What's Behind Seahawks Lack of Play Action Usage?

In his first two years as a starter, play action served as a major weapon for Geno Smith and the Seahawks, but that has not been the case in Ryan Grubb's offense.

Dec 8, 2024; Glendale, Arizona, USA; Seattle Seahawks quarterback Geno Smith (7) against the Arizona Cardinals at State Farm Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images / Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images

RENTON, Wash. - In his first two seasons as a starter for the Seattle Seahawks, few quarterbacks in the NFL performed at a higher level on play action passes than Geno Smith.

On his way to winning Comeback Player of the Year in 2022, Smith completed 75.3 percent of his 150 play action pass attempts and tossed eight touchdowns, helping lead the Seahawks to a wild card berth. Though they missed the playoffs last season, per Pro Football Focus charting, he remained lethal off play fakes, completing 73.9 percent of his attempts with an NFL-best 12 Big Time Throws and 9.6 yards per attempt.

But mystifyingly, with new offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb at the helm, it has felt at times like Seattle has taken play action concepts out of the playbook. After finishing with north of a 23 percent play action drop back rate each of the past two years, Smith ranks 29th out of 30 qualified quarterbacks attempting play action passes on just 16.8 percent of his drop backs, ahead of only Atlanta veteran Kirk Cousins.

As far as the reasoning for the dearth of play action calls, it's easy to point at the Seahawks struggling run game as the primary culprit. The team currently ranks 28th in rushing yards, 20th in yards per attempt, and 25th in run success rate, which has made it more difficult to sell play fakes against opponents who don't respect their run game.

Philosophically, Grubb also operated one of the most pass-heavy offenses in the FBS division at Washington, and he has tried to deploy the same attack with less potency at the NFL level so far. Whether for lack of trust in Seattle's offensive line or overconfidence in the passing game, the team has been near the top of the league in pass rate all year with the fourth fewest rushing attempts and second-fewest play action passes.

Looking at correlation between rushing success and play action success, based on data from Pro Football Focus and RBSDM.com, six of the 10 teams with the highest play action drop back percentage have rushing success rates north of 40 percent. Eight of those teams sit in the top 15 in the NFL in rushing yardage and each of the top 10 teams in play action touchdowns sits above the bottom third in rush success rate as well, illustrating that running the ball does have an impact on the effectiveness of play action.

However, even with Seattle's well-documented problems establishing a consistent run game to complement Smith and his arsenal of talented receivers, the veteran quarterback has still been fairly efficient on play action passes when Grubb has actually called them. He has still completed 67.5 percent of his play action throws with a pair of touchdowns and before exiting Sunday night's loss to Green Bay, he completed three of four attempts for 55 yards, averaging almost 17 yards per completion.

A defensive-minded coach as the former coordinator for the Ravens, coach Mike Macdonald doesn't see the relationship between rushing effectiveness and a quality play action game as necessarily a black and white topic, believing other factors also way into the success of play fakes that can help teams be effective with them even if the run game isn't firing on all cylinders.

“I stand on both sides of the argument," Macdonald explained. "I think it’s more based on the sets and the protections and the situations that dictate what defenses can do in some of those situations. We have a good play action pass game, probably should see more of it frankly. To a certain extent, the effectiveness of your run game affects play action game, especially if you get it really going. But those are good plays.”

Macdonald has been pushing for Grubb to put more emphasis on the run game for weeks now, continuing to do so on Monday after Seattle scored just 13 offensive points in a prime time loss, in part due to the fact the team has been running better as of late. Zach Charbonnet erupted for 134 rushing yards and two touchdowns in a road win at Arizona and the team surpassed 170 rushing yards for the first time since January 2023.

Coming off of that breakout performance, Macdonald understandably seemed frustrated by the fact that the Seahawks only had 15 carries for running backs on Sunday night despite averaging a healthy five yards per carry, with three of those touches coming in garbage time for undrafted rookie George Holani with the game already decided in the closing minutes.

In the first half, Grubb called pass plays on 16 out of 22 offensive snaps, equating to a 72 percent pass rate. Charbonnet only received four carries and rushed for 19 yards, averaging 4.8 yards per carry with those limited opportunities, and after he ripped off a 24-yard touchdown run on a buck sweep in the fourth quarter to draw Seattle within 10 points with more than 10 minutes left to play, he didn't receive another carry for the rest of the night.

In spite of that, Macdonald remained adamant that he and Grubb remain on the same page, and that the two need to work together to find the right balance to take pressure off of Smith and the rest of the offense.

“We wanted to run it more going into the game for sure," Macdonald said. "We didn’t get as many runs in as we thought, partially because of circumstance but there were some opportunities in the game that we both felt like runs could have been better utilized. We’re going to learn from those things. But we’re on the same page on how we’re calling games and all that. But absolutely, we need to get our run game going.”

With the running game being all but abandoned for large stretches of the game, the Packers were able to pin their ears back and hunt Smith, which led to his knee injury in the third quarter that forced Sam Howell into action. From there, Grubb proceeded to call 12 straight pass plays with his backup quarterback in the lineup, and predictably, he was sacked twice and completed just four of nine pass attempts before Charbonnet picked up the slack with his long touchdown run.

Somewhat ironically, Grubb did call five play action passes after Howell checked in, more than he did for Smith in two-plus quarters. But he took a sack and completed two of four passes for a grand total of three yards with Green Bay not buying the fake at all given the lack of rushes and frequently pressuring him right after the snap.

Under such circumstances when trailing by 17 on the scoreboard, even if play action success isn't fully dependent on the effectiveness of a run game, trying to cheat the system without making a concerted effort to sell the run at all isn't going to yield positive results.

With three games left to play, the Seahawks need more from their offense to have any shot at finishing strong and potentially winning an NFC West title. The defense has been good enough over the past five weeks to carry the team without Smith and company scoring a bunch of touchdowns, but with the Vikings and Rams remaining on the schedule, failing to surpass 20 points in either of those games will spell disaster just like Sunday night.

Some of the onus falls on Smith and his receivers, particularly in the red zone where they have struggled mightily, while some of it falls on an offensive line that took a big step back last weekend after playing better in the previous two games, which may explain prior hesitancy to run the ball more or incorporate play action. Play calling only goes so far and the players have to execute on the field, which hasn't always been the case this year for Seattle.

But closing in on the conclusion of his first season as an NFL play caller, Grubb carries the most weight on his shoulders to get the Seahawks offense untracked and has much left to prove in the heat of a playoff race. With a talented cast of players at his disposal, leaning a bit more on the run game and scheming play action passes off of it would be a good starting point to get the group rolling and play up to their potential in crunch time.

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