Seahawks non-negotiables to beat Dolphins in Week 3

Seahawks can't overlook Skylar Thompson or the importance of being balanced on offense: Seaside Joe 2029

I will never grow tired of writing about the Seattle Seahawks and I am especially grateful for the chance to talk with you about games like the one we get to watch in two days because it might feature the best matchup we’ve seen from any game so far this year: How will the Seahawks cornerbacks and safeties (arguably the best/most athletic secondary in the NFL) do against the Dolphins receivers (arguably the best and definitely the most athletic in the NFL)?

I’m rooting for Riq Woolen, but there’s no reason to avoid the truth: Seattle’s cornerbacks are making their season debut on Sunday. If the best wide receiver that the Seahawks have faced this year is Courtland Sutton (his last 1,000-yard season was 2019), then the second-best is Josh Reynolds. That’s how untested Devon Witherspoon and Woolen have been through two games. It’s not a disparaging remark, it’s just a fact.

Now I’ll see your horses, and raise you a cheetah.

For the Seahawks to get the better of the Dolphins and improve to 3-0 for the first time since 2020, they’ll need to do a lot more than contain Tyreek Hill and Jaylen Waddle. But that would be a good start and these are three other non-negotiables I see as imperative needs for Seattle to maintain a perfect record.

If you are a free subscriber and enjoy this daily content, first of all thank you and second would you mind upgrading to paid this week. It’ll feed my family.

Non-Negotiable: Seahawks can’t underestimate Skylar Thompson

Setting aside situations where the backup is the more attractive option than the starter, like Drake Maye behind Jacoby Brissett in New England, it usually feels like a major loss when a team has to make an unexpected change at quarterback. That was my immediate reaction to Tua Tagovailoa’s latest head injury scare, which was that the Dolphins would be less potent on offense without him against the Seahawks.

Then I had a couple of more days to think about it and remembered that Tua was also the biggest reason that Miami lost to the Bills in Week 2 prior to his very unfortunate concussion: He threw interceptions on two of the first three drives, spotting Buffalo a free 10 points, then threw a pick-six on the Dolphins first possession of the second half.

People have always criticized Tua’s arm strength as being not good enough for the NFL, to which the quarterback has said those people are “just keyboard warriors”, and then he led the league in passing yards last season to which proponents could say, “I told you so”.

But the Dolphins finished third in the NFL in yards after catch (2,228 yards, which is nearly half of Tua’s total) and Miami has done everything in their power since drafting Tua to make sure he was given the best supporting cast they could possibly assemble and would mitigate his poor arm strength: Hire Mike McDaniel, Kyle Shanahan’s favorite offensive assistant (maybe ever), to run the offense, trade for Tyreek Hill, draft Jaylen Waddle, invest in the offensive line, and become the fastest team in the NFL at running back.

Even if we say that Tua’s strengths (accuracy, processing) are unparalleled, how many quarterbacks would be elated if they could swap supporting casts with Miami right now?

For the Seahawks secondary, this was probably never going to be a game of figuring out how to defend the 50-yard bomb or the explosive plays via air yards because whether you call me a keyboard warrior or not, that’s not what Tua was ever good at. A “60-yard throw” to Tua to dunk on the haters always showed up on film as a 45-yard throw that causes Hill to stop dead in his tracks, turn around, catch it, and make a man miss because corners are not accustomed to having stop dead in their tracks while running full speed in coverage.

If you think that Skylar Thompson is the best possible matchup for the Seahawks in Week 3, I’d argue that Seattle would have been even more fortunate to face the Tua that we saw in the first two games of the season because he was awful.

Despite another injury and the above clip where he throws a pick under pressure, Tua had the fourth-highest rates of clean pockets this season and the sixth-worst EPA from a clean pocket. The offensive line may not have been the problem, and I’m quite sure that Hill and Waddle are never a problem for the quarterback. Waddle has caught all nine passes thrown at him this season for 150 yards and has the fifth-best EPA for a receiver:

Per NFL+ Premium Pro Plus Picture Performance and Pasta, Waddle is eighth in receiver EPA and teammate De’Von Achane is ninth. Go back to 2023, Hill was second in the NFL in receiver EPA and Waddle was 15th, while Achane could have really had one of the best rookie seasons by a running back in history if not for injury. In two games this season, Achane has caught 14 of 14 targets for 145 yards and also rushed for 120 yards.

Per Next Gen Stats, plays by Dolphins represented 7 of the 14 fastest plays by ANY ball carrier in 2023: Hill was 3rd, 8th, 9th, and 14th on the list, while Achane was 4th and 6th on the list, and Raheem Mostert (coach McDaniel said he was “pessmistic” Mostert would play this week) was 10th.

So what does it really matter who starts for the Dolphins at quarterback? After two decades of trying to replace Dan Marino, Miami eventually decided it was EASIER to try and make a player seem like Dan Marino if they could at least get the #1 OC and the #1 WR in the league. (Debatable, I know, but it’s not farfetched.) This is why Tua’s recent $212 million contract extension was at least semi-bullshit because his $93 million full guarantee is the only one of the top-11 QB contracts to be under $100 million. I mean, he got slightly more than 36-year-old Kirk Cousins coming off of a torn Achilles.

Skylar Thompson isn’t good enough to start in the NFL? That’s probably true.

Skylar Thompson is good enough to distribute the ball to some of the NFL’s most gifted athletes? That’s probably true as well.

Adjustments: Seahawks must keep Skylar in the pocket

I’m not going to say that Thompson is an upgrade from Tua, but I do think he’s harder to gameplan for because a) he has almost no film other than his 2022 wild card game against the Bills and b) he’s a more mobile and elusive quarterback than Tua and against Seattle’s thus far questionable ability to finish sacks, that presents a potential problem for Mike Macdonald. Tua doesn’t extend plays, Thompson does, and that’s coming from coaches on both teams.

It is not news to Macdonald that Seattle’s job will be a little bit different this week than if Tua was starting, noting in the media that Thompson has “the same” abilities as Tua to get the ball out fast but also the element to extend the play in addition to that:

“He’s willing to keep the ball a little bit longer than Tua,” Seahawks head coach Mike Macdonald said of Thompson on Wednesday. “Tua was playing really, really fast and the ball comes out pretty quickly on time, on target. [Thompson]’s got the same ability to do those things, but I’d say the ability to also — if you add the extended play to that element — that’s something you have to account, probably more so than with Tua.”

I feel I can confidently say that there will be times on Sunday when Thompson is extremely frustrating for Seahawks fans to watch. (And times when he’s extremely frustrating to Dolphins fans.) Tyreek Hill calls Thompson “fearless” and that he can extend plays due to speed that Tua doesn’t possess:

"He’s a little bit faster than Tua, so I’m a little bit excited about that," Tyreek Hill quipped this week. "Skylar, he does a great job of extending plays."

"He's not going to be Lamar Jackson running it, but he has the ability to beat you with his feet," (college coach Chris) Klieman said of Thompson. "He's gonna take what the defense is gonna give him and whether that's the vertical passing game, the shorter passing game, the QB run, the biggest thing with him is 'How do I keep extending the drive?'"

At a certain point I know we have to stop and check ourselves and think, “What are we even talking about? This is SKYLAR THOMPSON we are talking about.” That’s true. Thompson enters the week as the least likely starting quarterback in the NFL and only due to an injury. However, this is Tyreek Hill we are talking about. And Waddle and McDaniel and Achane and a good offensive line and a front office with a mindset to be the fastest offense in the entire NFL.

Coming off of games against two of the slowest and least-talented offenses in the league, Macdonald takes his defense off of easy mode and into new territory of need to prove that the Seahawks are better than the last few years under Pete Carroll, although his predecessor did him a HUGE favor by drafting Devon Witherspoon and Riq Woolen to form arguably the best and fastest corner duo in the league.

This game is not about if Thompson beats the Seahawks. It’s more about if McDaniel beats Macdonald and that’ll mean not letting Thompson extend plays and not letting Achane run past Seattle’s linebackers.

Non-Negotiable: Seahawks must be balanced on offense

Since the answer varies, I asked ChatGPT to tell me what it means to have a balanced offense in football:

Key aspects of a balanced offense include:

1. Diverse Play Calling: Incorporating a mix of runs and passes to keep the defense guessing.

2. Effective Execution: Both the running backs and receivers should be capable of making plays.

3. Field Position Management: Utilizing both types of plays to move the ball effectively and control the tempo of the game.

4. Adaptability: The ability to adjust the play calling based on the game context, such as score, time remaining, and defensive alignment.

Human back in control now…

It is a common answer to say that “balanced” means 50/50 run-pass split, but it is more accurate to say that balanced means that an offense can successfully distribute touches to at least three different skill players, whether that be through the air or the ground. A six-yard pass to Jaxon Smith-Njigba is just as good as a six-yard run by a running back and I think a lot of what we saw in Week 2 was Geno Smith getting the ball to JSN as it was a long handoff. For your Seaside Streams bonus video of the day, here’s The QB School’s breakdown of Geno’s Week 2 game against the Patriots:

A year ago, J.T. O’Sullivan was complaining that he didn’t like to watch Geno film because it was a little too boring. Cut to now with half of the league’s quarterbacks looking completely lost and suddenly Geno’s never been so hot of a ticket for film analysis and analytics.

The question people will have on their minds going into Sunday is whether or not the Seahawks will be able to complement Geno with a run game if Kenneth Walker misses another game, but I’m not as worried about being “balanced 50/50” as I am thinking that Seattle just needs to get the ball into the hands of their playmakers regardless of it being a pass or a handoff.

Yes, the emphasis of a balanced offense is to have a running game that complements your passing attack, but when has the NFL ever been truly that split?

There was the run-mostly NFL before Don Coryell reinvented passing in the ‘70s and there’s been the brand of offense that followed The Greatest Show on Turf in 1999 and the Drew Brees passing attack of the 2010s and rarely have the best offenses ever featured a 1,500-yard rusher and a 4,000-yard passer: The 1995 Lions had a 1,500-yard running back and two receivers who had over 100 catches and over 1,400 yards but had to win their last seven games just to make the playoffs, at which point they lost 58-37.

(Detroit was balanced in the sense that their quarterbacks combined for six interceptions and Barry Sanders contributed to the loss with 40 rushing yards and a fumble.)

The Seahawks obviously won’t throw out the towel just because one player is in danger of missing the game, especially given that Seattle’s biggest offensive investment in the past two years has been at wide receiver and tight end: JSN is the second-highest drafted WR in franchise history, DK Metcalf is the highest-paid WR in franchise history, and Tyler Lockett took a pay cut to stay with the team and guarantee he’ll retain second place in the record books behind only Steve Largent. The Seahawks have allocated $41 million in cap space to WRs (second only to the Dolphins at $51 million) and the 10th-most to tight ends with most of that going to receiver Noah Fant.

If the Seahawks can’t find balance with four receivers and a handful of other weapons in Ryan Grubb’s backroom, Seattle was doomed with or without Walker.

Adjustments: Kenneth Walker probably misses another start

The Seahawks must adjust based on the probabilities that a) Walker is better than Charbonnet and b) Walker is likely out this weekend. But the Seahawks are coming off of a win on the road in which they only rushed for 46 yards against the Patriots, but still had MORE total yards than they did against the Broncos in Week 1: Geno’s 312 net passing yards would have ranked as his third-highest total in 2023.

It’s always better when Seattle gets a run game going (7-0 when rushing for 100 yards in 2023) and the Dolphins might leave open just enough of a crease for the Seahawks offensive line to give Charbonnet the lanes he needs to make a mark.

Miami’s defensive coordinator is Anthony Weaver, a coach who spent the last two seasons under Macdonald on the Ravens staff. So they know about each other, but I’d rather be the teacher than the hopper. Macdonald and Weaver also both now how to kick the Dolphins ass because Baltimore beat Miami 56-19 last December 31st and rushed for 160 yards despite losing their two best running backs during the season, JK Dobbins and Keaton Mitchell.

Things do change, especially year-to-year, and the Dolphins are third in EPA/rush defense through two games, only behind the Chargers (DC Jesse Minter is also basically off the Macdonald tree) and the Steelers. (The Seahawks rank 23rd.) But I do not think that those numbers matter much yet because the Bills just beat the Dolphins 31-10 and coaches don’t really have to concern themselves with being balanced when the quarterback throws three interceptions out the gate.

The takeaway here is that with or without Kenneth Walker III on Sunday, the Seahawks have the second-highest paid WR trio in the NFL, a second round running back, a still somewhat unpredictable offensive coordinator, a tight end playing well BELOW his pay grade and needing to step it up, plus Jake Bobo, Kenny McIntosh, Laviska Shenault, and an offensive line that at least has had two games to sort out their shortcomings. If Ryan Grubb can’t find balance out of that, I guess running backs do matter.

Non-Negotiable: Seahawks must win the turnover battle

Even as I typed this one out I couldn’t help but think about how obvious this one is, but there’s gotta be at least one reminder every season and I feel like getting it out of the way in Week 2: If the Seahawks don’t turn the ball over, they’re probably going to win this game because the Dolphins are shaping up as a team that might be more prone to interceptions this week.

Miami went 4-0 last season when they did not turn the ball over (that means they turned the ball over in 14 of 18 games, including playoffs) and the Dolphins are a .500 team when they cough it up. In 2023, the Dolphins turned the ball over in 8 of 9 road games and they were 3-5 in those contests.

In two of those three wins, the Dolphins forced two turnovers and essentially evened out their mistakes against the Jets starting Tim Boyle at QB and the Patriots coming towards the end of the Mac Jones era.

Conversely, the Seahawks were 5-0 last season when they won the turnover battle, compared to 2-4 when the turnover battle was even and 2-4 when they lost the turnover battle. The Seahawks went 3-0 when they won the turnover battle at Lumen Field. Seattle won three home games in which they turned the ball over, but it is no coincidence that those were the win over PJ Walker’s Browns, the win over Andy Dalton’s Panthers (a better team that Bryce Young’s Panthers, but still the worst in the NFL) , and a win over Josh Dobbs’s Cardinals.

Did somebody say Skylar Thompson?

Adjustments: Can Seattle protect Geno this time?

The topic of the week, I mean the season, I mean the year, I mean the John Schneider administration is whether or not the Seahawks have an adequate pass protecting offensive line. Seattle’s efforts to improve their offensive line were predictably underwhelming to most fans (I just can’t see how or why any Seahawks fans EXPECT more given the consistency of the Seattle franchise to not invest in interior offensive line upgrades) and to this point essentially amount to replacing Damien Lewis with Laken Tomlinson, Evan Brown with Connor Williams, and Phil Haynes/Anthony Bradford to just Anthony Bradford. Furthermore, George Fant has been ruled out this week and Stone Forsythe will make his third start of the season.

Other than the potential for Williams to be Seattle’s best center since Max Unger if he can stay healthy, you could argue that the Seahawks have actually DOWNGRADED the offensive line that they had a year ago. Which could reasonably have you wondering a simple question…

To be fair, re-signing Lewis was a non-starter when he got over $13 million per season from the Carolina Panthers. (And for what it’s worth, the Panthers are the worst team in the NFL despite having the fourth-highest paid OL in the NFL, trailing only the Colts, Chiefs, and Rams, so three of the four are currently 0-2.) Then Seattle used their second pick on a guard. Then two more guards on day three. Laken Tomlinson was supposed to be at least adequate, and George Fant wasn’t supposed to get injured.

One of the reasons that I like football more than baseball is the salary cap because it forces teams to make sacrifices that they would never make otherwise. If the NFL didn’t have a salary cap, the Giants could be football’s Yankees. We are blessed. The Seahawks have chosen to sacrifice the offensive line—Seattle is 32nd in OL spending again*—in hopes that distributing the ball quickly to their high-paid receivers and running the ball efficiently with their second round running backs will offset the disadvantage.

And for the most part, it actually has. That’s the craziest part of all: Despite how much it infuriates us to see Seattle take a backseat in OL negotiations, the Seahawks have still posted a winning record in 10 of the last 11 seasons, and the only reason they went 7-10 was because of Russell Wilson’s (pass protecting failure-induced) injury.

*At this rate, Charles Cross could become the highest-paid tackle in NFL history (for a week or so) when he becomes extension eligible in 2025, but it’s nothing new for Seattle to value offensive tackles.

Geno has been blitzed 25 times this season, tied with Baker Mayfield for the second-most in the NFL. If the Seahawks can protect Geno Smith for most of the game (Geno’s average pocket time of 2.1 seconds ranks 26th) against Miami’s pass rushers (the Dolphins are only 28th in pressure rate at 15.6%, but NFL+ has them at 31%), it’s going to be a shortcut towards good things happening: His interceptions are usually in the face of pressure (see: 1, Week) and it would obviously decrease his chances of a fumble if he’s not sacked. That’s half of the battle.

Flip it around, the Seahawks rank 3rd in pressure rate so far (37%) and they’ve forced three fumbles in two games. They had two interceptions off of Bo Nix, but I wouldn’t say that is very surprising or applicable to other quarterbacks. If the Seahawks can protect the ball for 60 minutes, it might really only take one takeaway for Seattle’s odds of winning to be over 90%.

You can negotiate your contract. You can negotiate your playing time. You can’t negotiate the importance of having more possessions than the other team.