Vision Board: Seahawks-49ers TNF

What the Seahawks MUST DO to beat the 49ers, with help from our friend Jon Gruden: Seaside Joe 2047

The Seattle Seahawks have two primetime games in a span of 11 days and that means we get two Gruden Loves Football breakdowns of the Seahawks in 11 days. I used Gruden’s video for the Lions Vision Board two games ago and I’m doing it again as we head into Week 6’s matchup against the San Francisco 49ers. Here’s the 50-minute video, I’ll leave it up to you if you want to watch it before you read the vision board:

I think the last few Vision Boards, while they haven’t resulted in a Seahawks win, have included more game footage and information about Seattle and their opponents than in this series’ past. I hope that you agree and if so I’ll continue to seek out more content that gives us a complete picture of the teams and the matchups in every Seahawks game.

If you’re enjoying Seaside Joe this season, consider joining the Regular Joes club if you’re a free subscriber, and you’ll get tons of yearly bonus content like Tuesday’s article about the Seahawks 2025 cap situation and Uchenna Nwosu’s injury. If you’re already a Regular Joe and want to support a little bit more, upgrade to Super Joes as a founding member of the newsletter.

Last week’s vision board highlighted: Geno Smith getting into the positive TD:INT territory (check), JSN having a great game (he did catch a touchdown), and holding the Giants under 200 yards (nope…I should have said “holding them under 200 yards, in the first quarter).

Bonus Article: These Seahawks stats are MAKING ME ANGRY! Which numbers are the doing the most to hold Seattle back from reaching their full potential? Wednessday’s bonus Joe…

Leonard Williams

“I think the 49ers have really struggled at left guard. Aaron Banks has had his moments in pass protection where he has struggled and given up a lot of quick penetrations and forced Purdy to abort some plays. I think Leonard Williams, the excellent defensive tackle of the Seattle Seahawks, number 99, is going to come calling for Banks at left guard.”

I’ve said for a couple years now that Uchenna Nwosu is a good edge rusher, but he should never be a defense’s best edge rusher. If Nwosu is your best pass rusher, then you don’t have a pass rush. The Seahawks agree—they drafted Boye Mafe and Derick Hall to become their best pass rushers.

Leonard Williams feels like the defensive tackle/end version of that.

SNL has been on TV for 50 years now, so I’ll use that show as an example since everyone has some opinion of SNL, some thoughts on their favorite cast, back when SNL was good “back then”. Well, I think any cast of SNL—or really any TV comedy—is going to be judged on the best talent and not the supporting talent. I don’t want to name names, but I’m sure you’d agree that any funny show has a few people at the top that you find extremely funny. It’s that simple.

But the funniest person on a bad cast, even a really bad cast, could make a great supporting player on a good cast. And then you have a cast that is both talented and deep…

The Seahawks need to find that supporting group around Leonard Williams and make him an amazing #2 or #3 instead of being their best defensive lineman. The good news is that Seattle drafted Byron Murphy II to do that, the bad news is that Murphy is not going to play for the third game in a row, so now it has to be Williams stepping up and playing like the $21 million player that he’s paid to be.

What the Seahawks need from Leo: 2 sacks, 5 pressures, force Purdy out of his comfort zone and rattle him into mistakes

According to Next Gen Stats, Purdy was only 1-of-6 with an interception (the game-ender) when he was under pressure in Week 5’s loss to the Cardinals. It’s imperative that Seattle is able to get pressure on Purdy, making no excuses for their injuries in the front, and raise that level of difficulty for the 49ers passing offense. If you let Purdy sit back there for an extra 0.5 seconds, he’s going to dice you up.

No Seahawk should have a better matchup than Williams against Banks and it’s ideal for the pressure to come from the interior because as Gruden points out, the 49ers have been less successful on scramble drills this season.

“I don’t think their scramble drill execution is what it used to be. Purdy creates plays, he keeps them alive, I think the 49er receivers got to be better uncovering and let Purdy make some of those second ration players we’re accustomed to seeing. They’ve had a couple blitz pickup problems with their young halfback Jordan Mason.”

Williams is a very consistent player, at least stastically, and that’s carried over since he was drafted in 2015 and even playing for three different teams and many different coaches. In that consistency is a player who has only had 2+ sacks four times, including against the Seahawks in 2020. But he had 1.5 against the Patriots in Week 2 and Seattle needs him to step up again with so many injuries on the front in Week 6.

He’s not the only high-profile defensive player in need of a great night.

Bonus Article: These Seahawks stats are MAKING ME ANGRY!

Devon Witherspoon

“Devon Witherspoon is going to have a huge matchup. I was disappointed in my man Witherspoon after I touted him so much before the Lions game. I didn’t think that was his best game. I think he blew a coverage in the red zone, I thought he missed a couple of tackles that he normally makes. He’s going to get Jauan Jennings, one of the hottest slot receivers in the game. He’s a physical dude, so that will be a great matchup: Witherspoon vs. Jennings”

Per Next Gen Stats, the Cardinals used man coverage on 23 of Purdy’s dropbacks, the most he’s seen in his career, and he was 12-of-21 on those plays. And his -16.7% CPOE on 15 intermediate pass attempts (a very bad number) was the first time in eight games that he posted a negative number one those types of throws.

It’ signals to me that the Seahawks will greatly benefit from Witherspoon having a superb game and locking down San Francisco’s dynamic slot threat Jennings.

Purdy’s Week 5 passing chart shows struggles throwing to his right and two interceptions in the middle of the field:

What the Seahawks need from Spoon: Lock down Jennings, make a game-changing play you’d expect from a top-5 pick

33%. 1/3. One-Third.

It’s not the end of the title to my favorite Naked Gun movie, it’s the percentage of throws that Purdy has made to the intermediate level (10-19 air yards) of the field this season and that is the highest rate of any quarterback in the NFL.

The 49ers have four players who are over 200 receiving yards, including Jennings with a team-high 377 and three touchdowns, and that tells me that Kyle Shanahan and Purdy are going to pepper you with a balanced passing attack (balanced: four different weapons) that is conservative but not too conservative. It’s not a Cam Newton offense, it’s pushing the ball downfield, but not all the way down the field like whoever is passing for the Colts at any given moment.

Witherspoon must lockdown Jennings, a player who was held to only 13 yards in Week 5’s loss to the Cardinals. A player who only had 37 yards in Week 2’s loss to the Vikings. And a player who had 175 yards in Week 3’s loss to the 49ers.

So there isn’t necessarily a correlation there yet, but any option you take away from Purdy is going to increase your odds of stopping the 49ers exponentially. Witherspoon’s status as a top-5 pick means that he’s expected to be a shutdown player who tilts the field in favor of the Seahawks, especially against NFC West opponents.

Your draft picks should first and foremost help you win the division.

That’s one part of the equation, but this is also a big game for the linebackers. Seattle’s linebackers are allowing 8.9 yards per attempt (9th-most) and 133 yards after the catch (2nd-most), per Next Gen Stats. The caveat to that is that Jerome Baker hasn’t been healthy for the majority of the season and I don’t know how much we can expect from Tyrice Knight at this point, as he’s literally missing, at least as far as Internet updates go.

I am slightly more worried about the impact that George Kittle (5 TDs in his last 5 against Seattle) and Jennings could have in this game than I am Brandon Aiyuk and Deebo Samuel, but all four are capable of taking over.

The Seahawks have to have their best defensive performance of the season on Thursday—the 49ers have scored over 20 in 12 straight games against Seattle, while Seattle has scored 16 or less in the last four regular season games*—and teams have to be able to rely on their biggest investments to lead the charge.

*The Seahawks wouldn’t have scored 20 in the 2022 wild card game if not for a late garbage time touchdown

There are no bigger investments on defense than Devon Witherspoon and Leonard Williams.

“I think Purdy is an excellent scrambler. He’s rushed for over 100 yards, he can keep plays alive, and I think the 49ers collectively can do a better job on their scramble drills, uncovering to give him a throw. He’s an excellent play action passer, completing almost 80% of his passes, so I think the 49ers are going to have that 9-on-7 pound it mentality and then fake it up in there and create some good play action passes with these great receivers.”

This is a bonus quote from Gruden that I found important. The Seahawks need to take advantage of San Francisco’s recent struggles in the scramble drill. Pressure Purdy, if you don’t sack him them force him off of his spot, and prove you can go man-to-man with the 49ers receivers. Because if Seattle can’t do that, then why am I supposed to be under the impression that the Seahawks defense is better than the Cardinals defense?

Geno Smith - Offense No Negative Plays

This post is dedicated to the entire offense, not just Geno Smith.

“They have given up 18 sacks in their first five games of the season, seven sacks last week against the Giants, that’s the second most in the NFL. So the negative plays in the passing game, the false starts, the penalties, have been a nemesis of the Seattle Seahawks.

[deleted excerpt on Geno Smith, will use as its own quote]

I just think they have got to become more balanced. Use Zach Charbonnet. Use Kenneth Walker. These guys can play…I don’t think you want to be throwing it 50 times a game.”

I just want to really highlight the importance of the Seahawks offense eliminating negative plays and avoiding the second-and-long, third-and-long situations, and avoiding any decision to go for it on fourth down. There is no fourth down analytic decision if you don’t get to fourth down!

We know Seattle’s problems with offensive line penalties. We know that DK Metcalf has a penalty problem. The Seahawks have three different offensive linemen with two false starts (only 30 players in the entire league have multiple false starts!), including Anthony Bradford, Connor Williams, and Stone Forsythe. One of those guys isn’t even a full-time player. They aren’t just erasing positive plays, they’re setting the Seahawks back into unwinnable down-and-distance situations.

Then there are the sacks. What is Ryan Grubb and Scott Huff’s plan for keeping Nick Bosa away from Geno Smith? We can guarantee that most, if not all of Bosa’s reps will be against Forsythe. Bosa hasn’t moved around the line this season, so that’s probably going to be the matchup for four quarters. What’s the plan?

According to CapAnalytics on Twitter, 30% of Seattle’s drives have had a negative play, which puts them in the bottom-10, and the Seahawks have a huge disparity between their success on drives without a negative play (#1 most successful in the NFL) vs. their success on drives with at least one negative play (27th).

It is imperative that the Seahawks offense doesn’t shoot itself in the foot against the team that they’re the most focused on beating this season.

As far as what Gruden said about Geno:

Geno Smith, when I watch him, and I love this guy…Go way back to West Virginia on Gruden’s QB Camp, he’s playing the best he’s played in his career.

I see tight window passing. I see this guy throwing the ball accurately on the move, to the right, to the left, he’s using audibles, great control at the line of scrimmage, and for the most part he’s done a nice job protecting the ball. He has run the ball 20 times for 146 yards, he scrambled last week against the Giants, I’ve never seen him move like that. He’s beating you with his legs and his arms, he’s thrown the ball 199 times already in five games, he’s competing 72%, five touchdowns, four interceptions, but he’s playing solid.

I didn’t find a full version of the Geno QB camp, only this :30 second clip.

Of course, Geno needs to protect the football and not have any turnovers. If the 49ers are able to get pressure on him, and we should assume that they will have success in that area, then it’s going to be on Geno to be super-human if that’s what it takes for the Seahawks to beat the 49ers.

But most of all he can’t fumble, he can’t take a sack that he could have avoided, he can’t hold onto the ball any longer than the bare maximum, and he can’t run himself out of safety and into danger. I guess that brings up another point, which is that the Seahawks had two safeties in one game this season. I had forgotten that fact until now.

The Seahawks need the best version of Geno Smith against the 49ers and I can promise you that the best version of Geno Smith does not throw the ball 40 times or 50 times. If the Seahawks have no turnovers (they’ve had at least one in four of five games), cut out their negative plays, and find balance with a healthy and diverse rushing attack, that’s 500 times better than 500 passing yards.

What the Seahawks need from their offense: No interceptions, no fumbles, no muffed punts, no safeties, no false starts, no holding penalties, no offensive pass interference penalties, no sacks allowed, no negative runs, and PLEASE run the ball

Does that cover it?

It sounds like asking a lot, but I’d settle for a normal amount of penalties and a normal amount of sacks allowed, and a normal amount of negative runs. But the Seahawks have been going above-and-beyond in areas where they should be going below-and-underneath.

And please, if I have to see another 5:1 pass:run ratio, I’m sick. I’m absolutely sick.

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Jay’s Says

My wife Seaside Jay picks a hero from the Seahawks and a zero from the opponent every week, just based on vibes.

Hero of the week... is tight end Pharaoh Brown. His name reminds me of a high school classmate I had named Princess Kim. 

Zero of the week… is the entire San Francisco 49ers team. Sorry! As a native Angeleno, I was born with the natural inclination to boo the SF Giants and 49ers. So, boo 49ers!!

Bonus Article: These Seahawks stats are MAKING ME ANGRY!