Is this a genius play call by Jay Harbaugh?

A breakdown of Laviska Shenault's kickoff return TD that will make Seahawks fans doubled-over: Seaside Joe 2055

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Largentium: Can we talk about special teams? It seems to me this area has taken a huge step backwards and while it doesn't have the impact as the offense and defense do, it's clearly cost the team one game and impacted a couple of others. I was really unhappy when Larry Izzo wasn't retained and the nepo baby has definitely dragged them down. There used to be good rankings on Football Outsiders but since they have gone belly up there doesn't seem to be any public sites doing that kind of work anymore. So I ask you SSJ, what are your impressions of the special teams?

First of all, thank you for the question about special teams because I think it is important for us to all get a better grasp of how poorly or well the third phase is actually playing through six games. I can completely understand why some fans wanted to retain Larry Izzo—for the fans who knew who the special teams coordinator was for the past three seasons—as he was a great story as a player and Seattle’s special teams was the least of our concerns recently.

However, is Jay Harbaugh the latest victim of being a coach who nobody really has any emotional ties to and might be blamed for Dee Williams being a disappointment and Jason Myers missing a field goal in three straight games? (But otherwise still being pretty good.)

Before we get into that, I’ve been wanting to share this short 3-minute breakdown of Laviska Shenault’s kickoff return touchdown — special teams hurt the Seahawks last Thursday, but this play is the only reason the game was ever close in the fourth quarter — by the channel Isaac Punts.

I can guarantee you that beyond a shadow of a doubt I’ve NEVER in my entire life of being a football fan known or even thought to learn about the terminology and kickoff return blocking schematics that I did in this three minutes and it does, for me at least, absolve Jay Harbaugh of blame entirely:

“I’m not going to lie, this Seahawks kickoff return is just a little bit filthy and it’s why they have the second kickoff return average in the NFL. Had the Cardinals not gotten a 98-yard return (by DeeJay Dallas in Week 1), that was in my opinion more of a result of poor tackling than good blocking, then the Seahawks might have the best kickoff return average…”

Indeed, Laviska Shenault now leads the entire league with a 33.5-yard kickoff return average, including the second TD return in the new format after DeeJay Dallas. But if you’ve just watched the video, you know that Harbaugh’s return had a lot more of a plan to it than whoever Arizona’s special teams coordinator is right now.

I like to transcribe these videos because it helps me retain the information by reading it in addition to listening to it, so I won’t write down everything he said (you must watch it!) I will write down some more key points on why Shenault scored last week. It wasn’t by accident!

“They’re going to run a triple-double and no we’re not talking about basketball. It means that they’re double-teaming three different people. If there are 10 people covering the kicks and 10 people blocking, that means that there are going to be three people running scot-free because one person from each of those people is going to be blocking somebody else in a double-team. Now the three people that are going to come free is a calculated decision.

So most of the time, there are only one or two true free rushers, as a team will tend to double a single threat or maybe even a double-double…”

Obviously, Shenault fumbled on his second return and that was devastating. But I wouldn’t feel right to point the finger at Harbaugh for his fumble or for Dee’s fumble in Week 1. Williams is obviously figuring a lot out in the NFL over his first six weeks, I think we should give him as much slack as we’d give Christian Haynes for his first-year growing pains. The problem being that we know returners are far less valuable than almost any other position besides longsnapper (no offense) so we don’t necessarily have patience for a special teamer who makes multiple mistakes and has no history in the league.

But if we don’t blame Harbaugh for the fumbles by Williams and Shenault, do we have much else to be mad at special teams for this season? Only the second special teams unit in the NFL to score a touchdown on a kickoff return.

Here’s more on what Isaac Punts had to say about why the play worked:

“Either two people to the side of the returning to, or sometimes two people, just dead in the center. But the Seahawks are not here to play around…On the return side they’re going to double the five, double the three, with a single block on the four, and the off returner (the returner who doesn’t return the kick) is going to sort out the most dangerous man on that side, so they don’t have to guess if the safety is the one or the two. Then the genius play, what I really love, is they are going to not double the offside 5. Heck, they’re not even going to single the offside 5. They are letting this guy, dead center of the play, come down scot-free. Why? Let’s take a look.”

If you still haven’t watched the video, I recommend doing that. I won’t spoil the ending.

But essentially Isaac says that the hardest place to make a tackle is directly in the middle of the field, so Harbaugh sets the 49ers up to have a one-on-one in the center of the field and Shenault burns the defender for it. “The guy lined up on top of the returner has to make the most decisions, stop his feet, and wait for the returner to make a move, unlike everybody else, so he can’t close space as much.”

Isaac also praises the Seahawks blockers “everyone is blocking their asses off”, and notes that if a team can hold their blocks up to the point that the returner reaches the 25, it’s hard not to score a touchdown.

How else can we breakdown special teams through six games?

Overall, Seattle is third in kickoff return average as a team but they also have 18 returns, second-most in the NFL. So it’s great that their 31.3 average is elite on a BIG sample size. (The Packers have 3 kickoff returns in six games, so one/third as often and I don’t know how that is explained.)

Myers has missed three field goals, but one of those attempts was blocked (which in itself is a question of how the Seahawks did allow that to happen) and the other two were from 53 and the other was from 62! Kickers are going to miss from 53 sometimes and from 62 almost all of the time. The fact is that the Seahawks got got by the Giants on the field goal block, I’ll admit it, but otherwise I would have no qualms with Seattle’s field goal unit. They’ve made nine other kicks, including two beyond 50, and all of their extra points.

Punting, I have expressed several times in the past that I think Michael Dickson had just as much to prove under Izzo as he does right now. I don’t blame Harbaugh for Dickson’s inconsistency because Dickson has not been a top-5 NFL punter for quite some time. This is probably the only area of special teams that I’d like to see an improvement on over the next three months and where I’d ask the most questions about what Harbaugh is doing differently to try and help Dickson become great again.

It would be cool to have a higher punt return average for sure (8.1 is 24th in the NFL) but this is not consequential to me yet because I’m not going to give some other team a ton of credit for having a higher average just because they had one long return. That’s all it would take for the Seahawks go from 24th to top-10. One return. If Seattle wanted to replace Dee Williams, I’d have no problem with that. But it seems that they really believe in his potential to get better and don’t want to cut him for mistakes since mistakes are what help rookies get better.

Is Jay Harbaugh having a rough first season in the NFL? I don’t know. But I know that he is going to have a long coaching career unless something goes horribly wrong and thus far nothing has been that horrible aside from a few plays, two of which I don’t really blame him for. And all of it gets offset for me by this Shenault return.

Defjames: I’d love to see your list of players / position groups who aren’t delivering on their contracts and what it would do for salary cap and return on draft picks if we “cleaned house”.

I love this question because it makes me realize that I’ve spent more time on “bad contracts” than any of us would like to remember and hopefully the Seahawks don’t give out many in the future.

Overall, I just want to say that if I give an answer like Tyler Lockett, I wouldn’t frame it as he didn’t deliver on his contract. He is overpaid now because he was a value in the past. So yeah, no disrespect to Lockett but he is not anything close to a $19 million receiver anymore and he won’t be seeing the $17 million he is scheduled to make in 2025.

DK Metcalf, Dre’Mont Jones, Uchenna Nwosu, and Noah Fant.

Anyone else I could mention doesn’t make enough money for it to matter all that much. As in, I don’t know if Jerome Baker’s been worth $6.7 million yet, but someone had to play linebacker and that’s not too expensive for giving Baker a shot to win the job long-term. As far as cleaning house, for anyone who hasn’t read the $120 million in 2025 decisions article yet, that’s a good starting point. I will update it closer to the end of the season.

Cold Steel and Sunshine: I have a question for you. You mentioned DK and his value. I have a question concerning Leonard Williams. How big of a liability is he in the run game? Hankins and Reed are known run stoppers. Murph Is to be determined but Williams was on a really bad Giants run defense and since getting here our run defense has been horrible. What gives?

The Giants are 31st in rushing yards per carry allowed in 2024. I think it’s difficult to pin their bad run defense on Williams when it’s a franchise that has struggled more than any other team in the past ten years. And the Seahawks had a horrific run defense for years before they traded for Williams.

It’s hard for me to point a finger at Leonard Williams for run defense when I’ve heard so many people put blame on the linebackers and safeties, and even the coaches have done that to some degree. With Rayshawn Jenkins going on IR this week, I wonder if the Seahawks will show any improvement on defense because he’s been a bit of a target for opposing teams both in the pass game and the run game.

I wish the Seahawks could replace Hankins with a second Williams and Reed with a third Williams. Maybe you could run on them a little bit, but who would you block? You can’t double-team three players. Here’s Leonard Williams tossing Hall of Famer Trent Williams to the side for a run stop at the LOS:

Leonard Williams was my third highest-graded Seahawk going into the season but he’s definitely surpassed DK Metcalf and he might also be doing more to help the team right now than Devon Witherspoon. As you alluded to, I can’t wait to see him and Byron Murphy II back together again.

Grant: My eyes tell me that Rayshawn Jenkins isn't playing well and it's hurting the team more than anyone is talking about. It's a tough position to evaluate because we really only notice him when something goes very right or very wrong, but my feeling is that he's the closest defender on a lot of drive-extending completions and he's the guy that too often should have been in that hole they just ran through. I'm also less forgiving of a guy with his level of experience playing what to me looks like indecisive football. If you're gonna make mistakes, make them big like Julian Love. I guess my question is, does anyone agree with me?

I do! Anyone else?

Rusty: So how long can OC Grubb dial up 50 passes a game before something or someone breaks?

I looked to find out which teams had the most passing attempts through six games in 2023 and the answers:

Y’all may now, because he’s on the Seahawks now, that Sam Howell’s Moons led the NFL in pass attempts last season but they were only tied for ninth through six games. The team that had the most passing attempts through six games, the Panthers, ended the season ranked 13th.

The Seahawks have 251 pass attempts. More than Carolina at this point last year. But at this point in 2022, three teams had at least 250 pass attempts and all three finished in the top-10 for pass attempts, including the Chargers who were 2nd and the Cardinals who were 4th.

Very longwinded way of saying that I expect the Seahawks to still pass the ball much more often than they run it—which tells me more about Seattle’s problems with turnovers (27th in giveaways, 27th in takeaways) and defense than it does about Ryan Grubb’s preferred plan to attack. I certainly want to see Grubb’s run game be so successful that the Seahawks can’t help but to run the ball even if they’re losing. The team is fifth in yards before contact per rush (1.97), a sign that maybe the blocking isn’t that bad, so hopefully if Kenneth Walker III stays healthy, Seattle could still become one of the more dominant run teams.