Seahawks only get 15 minutes to practice tackling
What's the root cause of the Seahawks defensive issues? Seaside Joe 1739
When discussing how the Seahawks have played defense over the last couple of games, K.J. Wright did not hold back in calling out mistakes made by former teammates Bobby Wagner, Quandre Diggs, Jamal Adams, and Darrell Taylor. Wright criticized Seattle’s lack of pre-snap and post-snap communication on plays that resulted in touchdowns against the 49ers and Cowboys, as well as the Seahawks’ well-known issue of poor tackling.
The answer every Seahawks fan wants to know: “How could a team coached by Pete Carroll and led on the field by Bobby Wagner suffer from poor communication and technique on defense?”
Wright praised the coaching of Ken Norton Jr., Seattle’s linebackers coach from 2010-2014 and defensive coordinator from 2018-2021. Which in a roundabout way does imply that Wright is not sold on the coaches in those current roles, Clint Hurtt and linebackers coach John Glenn. But that is me taking a leap from what K.J. Wright said and what it would seem to suggest given that he made it a point to say that Norton helped so much with communication and now he doesn’t recognize what the Seahawks defenders are doing on plays that lead to blown assignments.
Wright might not intend to point the finger at Hurtt or Glenn. However, he’s going to have fans questioning the coaching staff at this point, whether he wanted that to happen or not.
There are plenty of issues in the secondary that need to be addressed and the assistant coach there is Roy Anderson. I don’t want to pretend like I know how different the role is between being a safeties coach (as Anderson was with the Colts for four years and the 49ers for one year), an assistant defensive backs coach (as he was with the Vikings for three years prior to this season), but 2023 is Anderson’s first year as an NFL secondary coach and not an assistant. He came to Seattle a year after Karl Scott, his “boss” in Minnesota.
Scott is serving as the defensive passing game coordinator, while another one of Wright’s former teammates, DeShawn Shead, is an assistant DB/CB coach. (Neiko Thorpe and Will Tukuafu are other former Carroll players on the staff.)
But bad defense isn’t a squeaky wheel or a single leak. It’s a team effort.
The Seahawks rank fourth in the NFL in missed tackles, as Pro-Football-Reference has Seattle at 89 through 12 games. Only the Texans (100), Panthers (99), and Jets (93) have more.
Is poor tackling a result of effort or technique? Sometimes a player just gets unlucky or runs into a supremely talented opponent. When the Seahawks face the 49ers on Sunday, they’ll be facing offensive weapons who pride themselves on making others miss, like Christian McCaffrey, Deebo Samuel, and George Kittle.
But it’s hard to not associate consistently occuring problems with the one consistent that has existed with the Seahawks over the past seven years of subpar defense: Pete Carroll and his coaching staff.
This is not to say that the Seahawks must move on from Pete—we already went over that—it’s just a fact that the coach who prides himself on making sure that Seattle is “the best practicing team in football” is also leading a team that has consistently (as in year after year, not week after week) had a defense that nobody fears. Largely because the Seahawks have been a bad tackling teams for YEARS.
Have theories on why that is? Share them in the comments!
The Seahawks were among the best tackling teams in the NFL in 2020, but had the fourth-most in 2019 and were between average and below average in 2021 and 2022.
And since ranking third in points and fifth in yards allowed in 2016, the Seahawks have ranked:
2017 - 13th/11th
2018 - 11th/16th
2019 - 22nd/26th
2020 - 15th/22nd
2021 - 11th/28th
2022 - 25th/26th
2023 - 25th/23rd
Will the Seahawks tackling improve between now and the end of the season? Something else K.J. Wright said that stood out to me is that teams only get 15 minutes of individual periods, which is where you can work on tackling. But for the rest of practice and throughout the day, players must make “mental” tackles instead of real ones.
So the only time that Riq Woolen or Boye Mafe get to work on tackling is ON THE JOB. We’re watching them practice tackling on Sundays and it’s been less fun than fans going to training camp.
A lot less fun.
How do the Seahawks get better next season? Well, for one we can hope that this is going to get better as this young defense gets more experienced. The other would be to draft players and sign free agents with an emphasis on their tackling skills. I would like to say these last couple of weeks and ranking 25th in scoring defense on the season is an anomaly and nothing to be overly concerned about…
Clearly, I can’t say that.
All I can say is…WRAP HIM UP.
Very nearly went off into an entire rant about the whole state of the NFL, but no-one needs to read that. Instead -
"Tackling" in the NFL has basically always been a problem caused by the nature of the game and the way it has evolved. Rather than teach proper tackle technique (which would A) lead to better stopping of players with the ball, and B) lead to less injuries in tackles) the emphasis for American Football has been on hard power hits intended to bounce someone out of bounds, jar the ball loose, or just hope they hit the deck. This combines with an ever growing focus on speed, explosiveness and athletic/acrobatic skill, putting relatively undersized DB's in pace to tackle RBs who have an extra 10kg weight on them and/or are 4-5" shorter powerhouses. The fly in and hope tackle does not work in that case, you need technique.
This technique can be taught in what are very low contact walking speed drills, or against coaches holding pads, or dummies, where there is as close to zero injury or concussion risk as you can get. You work up speed and hit power on those same drills to something around half-speed and still carry an incredibly low concussion/injury risk. Onto a 75% speed drill where the 'offence' is only there to be tackled, so know to move and fall in certain ways, which again minimises the risks. I imagine with all the money and tech work available to NFL franchises you can easily build an automated dummy that moves at game speed which can be tackled in a safe fashion.
I'm a massive rugby fan, played it for years at school level and am working towards qualifying as a ref. I know very well what good tackling is. Rarely in the NFL or CFB do I see good tackling. But it's the nature of the sport and the push towards an ever more pass & offence heavy product. The takeaway should be that 15mins of full contact tackling actually can enough, as you can do an hour a day of low contact low speed technical practice. Equally whist our tackling is bad, i don't think we're that much worse than other teams based on the eye test, but our other issues on Defence mean it gets exposed more.
Proof a small guy can tackle better than anyone: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clQbBqD4phw (look at his body position! That's is a player using technique to do the frankly impossible stop, despite being undersized & in a poor position, plus strong arms)
10mins of boom-time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DC0TqcSOwsw (watch the technique, low with body & leg drive, strong arms working to grip and hold, almost no focus to just hit hard or drop a shoulder, it's all about making momentum work for you)
I know this isn’t the prime cause, but the last collective bargaining agreement severely reduced the amount of contact in practice.
Maybe it’s just me, but I see poor tackling around the league. It seems worse with the Hawks, but that’s probably because I watch them miss tackles every single game.
Even my wife has commented on how so many of our defenders don’t wrap up, the just hit the offensive player and expect them to fall down.
It doesn’t work that way boys...