Bobby Wagner: Ken Norton Jr. Deserves Plenty of Praise for Seahawks' Historic Turnaround

After a historically awful first-half performance, Seattle's defense has made a 180 degree turn in the second half of the season. Though the players deserve a ton of credit for this resurgence, the coaching staff, particularly Norton Jr., should also receive plenty of praise for the resurgence.

While the outlook for the Seahawks' defense wasn’t looking too positive through the first eight games of the 2020 season, they’ve since been able to turn the corner after their historically poor start and an unprecedented turnaround goes beyond the players simply performing better on the field.

Falling flat out of the gate, Seattle's defense failed to perform effectively on multiple fronts early on, as they allowed over 350 passing yards per game and nearly 30 points per game through the first nine contests. Reaching a tipping point in Week 9, where they surrendered 44 points against the Bills – the most points allowed under the Pete Carroll era – everyone involved knew some critical changes needed to be made.

Though adjusting mid-season is usually a difficult task to accomplish, this defensive group has done exactly that, as they haven’t allowed more than 270 passing yards or 22 points in each of their last six games. Considering defensive coordinator Ken Norton Jr. faced a ton of criticism as the scapegoat for the Seahawks dismal first half showing, linebacker Bobby Wagner believes those same critics should be praising him for being able to help lead a historic turnaround.

“I would like to hear the positive just as loud as the negative,” Wagner explained. "We understood it wasn’t just him. We understood it was all of us, we all played a part in what we were doing in the beginning of this season versus where we are now. He deserves a lot of praise. He’s a big reason for why we’re able to change it around and I would like to hear a little bit more positivity.”

Without any preseason games or a traditional offseason program, the Seahawks were limited to just mock scrimmages and practices over the summer, which undoubtedly played a factor in the defense’s slow start. Adding on top of this, they also brought in several new players over the offseason, including Benson Mayowa, Bruce Irvin, Jamal Adams, Quinton Dunbar, and rookies such as Jordyn Brooks and Alton Robinson.

Making things even more challenging, the defense also dealt with numerous injuries midway through this season, preventing the group from creating some much-needed chemistry. But now that the group is far healthier overall, Wagner feels the entire unit has found a way to come together and play up to their full potential during this final stretch. 

“I think the early part of the season it was just a lot of things that needed to happen that hadn’t happened yet,” Wagner discussed. “Whether it was us having time to gel together, us having the guys out there playing with one another for a long period of time. So I think what you’re seeing is the product of that. Us being able to be on the field at the same time, getting guys healthy, everybody being able to play and learn from one another.”

Digging deeper into this historic turnaround, only 13 teams in NFL history have surrendered at least 300 passing yards per game through the first nine games of the season. Unfortunately for Seattle, they gave up the most total passing yards (3,180), the most passing yards per game (353.33), and the second-most points per game (29.56) among that group, according to Pro Football Reference.

But over the last six games, the Seahawks have allowed just 189.7 passing yards per game and 13.67 points per game, which are both easily the lowest averages among all 13 of those teams during their final seven games.

As for Seattle's pass rush, they've also performed much more effectively recently, as they’ve averaged 3.9 sacks per game over the past eight games. In comparison, they averaged just 1.7 sacks per game through the first seven contests of the season.

Since the No. 1 seed in the NFC is still up for grabs, it’ll be extremely important for the Seahawks to not play down to their competition on Sunday against the 6-9 49ers. With that in mind, Wagner is confident everyone will be playing with the right mindset as they attempt to take care of business during their final game of the regular season.

“They’re going to fight and we’re going to fight too because there’s still stuff out there for us to get,” Wagner detailed. “So you don’t want to have that mental drought going into the playoffs. So everybody needs to stay locked in. Everybody knows that’s where we’re at with it and [the] coach’s messages, our message, has kind of been that way.”