Mike Macdonald Must Fix Man Coverage For Seahawks

Though the Ravens pass defense was great overall—Mike Macdonald's multiplicity shining—Baltimore disintegrated in man-to-man. How this looks in Seattle is an important first challenge for Macdonald:

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Mike Macdonald’s Seattle Seahawks defense will run a number of pass coverages to stimy even the best NFL quarterbacks. We can glean that from 2023 data, where Macdonald’s Baltimore Ravens unit utilized a coverage split of 47% middle field closed to 40% middle field open, and a coverage blend on passing snaps of 22.6% cover 3, 17.2% cover 1, 16.6% cover 4, 10.6% cover 2, and 8.7% cover 6—per Sports Info Solutions.

Added variety within those buckets will arrive from carrying multiple versions of each, designed to further hone in on opponent strengths and tendencies.

The overall results suggest Macdonald’s approach was successful for Baltimore’s pass defense. According to RBSDM.com, the Ravens were fourth-best in opponent dropback success rate and second in dropback EPA per play.

Deeper study into last season, however, reveals a concerning second-half-of-the-year decline: man coverage.

When Baltimore’s man pass defense disintegration is combined with its other collapse, run defense, it raises questions on how Macdonald’s stuff will work in Seattle and, on a more hopeful note, creates interest in possible lessons the coach may have applied to evolve his system.

Before we explore the potential relationship between poor man coverage and an inability to stop the run, and how this could be of greater significance to 2024 Seattle, here’s what went down with the Ravens’ 2023 man-to-man.

Baltimore’s Man-To-Man

Baltimore was a high quality man coverage defensive unit over the first “half” of the 17-game regular season: In Weeks 1-9, Baltimore’s man coverage against the pass allowed the third-best opposition success percentage, 32.0%.

Then came the collapse.

In the last eight games from Week 10 to Week 18, Baltimore’s opposition success percentage versus their man coverage soared to 50.0%. This was easily the worst performance in the NFL, with SIS’ success percentage rating at 1/100—yup, the Ravens’ man coverage sunk to 1^st percentile-bad.

The drop-off was meaningful for a team like Baltimore, as man coverage formed a significant chunk of its menu. SIS data shows that Macdonald called in man for 25% of Baltimore’s pass defense snaps over the first nine games (16^th-most), and for 24% of the pass snaps (18^th) in the last eight. This man usage was middling league-wide (48^th percentile and 42^nd percentile).

There are obvious limitations to this single season, first half/second half sample size. Nonetheless, it’s interesting that Macdonald, in the face of plummeting man coverage results, only reduced his overall calling of man-to-man concepts versus the pass by a single percentage point in the latter period.

So why did this level of decline happen?

Injuries

The simplest explanation would be missing personnel. Indeed, the rigors of football did impact Baltimore’s 2023 defensive back room.

Second half:

• First team All Pro strong safety/big nickel Kyle Hamilton appeared on the injury report as questionable with a Week 15 knee injury versus the Jags, then missed the Week 17 Dolphins and Week 18 Steelers game with that ailment

• Hamilton’s backup nickel, Arthur Maulet, sat out the Week 15 49ers game with a knee injury

• Starting outside corner Brandon Stephens didn’t suit up for Week 17 at the Dolphins with an ankle issue

• Opposite him, Marlon Humphrey was at 56% of snaps in Week 10, before a calf injury held him out of Week 11 and Week 12, eventually seeing him miss the final game of regular season versus the Steelers (and also the wildcard playoff round)

First half:

• Yet for Humphrey, his whole year was hampered by injury: the corner also missed the first four games of season with a foot issue, only returning to 100% of defensive snaps in Week 8

• That first half of 2023 also saw starting safety Marcus Williams miss six of the opening nine games with pectoral and then hamstring injuries

So, while you can summarize that starters regularly tasked with man-to-man coverage assignments (rather than playing in the deep post like Williams) missed slightly more of Weeks 10 to 18 than before, you can’t really say one half of the year was worse than the other regarding overall DB injuries.

Coverage Issues

Regardless, injuries are an inevitability of the NFL. Macdonald deciding not to noticeably alter his man coverage usage with guys out suggests the play caller had faith in his backups, like perimeter corner Ronald Darby. Ultimately, missing players do not come close to explaining the man coverage struggles.

Instead, we must look at the film to explore what happened. Before that, SIS’ advanced data helps us identify a specific area to focus on. Like most defenses, Baltimore’s most commonly used man coverage was cover 1.

And SIS’ advanced statistical categories exhibit a sharp descent in the second half of the season for the Ravens’ cover 1 performance against the pass. Baltimore went from one of the best teams in the league at cover 1 to one of the worst!

The cover 1 tape¹ from this second half period reveals a combination of issues, which is to be expected in such a grave slump.

Opposition offenses had a good sense for how the Ravens were structuring their man defense calls and ran savvy beaters each week. As Baltimore sought to correct these issues, attacks went to the next wrinkle to stay on top of the man coverage. The copycat nature of the league, and facing schemers at the level of Sean McVay, Kyle Shanahan, and Mike McDaniel, kept Baltimore’s man behind the curve.

Meanwhile, a Ravens defense impressive in their overall execution experienced three stark missed assignment errors in man. These came versus stacked and bunched receivers, after shifts busted coverage.

Overall, it felt like the league sussed out Baltimore’s man coverage.

Man In Seattle

So what stops this from happening in Seattle? In terms of defensive back depth, the Seahawks spent two of their draft picks on defenders who played a lot of man-to-man at Auburn: cornerbacks Nehemiah Pritchett (fifth round) and D.J. James (sixth round)

Pritchett feels like an outside guy to push Riq Woolen — it’s fitting that Pritchett’s Senior Bowl snaps arrived on the right side. James, meanwhile, has the movement skills and size profile to be in the old school, small nickel mold that Maulet filled for Macdonald in 2023.

Pritchett and James add to what was already a fierce Seattle corner competition. The Seahawks’ roster features multiple veterans with career games started: Woolen, Tre Brown, Michael Jackson, Artie Burns, plus rookie sensation Devon Witherspoon. That’s not even accounting for Coby Bryant who, though moved to safety in 2023, entered the league as a perimeter corner and was Seattle’s starting nickel in 2022.

If Macdonald’s man coverage struggles continue to the Seahawks’ defense, it feels like the impact would be greater given where Seattle’s roster is currently positioned and the strengths of its divisional opponents.

Take the following schematic bargain as an example.

You are wanting to load up your box with an extra player versus the talented, multiple tight end run games of the Cardinals and Rams, plus the heavy personnel of the 49ers.

Yet you are anxious about running cover 3 against these schemers, all of whom have proven deadly at attacking these coverage structures. Worse, you appear to lack linebackers skilled enough to play cover 3 techniques that slow these problem plays down.

So, the tradeoff: can you get away with playing lighter against the run? Are you able to cheat the math versus these challenging offenses and play some more split safety, middle field open coverages that can help slow the pass?

Or, keeping an extra run defender in the box still, are you able to play cover 1 man coverage? This would ask less of the linebackers. However, what if the man-to-man stays bad?

Remember that Baltimore’s run-stopping was its other plummeting area in the second half of 2023. Run D and man coverage are the key, very much related issues for Macdonald’s defense to correct in 2024 and beyond.

Seahawks Head Coach Mike Macdonald Faces A Familiar Problem: Run Defense

All of this, then, is a reminder that year one of the Macdonald system should be viewed as a first step in the process, rather than expectation of clearly better results. Watching this journey is where the real intrigue lies. How will Macdonald adapt to his past weaknesses and a new environment?

This article was edited by Alistair Corp

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