Vision Board: Seahawks-Lions MNF

3 takeaways from Jon Gruden's Seahawks-Lions game preview serve as catalyst to 3 predictions: Seaside Joe 2037

If you happen to be a Seaside Joe subscriber who has always wished I would say less, today’s Vision Board preview of the Seahawks and Lions could be closer to what you ordered. Because this week I’m handing off some of the duties of breaking down the key matchups in Week 4’s Monday Night Football showdown to Jon Gruden.

Last week’s Vision Board against the Dolphins basically had the following requests: DK Metcalf has 150 yards, Devon Witherspoon delivers a game-changing hit, and Julian Love has an all-around great performance. Metcalf led Seattle with 104 receiving yards, Witherspoon didn’t have any forced fumbles (but Derick Hall and Dre’Mont Jones were each credited with one), and Love was good but I’d have to say that Hall was the one who ended up as the team’s best chance at a Defensive Player of the Week honor: 5 tackles, 2 sacks, 4 QB hits, 1 TFL, 1 FF.

Suffering injuries to almost every key front-seven player other than Hall, will the Seahawks defense be able to contain Detroit’s weapons in the backfield enough to give Seattle’s offense a chance to win this game on the road?

In my opinion, Gruden’s preview of this game is going to surpass all others. And I would never blame anyone for saying “I don’t like Gruden” or “Gruden’s not for me”, but I challenge those people to hear Gruden compliment Seahawks players with his specific style of Grudenisms and to not get a little bit fired up.

As I’ve been writing, Gruden’s previews are unparalleled in the NFL media right now. Here’s a veteran NFL head coach coach who scouted, drafted, coached, coached against, or at least worked with behind the scenes as media for most current NFL players and he’s giving the best look to fans of what it’s like for teams to gameplan for their opponents every week. I was excited at the idea that the Seahawks might get a Gruden preview because they’re on Monday night and sure enough we did get one:

For the first three weeks, I’ve been using my favorite reality shows as vision kickoffs, but I’m all out of favorite reality shows. I’d rather give you more football and use Gruden’s preview for this week’s three visions.

Rayshawn Jenkins turned down Jon Gruden

“Tyrel Dodson and Tyrice Knight have been very impressive. What are they going to do now against David Montgomery and Jahmyr Gibbs? I mean does that excite you? It excites me! I can’t wait to see it. Because that’ll be a real test. Then they use this 42, ex-Raider Drake Thomas, he comes in the game. He’s a good player as well, he’s not the biggest linebacker but if you run Gibbs on a choice route out of the backfield, you might want to see a little bit of Drake Thomas in the game.

When I think of the secondary of the Seahawks, all I can think of is the Legion of Boom. My favorite players: Earl Thomas, Kam Chancellor, Richard Sherman, Brandon Browner, they were awesome! Well, these guys might not have all of that clout yet, but they come from different places. Two veteran safeties—Rayshawn Jenkins, who came from the Jaguars…I tried to sign Jenkins when he was with the Chargers. Shame on you for not coming with me! You know you broke my heart.

Anyways, Jenkins does a lot of damage for Mike Macdonald as the underneath safety. He plays linebacker a lot in their dime defense, he’s wearing number two now, he changed his number. He went to Seattle, reinvented himself just like Dre’Mont Jones. That’s a credit to Macdonald and his coaches.”

I wrote about Jenkins back in May as one of three Seahawks players who could see their stock go up this season, and again when I was previewing Seattle’s two potential Pro Bowl safeties. Jenkins now leads the team with 26 tackles and it’s felt like he’s come close several times to breaking off a huge play, but he has no other stats besides tackles to this point.

Universal Request: Rayshawn Jenkins picks off Jared Goff

Jenkins had five interceptions in the past two seasons with Jacksonville, so he doesn’t have stone hands like Jamal Adams. There’s potential here to pick off 2-3 passes this season and though Jared Goff is usually good with protecting the football, he hasn’t been as good in the first three games, throwing four interceptions. As I wrote in this week’s 3 non-negotiables, the Seahawks should try and make Goff beat them with his arm.

I see Jenkins cutting off an underneath route—or maybe picking off a deflected pass—to get his first turnover as a Seahawk.

It’s never been a better time to stop the Lions run game

“Let’s talk about the (Lions) offensive line because this has been as good of a group from left tackle to right tackle as there is in pro football. They have Penei Sewell at right tackle, Taylor Decker at left tackle—Geez, I wish I would have thought of that, Goff! That’s pretty impressive. But they have an injury this week: Their center we talked about, Frank Ragnow, is out. So what are they going to do? Rumor has it they’re going to move left guard Graham Glasgow to center and insert a new guard, so it’s a two-position switch for the Lions. We’re moving out left guard to center, we’re bringing a guy off the bench to play left guard…the Saints did that last week against Philly when they lost their center and it didn’t work out very good. This could be an Achilles heel in this game. Can Glasgow play center? Are the shotgun snaps going to be accurate? Can he block as good as Ragnow? Can the new left guard do as good as Glasgow? That could weaken two positions and that could be a problem for the running backs.”

I quoted some of Gruden’s thoughts on Knight and Dodson in the Rayshawn Jenkins section. How Seattle’s linebackers hold up (as well as how Detroit’s own backup linebacker situation) will determine how good of a job the defense does in giving the offense a chance to win a close game. These last two games have been high-scoring affairs and maybe that’s not different this time, but the Lions defense hasn’t been a joke this year.

Detroit has a top-5 run defense and they’re pretty much average or above-average across the board, with the caveat that it’s only been three games.

Universal Request: Hold the Lions under 103 rushing yards

I’m going to go ahead and pick the number 103 for no apparent reason. The Lions rushed for 163, 139, and 187 yards in their first three games, respectively. So keeping them to 103 could be awesome for Seattle.

Even though the Seahawks are down their top-two interior defensive line presences, the Lions are also replacing two interior players on the other side. Perhaps that’s just enough to get an edge over David Montgomery.

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Stone Forsythe vs. Aidan Hutchinson

“The offensive line of the Seahawks has a very interesting problem at right tackle. We all know that Charles Cross is the left tackle, former first rounder. Connor Williams is doing a great job at center. Anthony Bradford at right guard, he has had his moments where he struggled in pass protection. But at right tackle, it’s their third team right tackle already. They’ve already had a couple of terrible injuries, so you’re going to see 78 Stone Forsythe playing over there. He’s battling. He’s hanging in there. He’s gonna see Aidan Hutchinson and five of his 6.5 sacks have come over here on the right side. So you’re gonna see number 97 looking for Forsythe repeatedly in this game. I can’t wait to see if Forsythe can rise to the occasion and shut down arguably the hottest pass rusher in the NFL, but we have to have a chip and help system, especially on the right side. Seattle can’t let Hutchinson do what he did to Tampa: The Bucs played their backup right tackle and what did he do? BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM! He got him four times, so we have to make sure that doesn’t happen to Seattle and the help system will be big.”

You can’t just take my word for it. You have to watch Gruden’s preview to get 100% of what he said and he goes into Gruden’s Glossary to explain a chip help system to fans curious to know more:

Is Forsythe going to hold down the fort long enough to give Geno Smith a chance to hit DK Metcalf and Seattle’s other receivers down the field?

Universal Request: Aidan Hutchinson has no sacks

Including playoffs, Hutchinson has at least one sack in seven of his last eight games and he has a total of 14.5 sacks in those eight games. Well, that’s pretty…That’s…maybe I’m asking too much?

I’m not the expert or the guy to ask, but I couldn’t quite understand why there was any hesitation to draft Hutchinson with the first or second pick in 2022. Obviously the Jaguars should have drafted him, but even when Hutchinson went second overall to the Lions I remember there being some skepticism that he’d be more than a 6-8 sack type of edge rusher in the NFL.

He already has 6.5 sacks in the first three games of this season.

Forsythe was a “hot winner” in Week 3, this is now arguably the biggest test of his career so far.

Jay’s Says

Every week this season, my wife Seaside Jay will pick a hero from the Seahawks and a zero from the opponent based on vibes. Last week, she picked Forsythe and Dolphins center Aaron Brewer. Better picks than mine!

Hero of the week is... Geno Smith! Geno's Instagram handle is just @geno. Jay is my nickname but my full first name is unique enough that I can use just that as my username on most websites. I joined Venmo, the mobile payment app, in 2012 and was able to snag my first name as my username! A tradition at my college was Senior Paint Day where seniors could paint something on the wall of the campus quad to be left up until the next year. My peers painted inspirational quotes and art. Me? I painted "venmo me @jay_____" and over the course of a year, random strangers on campus would send me $1 or $5. I received probably $50 in total! Why else is Geno the hero of this week? He's a Libra and so am I. I got great news this week and I feel in my bones that Geno will too. 

Zero of the week is... Lions QB Jared Goff. Alright, fine!! He's a Libra too! Goff went from L.A. to Detroit and I think he's just soooooo lame for that.