Should Jalen Milroe be inactive?

Seahawks questions and answers heading into Week 6

After months of speculation of whether he could challenge Sam Darnold for the starting job (yes, that was really an agenda pushed by some people) or force Drew Lock into an emergency QB3 role, Jalen Milroe has had three snaps, two of which were innocuous and forgettable, one of which was disastrous. But should Mike Macdonald and Klint Kubiak scrap all Milroe plans for the time being or continue to move forward with him as an unpredictable (although right now very predictable) weapon?

That’s among the questions this week in the Super Joes Q&A, a weekly exclusive newsletter I send to the founding member subscribers.

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Luke: Would love to get some more of your thoughts on Darnold vs Baker. Why did John not go after Baker?

Context clues point to an alliance between Pete Carroll and Geno Smith that prevented this from happening. Pete has stuck by Geno for his last four years of coaching, but John Schneider traded Geno as soon as the opportunity presented itself and the financial ramifications were tenable.

Either way, I’m glad Baker Mayfield landed where he landed and Sam Darnold ended up in Seattle in 2025. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

It’s hard to compare the two right now because they both seem to be in spots that are perfect for them, but not necessarily perfect for the other. Hopefully Darnold maintains his status as a really good quarterback and this is a matchup we get to see for years to come.

Scott M: If Seattle plays clean football, is there anyone you think we can’t beat? In years past there were several teams I didn’t think we had the horses to take down, but this year feels different...your thoughts?

Nobody that the Seahawks can’t beat. That being said, the Lions and Eagles would be among the teams that seem hard for Seattle to beat right now because those teams don’t usually beat themselves. I want to see if the Seahawks can even get past the Rams and 49ers first.

West Seattle Tim: I know the defense continues to lead the league in pressure rate, but is that even noteworthy if it doesn’t lead to more sacks? I mean, that sounds great that we get the opposing QB to have to get out of the pocket and run, but does it make a difference if they still have enough time to make a completion? What do the Seahawks need to do to take advantage of the pressure rate and turn that into lower completion rates, more sacks, or more interceptions?

According to Pro-Football-Reference, the Seahawks have a pressure rate of 22.6%, which ranks eighth. Seattle is also eighth according to Next Gen Stats numbers, but the Seahawks have a rate of 38%. Can anyone agree on what is a pressure?

We can all agree on what is a sack and although Seattle isn’t bad at that (13 sacks is average) they don’t seem to create much havoc for quarterbacks inside or outside of the pocket either. I think every defense is helped when they have a “how do we stop this guy?” guy and although Leonard Williams is one of those players, it would be great if the Seahawks had one of those players out on the edges and it’s hard for anyone to rely on Uchenna Nwosu given his history.

Even at his best — and he’s the best edge Seattle has right now — Nwosu has never been a “plan for him” guy.

Do the Seahawks need to trade for someone like Trey Hendrickson? Nobody “needs” to do anything, but it would be a pretty sick move if they can pull it off. Even the fans who don’t want Seattle to trade for Hendrickson would have to agree after the fact that his presence would be exciting and most likely impactful. The Bengals trading for Joe Flacco this week implies they’re not giving up yet, but then again…does it?

Or did they trade for Flacco because they don’t want Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins to suffer so much that they want to leave?

Paul G: While I was no more thrilled by Sunday’s pass rush than anyone else, from the All-22 it looks as if Tampa Bay regularly used six blockers against the Seahawks four-man rush (and that pressure was actually decent against five blockers). To me, this means that the Bucs were comfortable sending three receivers into coverage. While I’m not saying that the EDGEs were anything to write home about, how much of the pass rush problem was that the Bucs simply didn’t respect the Seattle LBs or backup DBs in coverage?

Don’t get me wrong, I love a more original explanation for the pass rushing problem than “pass rushers bad”. I don’t think all Seahawks on defense get absolved because we’re mostly talking about the edge rushers and I don’t suspect that Mike Macdonald has any inclination to do that either.

It’s probably correct to argue that the Tampa Bay was able to mitigate the Seattle front-4 because they had confidence in beating the back-7…

All that being said, I also have no problem admitting a lack of confidence in players like Boye Mafe and Derick Hall (who for his sake missed a large portion of the game) based on 5.5 combined seasons of experience and not just one game, as well as a concern that Nwosu and Demarcus Lawrence can even show up for the rest of the season.

I think the Seahawks have pieces, not a centerpiece, and so therefore it’s perfectly logical to me that Schneider would continue to evaluate all options out there at outside linebacker who might provide an upgrade in the future. If that doesn’t happen during the season, I would not be surprised if it happened in 2026.

Rusty: Do you think the Hawks will roll with the same starting five IOL all season (barring injury)?

Yeah, I think coaches get pretty stubborn about their starters. The only player who probably would have replaced Anthony Bradford is someone who the team drafted on day 2 but I don’t think they’d rush to make a change for Bryce Cabeldue.

Bret: Is there any analytics information that claims to tell us what impact mcdonald’s decisions have had upon the outcome of games? I asked this question because the frequent discussion about him being too passive on fourth down. This isn’t about his defensive play, calling or defensive performance.

If there is, should we believe it? Some folks who claim to have created stats for measuring things that matter have reached way out of their element and are grasping at snake oil. There have been a very small number of fourth down decisions this season, it’s not as serious as the focus we put on it, and if someone argued “no he COST the Seahawks the game because of this one decision!” it would be easy to combat that with asking how close the score would have been if Seattle’s head coach was Kliff Kingsbury or Rex Ryan.

Nothing against either of those coaches or any other coach but just saying that fans tend to throw out 11 months and 30 days and 23 hours and 59 minutes of work that a head coach does because they disagree with one decision. Analytics couldn’t do anything other than distort and disguise the actual answers because of a desire to grow a social media following.

Danno: I had a quick question about statistics. I am not a stat person, I prefer to read article’s such as your’s, which describe a team’s play or individuals on that team. I also prefer to watch videos in which people show all 22 and analyze a team or players performance. I even prefer to watch all 22 film myself vs scour statistics. I’m somewhat familiar with the nomenclature of stats through reading articles where people talk about advanced stats like DVOA, but I am not very fluent in these stats. My question is this: Are there two or three of these advanced stats you find more useful or indicative of performance that you feel are worth the time in following?

This is such a great question to follow what I just wrote trashing analytics.

My older brother once told me that you can learn something from everyone you meet. The same is true of evaluating football games and players: You can learn something from anything about a sport, whether that’s a stat, a play breakdown, an historical truism, or a behavior.

I think one of the most valuable tools in grading draft prospects is to just listen to the person talk for a few minutes.

I might use EPA (Estimated Points Added) simply because it’s become so prevelantly shared on Twitter and I fully respect that oftentimes “yards" tells a misleading story about a player or a game. EPA intends to separate the most meaningful yards from the less meaningful yards. Anecdotally, this would be the same as saying that a quarterback had 400 passing yards because his team was down 34-10 for the entire second half.

Or maybe a running back only had 65 yards, but six of his runs went for first downs and his 15-yard touchdown run on third down proved to be the game-winning score.

I mostly go to Pro-Football-Reference and Next Gen Stats (the NFL’s official analytics page) because I paid for subscriptions there and they are user friendly and the numbers aren’t overly complicated, for the most part. I think we can all understand missed tackles and pressures and adjusted yards per attempt (passing yards/passing attempts+some calculation of TD/INT).

There’s probably less analytics at Seaside Joe than there used to be and hopefully it’s just the right amount.

I know we have a lot of fans in the comments who can share their own opinions and favorites here about analytics:

Grant: All this Milroe package stuff we’ve seen so far is just a setup for later in the year, right? They’re not putting him on the field during high-leverage moments yet, and nothing run so far would be explosive even if he didn’t mess it up. What’s the point if not to setup some trick play when you really need it in week 17 or something?

I know everyone is over it, because it’s either seemed pointless or been disastrous. I’m actually happy, however, that MM isn’t giving up on the Milroe package (or so he says). They’ve got a plan and everything they’ve seen in practice indicates that he’s ready to participate on Sundays. My gut says there will be a moment of two later in the season when we’re all watching replays of that cool Milroe package play KK called at just the right moment. I’ll be holding my breath next time I see him come into the game though.

I agree with everything you say other than the part about the leverage of the situations. In Week 1, the Seahawks end up punting on the opening drive, continuing their streak at that point of not scoring a touchdown with their first possession. The 49ers then score a touchdown and it’s 7-0. They received the ball and lost all their “leverage” of that possession by going out so quickly and then they lost the game.

That really had nothing to do with Milroe (they could have just as easily punted if he had not come into the game), I’m just saying that the situational moment was important. It’s 0-0 and you’re trying to score before the 49ers score.

His third touch is a mid-second quarter fumble against the Bucs as Seattle trails 6-0. A few minutes later, Seattle trails by 13 points.

When are the “right” times to use Jalen Milroe? I have no idea. The Saints game made the most sense, by far. Do the Seahawks need to give Milroe 2-3 snaps per month in order to setup a trick play later? What’s the trick? What’s the difference between Milroe coming into the game now and running RPO vs. Milroe coming into the game in Week 17 and throwing a pass? How is Milroe getting better or setting something up from 0.75 snaps per game?

In Lamar Jackson’s rookie season with the Ravens, he played 30 snaps (!) in Week 1 (the Ravens blew out the Bills) and then he played an average of 5 snaps per game, almost always to run the ball: He had a 6:1 run to pass ratio. He only threw 12 passes prior to becoming a starter in Week 11.

Obviously Lamar was a much better college QB and polished NFL prospect than Milroe and nobody expected him to play that much in Seattle, but if the team thinks he can run the shit out of the ball then there’s no real reason to hold him back except for one thing: Sam Darnold is not Joe Flacco.

How badly does this offense need to run a “trick play” to score? When you take your most important player off of the field to get Milroe a snap and it doesn’t go well, you should expect some pushback from fans for the decision.

If the Seahawks had to go to Drew Lock at some point, I would then expect to see more Milroe.

zezinhom400: Staggeringly, NFL.com‘s Power Rankings this week have Seattle at #5, despite the loss to TB. Rams at #7, Niners at #13 and Cards falling like a rock at #23. Has there been a tectonic shift, suddenly Seattle is getting media attention? Or is it just my imagination, are we still forgotten over here? If Schneider has pulled that off, that’s the biggest change of all since Pete took his talents (and his Jordan/Kobe-like QB) to Oakland

I think people always like an unlikely quarterback story. In the middle of the 2022 season, the Seahawks were a top-10 power rankings team despite having started 2-3 and then rebounding to win four straight.

I know Washington is a little bit far from the major media hubs on the east coast and maybe that’s made it slightly harder for Seattle teams to get national attention, but I’ve never been totally on board with a conspiracy to disregard the Seahawks and Mariners. In fact, I don’t think there’s been a more popular Super Bowl winner in the last 15 years than the Legion of Boom because people still constantly talk about that defense and Marshawn Lynch.

And the Mariners were arguably the worst pro sports team in America over the past 20 years until now. I don’t follow baseball news, but is it fair to say that there have been a lot of stories about Cal Raleigh’s historic season? Seriously, you’ll have to tell me:

If some people in the media thinks that the Seahawks are the 5th-best team right now, that’s fine. If they think that the Seahawks are the 25th-best team, that’s fine too. I just hope that the Seahawks are ranked first for playoff seeds when the season ends.

Seaside Joe 2410