterback for just 19 yards—a meager average of 1.7 yards per play. Three of these 11 screen concepts have resulted in negative plays, while one has landed incomplete. It’s time for three illuminating questions:
What exactly is going wrong?
Why won’t the screen plays pop?
Should Carroll have signed a prenup?
Week 3 at Vikings
This should have been a lovely start to this study, with the Seahawks in a 2nd and 9 situation with a little over two minutes left in the first quarter of their eventual 30-17 loss to the Vikings. The fly motion action was an added layer of deception with the offense flooding three receiving threats to one side. Seattle then went for a play-action throwback to Tyler Lockett, still managing to get the cornerback, Patrick Peterson, playing off and soft to the screen threat.
Lockett displayed expert open-field vision to cut this play back off his blocks for nine yards and what would have been a first down. The unfortunate aspect to the play was that it came back on a 10-yard penalty following an illegal block below the waist from center Kyler Fuller. The penalty remains difficult to understand.
On the subsequent 2nd and 16, Waldron called in another screen play. Seattle aligned Gerald Everett out wide, confirming it was facing zone coverage because a cornerback stayed outside with him. Then, the Seahawks short-motioned Everett inside in order to gain better blocking angles.
Nick Vigil, the Vikings' mugged curl linebacker, read the play well and beat left tackle Duane Brown outside before Brown could get to his designated landmark. Running this play to the short side makes blocks easier but also restricts the available space.
Vigil slipped off his tackle but his excellent keying slowed the play down for unblocked safety Harrison Smith to come down in the alley and make the stop at five yards. This was a shame because Freddie Swain fitted up his block nice on the outside.
Having observed the effectiveness and aggression of the Vikings versus the Seahawks' screen plays, Waldron was smart in running a fake screen design to exploit this on 1st and 10. Doing this out of a double stacks spread alignment created extra room between the cornerback and the high safety.
Wilson sold this well by looking at Lockett’s smoke route, then pump-faking to the additional deception of the slant aspect of DK Metcalf’s route. Metcalf and the fake had the safety open to turn and run across the field. He then nestled his sluggo perfectly in the zone hole behind the cornerback and beneath the safety for a 21-yard explosive.
Play-calling criticism is often ignorant of all of the factors, most of which are behind-the-scenes elements. Nevertheless, Waldron’s series of screen plays that saw the Seahawks’ drive stall was frustrating, especially after Alex Collins had added early life with some nice runs and a first down.
The 1st and 10 play with 5:26 remaining in the third quarter is an example of the Seahawks running a play-action passing play with a screen as the outlet. They set up a play-action “leak” shot down the field to Will Dissly and had the man-to-man look they wanted. Unfortunately, left guard Damien Lewis was beat rapidly by Everson Griffen’s inside move.
Wilson, with Griffen in the backfield fast-approaching, moved to his checkdown screen outlet. Unfortunately for the quarterback, Lewis—facing the backfield after being beat—collided with the releasing Collins and disrupted the screen element of the play as well. Wilson was forced to throw the ball away.
This is an example of a bizarre element to play-action concepts: trying to get better pass protection on play-action plays actually can harm the protection. While Seattle had Everett sift across the formation to try and sell the run fake, Lewis had a high hat all the way that told Griffen it was a pass. Griffen was therefore able to pull a surprising and fast inside move, rather than having to honor his run responsibility. Lewis was also harmed by Griffen’s wide alignment, almost on the inside shoulder of the tackle. This meant Lewis’ aiming point ended up too wide as Griffen narrowed down.
On 2nd and 10, Waldron opted for another fake screen. The receiving options were open in the zone holes, with the hard sell aspect of the tunnel screen sucking the outside underneath space of Peterson up.
The issue was that Wilson had no time to deliver the football. On the surface, it appears the offensive line just collapsed in the QB’s face, giving him no chance to get the throw off. Lewis did not get his hands out quickly enough and was bullied by Dalvin Tomlinson, allowing penetration on the TEX game. Meanwhile, at left tackle, Brown was setting for a play where he expected the ball to be out fast, but he was eventually beat by the spin move inside from Griffen, the second part of the TEX movement.
Yet Wilson himself could have executed this better. Despite being faced with a 3-technique to the man side of Seattle’s pass protection, Wilson still drifted uber wide in the pocket to sell the screen. This meant that Lewis had a more difficult job and also that the penetration through the B-gap killed the play. In truth, Wilson oversold the screen fake; a simple pump fake would have sufficed. As a result, down went Wilson for a loss of nine yards.
With 3rd and 19 as the down and distance, Seattle called a gun slip screen to Travis Homer against the prevent cover 2 look. Homer had some potential blocks downfield, but Lewis and Fuller ended up too tight and essentially went to the same man in their landmarks. The blocks took too long to set up and Homer, pushed to hurry things up or not, was caught from behind.
The final screen in the Vikings game arrived with 12:32 left to play on a 2nd and 4. The Seahawks really needed to score on this drive trailing by 10 with a porous defensive display. Instead, they ended up with a terrible loss of three yards.
They shifted pre-snap and got the man indicator that they wanted for this screen play. The idea for this play is that the man coverage player on the running back takes time to key the screen and keeps his depth, by which point the guard is on him and the rest of the coverage has been run off. The Seahawks opened the 2020 season with a touchdown on this play versus the Falcons.
The issue here was that, even with Wilson keeping his eyes downfield to try hold Eric Kendricks, the Minnesota linebacker had the leverage advantage on Gabe Jackson. Jackson had tried to help Fuller versus interior penetration first before releasing downfield. It was too late at that point, because the linebacker—not conflicted by anything—had widened with Chris Carson.
Carson tried to cut inside off this action, but nose tackle Armon Watts got outside well after quickly shedding Fuller. Therefore, Carson had to bounce outside again and into the tackle for loss. Carroll placed his hands on his hips.
Week 4 at 49ers
It made sense to give Wilson a screen call on this 2nd and 11 with 7:16 on the clock in the second quarter. The Seahawks’ offense was getting worked by the 49ers’ defensive front. San Francisco also gave Seattle the look required for the tunnel screen to pop, with a coverage spin that removed the alley safety and gave the Seahawks attractive angles.
The issue was that Wilson, perhaps rattled from the early shellacking, got sloppy with his mechanics, widening his base and suffering a loose step into the throw. This meant that Swain had to scoop the ball low, delaying the timing of the play and allowing the defensive end to run it down. The opportunity was wasted, with the gain limited to a disappointing two yards, thrusting the Seahawks into a 3rd and 9 situation.
Another 2nd and 11 screen call with another nice defensive look for the play to pop. By aligning in the 3x1 formation with 12 personnel, two tight ends, Seattle—in theory—had a duo of decent blocking threats to secure the most important areas for the screen play to pop.
This did not materialize post-snap. Dissly, who aligned attached to the core in more of a conventional spot for a tight end, pursued far outside as though he was still blocking versus middle field closed defense and accounting for the overhang defender.
Pre-snap, the 49ers spun late into a middle field open defense, which made this decision weird from Dissly. The result was Dissly heading on the same path and to the same defender as Colby Parkinson, then realizing late and looking to secure the backside pursuit and penetration of Fred Warner at middle linebacker. He achieved minimal contact.
Parkinson, meanwhile, appeared to expect double team help from Dissly on the apex defender. Parkinson’s outside leverage on the blocker suggests this. It was this approach that saw him blown by on the inside, letting weakside linebacker Marcell Harris run free to Carson.
While Carson managed to break the first tackle, he was delayed long enough for the high safety, Jaquiski Tartt, to run the alley and the rest of the pursuit to join the party. This should have been a gain that brought up the much sought-after 3rd and manageable. Instead, the catastrophic execution resulted in a 3rd and 10.
The context required for this 1st and 10 screen is that Seattle was in an up-tempo mode. Plus, the spread doubles, play-action screen to Lockett looked better to Wilson pre-snap, with 49ers cornerback Dre Kirkpatrick playing off and the defense showing a cover 4 shell with the B-gap bubble to Lockett’s side.
However, by the time the play-fake had taken place, Kirkpatrick had crashed down on Lockett and overhang defender Harris, left unblocked yet not in the in run fit due to the defensive line stunt, was also upon the receiver. This was a rough two-yard gain for Lockett.
The last screen against San Francisco came in the fourth quarter with 12:38 on the clock. On the 2nd and 15, the Seahawks shifted into a 3x1 formation and looked to run a tunnel screen against the 49ers’ middle field open defense. With the cornerback off and safety travelling with the shift, then bailing deep, Seattle faced some preferable circumstances.
The issue was how they blocked the play. Lockett, as the No. 2 receiver, went outside for the corner, leaving Parkinson at tight end with a difficult block on Dontae Johnson—a task made even trickier by the wide space of running this play to the field side.
Parkinson did aim for the upfield shoulder of his target and achieve some contact, yet Johnson was still able to contact Swain. This delayed Swain and forced him to cut inside, at which point the unblocked defensive end had pursued to finish the tackle.
Week 5 vs. Rams
There were zero screens for Wilson’s attack on Thursday Night Football. The closest we came was a smoke route check-down. On the other hand, when Geno Smith—and it netted 20 yards!
On 2nd and 10 at the Los Angeles 34-yard-line, Seattle aligned with its isolated receiver super wide to create more room in the alley. The Rams rotated the safety to this side down on a bonus fire zone, cover 3 sky weak post-snap.
Lewis did great to pass set the potential blitzing linebacker, Troy Reeder, to his side, then get out in space and clear out the force defender: hot to 2 safety Nick Scott. Meanwhile, Fuller chipped and released well to reach the low hole linebacker pursuing from the inside out. Reeder had tried to add on as a hug rusher, then, thanks to Lewis’ patience, desperately rotated back to the low hole. Only then did Reeder look to get back to the weakside again. Even Jackson managed to get across the field to pursuing nose tackle Greg Gaines and basketball flop block him.
One key was what Seattle did at left tackle. By pass-setting Brown, the Seahawks accounted for the past issues of an unblocked edge defender recognizing screen and pursuing from the backside to help make the play. Instead, L.A. linebacker Ogbonnia Okoronkwo was sold the idea of a drop back pass (note that this is common on the Seahawks’ running back slip screens).
The crucial quarterback elements to setting up the screen—deceiving the pass rush and coverage defenders—were as follows: Smith opened to the right side and looked deep, as though he was reading the safety shell; he also took two firm drop steps in the pocket and was still gaining depth as he made the throw.
Collins correctly read his blocks and was able to maximize the available yardage, falling forward via a spin move at the end of the catch-and-run.
Future Screens
Progressing with Smith under center will prove interesting. Wilson’s height does appear to impact his release point when throwing screen passes, negatively affecting the timing required for the designs to hit. Smith, on the other hand, is 6-foot-3 and does not have this problem.
However, the one real issue with Wilson on the plays studied here was trying to do too much with his lower half in the screen game. This had no relation to his upper body mechanics or height. Meanwhile, the low throw to Swain seemed more panic-induced.
Instead, the rest of the offense’s screen execution was torrid for Wilson and the blocking schemes appear to sometimes ask too much of the players in space. Hopefully, Smith achieves success throwing the screen passes because of the rest of the attack executing their assignments better. Only then can we truly enter the mechanics, height and quarterback execution discussion.
