Consistency Continues to Elude Seahawks' Underachieving Run Game

Despite having two talented running backs and a young line featuring several high draft picks, the Seattle Seahawks' rushing attack has remained grounded most of the 2023 season. What has went wrong and why does Pete Carroll remain optimistic the run game can find a rhythm down the stretch?

Running the football effectively has always been at the core of coach Pete Carroll's philosophy for a balanced offense, so it shouldn't come as a surprise the Seattle Seahawks have invested an abundance of resources looking to improve their ground attack over the past two offseasons.

Unfortunately, while Seattle does have a pair of talented young tackles to build around in Charles Cross and Abraham Lucas, moves such as drafting running backs Ken Walker III and Zach Charbonnet in the second round of the previous two drafts and signing center Evan Brown in free agency haven't bore fruit as Carroll envisioned bolstering the run game. In fact, the team has taken a substantial step backward compared to a year ago despite their continued investments and returning talent.

Losing four consecutive games and five of their past six overall, the Seahawks have failed to hit 90 rushing yards in any of those defeats, including being held under 30 yards in a 37-3 blowout loss to the Ravens in Week 9. Averaging less than 75 rushing yards per game, a dismal 3.6 yards per carry, and only two rushing touchdowns during that stretch, Carroll's squad has plummeted to 28th in rushing offense, which would be their lowest ranking since finishing 31st in 2010.

From an advanced analytics perspective, according to RBSDM.com, Seattle ranks a pedestrian 16th in Expected Points Added per rush (-0.093) and 22nd in success rate on run plays (37.8 percent), a far cry from the dominant rushing attacks the franchise once deployed from 2012 to 2015.

Now 6-7 and sitting in ninth place in the NFC standings, the inability to execute consistently on the ground has played a key role in Seattle falling short of lofty expectations through 14 weeks. While Carroll has seen a bit of progress over the past few weeks, he knows recent performance hasn't been good enough to help push his team back into the win column and must improve quickly for any chance at a late playoff push.

“There’s a consistency to it that I wish it was moreso," Carroll said of the run game struggles on Thursday. "We’re kind of finding our way into the 80, 90-yard areas. We need to get more yards out of it. We’ve hit a threshold for some reason of 20 to 23 plays, we need to run the ball a few more times and take advantage of it. It’s just part of mixing the whole thing. I’m hoping that we continue to go, we’re going to need it down the stretch here. The way I’m looking at this thing, with five other teams that are in this situation, the same one we’re in basically, the tournament is on. Here we go. It’s one week at a time, and we have to fight our way out of this thing."

What has gone wrong for the Seahawks in the run game department? While some bemoaned the selection of Walker and Charbonnet with day two picks in consecutive drafts over acquiring talent in the trenches, the Seahawks have received good, if not great, production from the pair of complementary runners. Based on traditional and advanced metrics, they don't appear to be the real issue.

After rushing for over 1,000 yards last season and finishing second in NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year balloting, Walker's overall numbers have dipped a bit this season with 634 yards and a 4.0 yards per carry average, which is more than a half a yard less per carry than his rookie campaign. He also hasn't scored a touchdown on the ground since Week 6 in Cincinnati after a strong start with six scores in the first five games.

But while his statistics have dipped across the board and he missed two games with an oblique injury, the explosive second-year back out of Michigan State has still been effective as big play threat. Though Walker only ranks 13th in rush attempts netting 15 yards or more, per Pro Football Focus, his breakaway percentage of 29.8 percent still ranks ninth out of 35 qualified runners. He also has done an outstanding job of creating his own yardage when blocking breaks down, ranking ninth with 35 missed tackles forced.

As for Charbonnet, after only being used sparingly early in the season, the rookie out of UCLA has found his groove in the second half of the season showcasing a blend of power and burst. Despite having 62 fewer carries than Walker, he has more runs of 10-plus yards (15) than his backfield counterpart (13) and ranks 18th out of 62 qualified ball carriers with averaging 3.03 yards per carry after contact, consistently pushing the pile forward and demonstrating surprisingly elusiveness in space.

Considering the production Walker and Charbonnet have given the Seahawks after contact and by forcing misses tackles, the duo has made the most of difficult circumstances, which puts the microscope on a rebuilt offensive line.

In defense of coach Andy Dickerson's unit, the front line has been ravaged by injuries all season long. Cross missed three games with a sprained toe, while Lucas spent more than two months on injured reserve with a weird knee issue. Meanwhile, Brown missed one start at center and guards Phil Haynes and Anthony Bradford have missed a combined eight games, creating a revolving door on the right side with Stone Forsythe, Jake Curhan, and Jason Peters each spelling Lucas with multiple starts.

Far too often this season, running backs such as Zach Charbonnet have found themselves ambushed behind the line of scrimmage on run plays with sub-par blocking / © Cary Edmondson-USA TODAY Sports

Still, Seattle entered this season with high hopes for a young, ascending offensive line that Carroll believed had better depth than the team has had up front in years. Whether fair or not, even with injuries in consideration, the group has not shown the growth anticipated, particularly in the run game.

Behind a shaky, inconsistent offensive line that has started nine different combinations in 13 games, Walker has been stopped at the line of scrimmage or in the backfield on 34 of his 157 carries, the ninth-highest total in the NFL. That's more than 21 percent of his carries. Interestingly, he had 54 such carries as a rookie on 228 runs, which was actually worse at a 23 percent rate.

With a propensity for trying to bounce plays outside to out-run defenders, not all of those negative plays can be blamed on the offensive line. But the vast majority of the runs went nowhere or backwards due to sub-par blocking.

From an individual standpoint, Seattle's offensive line has been evaluated a bit differently by ESPN and Pro Football Focus, who each have their own advanced metrics for assessing offensive line play.

According to ESPN's Run Block Win Rate, which determines the proportion of plays a blocker "won" based on angles, distances and speeds throughout the execution of a play, the Seahawks rank 22nd overall (70 percent) as an offensive line. From a positive standpoint, Cross ranks sixth among tackles with a 79 percent Run Block Win rate and Haynes has performed well when healthy, ranking eighth among interior linemen at 75 percent. But the rest of the line clearly has not performed near as well.

As for Pro Football Focus' evaluation, Seattle stands a bit more favorably with a 65.1 run blocking grade as a team, which ranks a respectable 12th overall. Oddly enough, Cross ranks 40th out of 60 qualified tackles in run block grade (61.0) and Haynes ranks a dreadful 60th (53.3) among qualified guards. Only one player - guard Damien Lewis - ranks in the top 20 at any of the offensive line position groups, while Brown (57.0) sits a dismal 27th out of 32 qualified centers.

Keeping those discrepancies on Cross and Haynes in mind, assessing offensive line play can be a tricky task and two sets of eyes can see vastly different things on any given play. But the stats and film don't lie: the Seahawks have not done an adequate job creating push off the line of scrimmage and creases for Walker and Charbonnet to work with, especially when running behind the interior offensive line.

According to Pro Football Focus charting, Seattle has ran the ball to either A-gap between Brown and the guards 88 times for 240 yards, which equates to an ugly 2.72 yards per carry. When the team has ran through the B-gap between the guards and tackles, they have been dramatically better, rushing 55 times for 303 yards and a stellar 5.5 yards per carry. Off tackle runs have been a mixed bag, with the Seahawks averaging 4.2 yards per carry behind the right tackle and just 2.4 yards per carry behind the left tackle.

Set to face the defending NFC champion Eagles in a critical Monday night matchup, the Seahawks must find a way to get their running game untracked for any shot to get hot down the stretch. From Carroll's perspective, along with better blocking in the trenches, improved third down efficiency leading to a handful more carries per game would make a major difference as well.

A major bugaboo for the offense all season long, Seattle currently ranks 27th in third down conversion rate at just 33.3 percent. But if there's a silver lining, even in defeat, the team did move the chains on nine out of 13 third down chances in a loss to San Francisco last Sunday, something Carroll hopes the team can build upon for the remainder of the season to spark the entire offense.

“It goes back again, the third down things limit our chances. You limit your drives; you limit your play on the field," Carroll elaborated. "We moved the ball pretty well this past week, but we just needed a few more shots. By converting, we can get nine more runs. Converting two or three more plays, you’re going to get six or eight more runs anyway. All of that ties together unfortunately. You could just stand there and keep running it to get your numbers up and you’re not playing winning football. You’re just doing it for the wrong reason. We just have to play good complementary ball and see if we can get that done and get the good movement going.”

From a big picture point of view, thanks to the longest losing streak of the Carroll era, the Seahawks have backed themselves into a corner with no margin for error if they want to get back to the postseason. Competition won't get any easier with the Eagles coming to town for a Monday night clash, as they will be looking for a get right game of their own after getting blown out by the 49ers and Cowboys in successive weeks.

With Philadelphia boasting the sixth-best rushing defense in the NFL and a stout defensive line anchored by Jordan Davis, Fletcher Cox, and rookie Jalen Carter, one would think running the ball will be a significant challenge for Seattle. But the team has given up 100 or more rushing yards in four consecutive weeks and allowed five rushing touchdowns in that span, showing cracks as the season progresses.

Confident in the talents of Walker and Charbonnet as a one-two punch and the young line in front of them that has gotten healthier in recent weeks, Carroll maintains his belief the Seahawks can still have a formidable ground game. But if that is going to happen this year to help facilitate a late surge with the playoffs unofficially underway from here on out, such improvements must start on Monday night to take pressure off of Geno Smith or Drew Lock and allow the offense to play to its full potential.

"There’s areas that we are working on and parts of our game that we hope we can improve and take better advantage of guys. This is still a wide-open opportunity. I don’t know how the other guys are looking at it, but I’m looking at it like it’s playoff time all the way down the stretch here. Every game is going to make a difference, as they always do, but it’s even more amplified now. I’m hoping that we can improve there and get a little bit better production to complement what we’re doing with the throwing game.”