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Charlie Swift's avatar

Two things I think. The first is that this year is less about Geno and more about the development of the young core around him. Cross and Lucas need to continue to improve from average NFL tackles to good NFL tackles. Walker needs to learn when to take a 2 yard gain and live to play another down. I think those things will happen, but I do not think that those things alone will not be enough to keep the Seahawks offense from again slumping in the second half.

The Seahawks offense slumping in second half of the season was not something that started with Geno. It had been happening under Russ as well, and I don't think it was because Russ slumped in his play per se I think it was because the offense collectively struggled to beat cover 2 pressman variations.

To understand why this an issue I think it is necessary to understand the core identity of a Pete Carol offense. Over the years the Seahawks offense has been run first play action shot play offense - e.g. pound the body and then when they come down into the box take the top off. The one thing all of Pete's QBs (Palmer/Russ and Geno) have in common is they can throw a deep ball and throwing the ball deep, to create game altering plays is at the heart of what Pete wants to do. For the past five plus years this formula has stopped working in the second half of the season.

One obvious reason it stopped working is the body blows delivered by the running game lost their sting in the second half of the season due to of injuries. But if Pete believed the problem would be solved with another Marshawn Lynch, he would have drafted Robinson the closest thing to a modern Marshawn Lynch to come out in the last 15 years. Instead he drafted JSN and Charbonnet, and they must make a difference against the Cover 2 schemes that have bedeviled the Seahawks or Geno and Seahawks are likely to again stall again this year.

The most effective defense against Pete's deep shot offensive philosophy is Cover 2. Cover 2 has a wide variety of different coverages that the underneath 5/4 can run. At the being year , defenses are less likely to adjust underneath coverage scheme on the fly based on what they are reading because they are not sure what they are seeing and the risk of busted coverage is higher. All of which allowed the Geno to identify the coverage variation and from that the primary receiver and secondary depending on the matches and routes. But as the year progressed opposing defenses got more and more tape on what the Seahawks were running allowing them to adjust coverage on the fly and disguise coverages depending on what the Seahawks showed pre snap. These coverages cannot be consistently beaten with scheme or pre-snap reads. After the snap the Cover 2 beaters (primary receivers) are typically not the outside receivers, instead the primary receivers are the inside receivers (tight end, the running back or the slot receiver), depending on the rush configuration and the cover 2 variation. To be consistently effective after the snap an inside receivers has to be able to do what a good outside receiver can do - recognize what the coverage for their route is - man or zone, whether the coverage is inside or outside leverage, and then be able to beat man or zone coverage in manner that the quarterback can anticipate. All of this has to happen in the first five to ten yards of the route (between 1 and 1.5 seconds after the snap). If it does not then QB when the QB looks for the primary receiver after reading the defense the receiver is not open has to move from the primary to the next read and then the next read. All of which means the QB holds the ball longer and or forces the ball into coverage. That basically describes the second half of the Seahawks seasons as of late.

Schemes will get you so far against cover 2 but at some point your inside receivers have to win their routes on talent rather scheme if a team is going to consistently beat cover 2. Since Doug Baldwin retired and Jimmy Graham moved on, that has been very hard in Seattle because the Seahawks have had not real threat receiving on the inside who could consistently win inside routes.

Enter JSN and Charbonnet, collectively they need to be cover 2 killers 1A and 2B in the second half of the season that force teams to play single high with one on one matchups for Metcalf/Lockett. If things happen then I think Geno will be just fine and the Seahawks will have a top 10 and maybe even a top 5 offense.

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Doug's avatar

The challenge for Geno is to just keep focused on being the best he can be and to keep the noise of "do this and you'll be great" out. Keep trying to go 1-0 every week, take care of the football, run the offense the way it is designed, and he will be successful. He has to find a way to Keep it Loose and Keep it Tight at the same time. (I love this track by Amos Lee, who is kind of the musical equivalent to Geno in some ways.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xt8dVLPLFc

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