How The 2022 Seahawks Will Play Two-High Structures Yet Win Vs. The Run
Much has been made about the Seahawks' transition to two-high coverages. What really matters is that Seattle has already shown they can survive versus the run while having that extra coverage player:
Thank you to yearly member “Steph” for voting for this article in my poll!
Two-High Safeties Are Here To Stay
Shocker: the 2022 Seahawks defense looks like it will use a lot of two-high safeties. Tellingly, the defensive play-calling at the start of each preseason game—in the moments before it felt like the coaching staff was calling plays more for evaluative and tendency-breaking purposes—was predominantly middle field open in structure.
Seattle had already started this transition in front and coverage, running 3-4-looking bear fronts at a high rate since 2020 and designing a new-for-Pete Carroll middle field open, zone-matching coverage in 2021. The Seahawks’ updated 2022 coaching staff of Clint Hurtt, Sean Desai, and Karl Scott are using their synergy to build upon this.
Observations from the preseason, particularly in its recent guise, can be misleading. Starters rarely play—if at all—and lower string players do not execute the scheme nearly as well. The resulting mistakes and patchy showings can lead to schematic ghosts; a play can look so different that you think the Seahawks are doing something new.
Even with some questionable performances—and Seattle’s lower depth did look disappointingly bad this year—the Seahawks’ base approach started to emerge. That’s what the simplified nature of exhibition football is great at highlighting: the schematic roots of each system. This is particularly true for defense and we have therefore learned lots about Seattle’s plan for 2022 real ‘ball. Two-high is here to stay.
The basic theory of two-high, middle field open is that you gain an extra deep defender in coverage. Like most of football Xs and Os, there is a trade-off: two-high means one less defender in the box. This numbers disadvantage leads to tougher challenges against the run.
The alternative defensive option of single-high, middle field closed structure faces the opposite conundrum. Where middle field closed places an extra defender in the box than the offense has blockers, this then loses that player from deep pass coverage.
The growing popularity of two-high coverages after the Legion of Boom-inspired shift to cover 3 has become a tired topic. That’s because NFL offenses are seemingly endlessly improving at passing the football. Meanwhile, the inefficiency of the running game has been covered to a similar point of exhaustion. The question for NFL defensive coaches has therefore become: how much two-high defense can you get away with playing?
Two-high means you can easily run any coverage while having a coverage player over each receiver, covering down. If you can still survive the run while light in the box, you can focus more attention on stopping the pass with comfort.
The 2022 preseason unveiled some of the cutting-edge defensive mechanics the Seahawks will employ to compensate versus the run, and thus make their two-high defenses sustainable overall. In these methods, the images of Hurtt, Desai, Scott and even Carroll are reflected, their coaching backgrounds and lessons-from-the-past clearly present.
Under 4, Tite Will 6, Tank Fronts, and Jimmy/Pony stunts are the ideas detailed today, aware that the 2022 season will likely bring further exciting tools.
Under 4
Our first exposure to this brave new two-high world arrived in Pittsburgh. The Steelers used two tight end, under center 12 personnel looks. Yet Seattle played with just seven defenders to these seven blockers, keeping both of their safeties high and having their corners man turn.
Whatever defense the Seahawks called in here (and it could well have been their “tite” bear front adjusted to the two tight end look), the point is they got into basically an under front with cover 4 defense. Look how scary the gaps in the defense looked with the ball in the back’s hands:
O ye, of little faith: big looking space or not, the pair of 1st and 10 runs only went for 4 and 2 yards respectively. Here’s how.