Seahawks in Germany Practice: 4 Things I Learned
The Seattle Seahawks' visit to Germany gave me my first opportunity to attend Seahawks practices and press conferences. I got to work, coming away with 4 nerdy observations:
Well that was fun! On Thursday and Friday, I attended my first Seahawks practices and press conferences, asking questions to Tyler Lockett, DK Metcalf, Aaron Donkor, Quandre Diggs, Geno Smith and Pete Carroll x2. Seattle’s head coach seems to like my style:
There’s a lot to take away from the Seahawks’ two days preparing for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers at FC Bayern Munich’s Säbener Straße training ground. And that includes some nerdy, Seahawks On Tape-style observations. Ahead of Sunday and the first regular season NFL game to be played in Germany, here are 4 things that stood out to me:
Defensive Improvements Here to Stay
Since week 6, the first time Seattle faced Arizona in 2022, the Seahawks defense is second in EPA per play. Yes, in the entire NFL.
Their improvement has been remarkable. “We made a transition, week 4 or whatever it was,” Pete Carroll told me on Friday.
“We took a look at what we were doing and how our guys were fitting with the scheme and decided that there were some things that we needed to adjust, to fit our players. Which is how we always try to do it. But we hadn’t done it well enough at that early stage. We were trying to make it come together. So we made a couple of changes and it just worked out great.”
That change was first noticeable on tape in that week 6 Cardinals matchup, as we excitedly spoke about on Seattle Overload at the time and as I covered in this thread.
Seattle shifted their base approach into being pretty much only bear fronts, covering the center and two guards. They also switched up their techniques, using more power-stepping, one-gapping, 3-technique players on the outside shoulder of the guard and less 4i, read-and-react, mirror-stepping, gap-and-a-half defensive linemen on the inside shoulder of the tackle.
“The players really embraced it and they made it happen,” Carroll continued. “It wasn’t that much technical as it was physically placed them in positions and asked them to do some stuff that they were more accustomed to, and it worked out really well.”
This move up front was how Carroll had done it in the past, since his days of running what he called “stick” defense at USC. I asked the head coach on Thursday whether it takes time to find the right balance between new ideas and what worked in the past.
“It doesn’t have to always, but it has, it’s taken time,” said Carroll.
“And the time has been well worth it for us. We’ve come around so well, so quickly. And we were off to a lousy start. We just weren’t, we weren’t functioning well. We weren’t doing anything the way we want do it. And the last month, you know, it’s turned. It’s turned in all of the key areas.”
Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady was quick to praise Seattle’s unit. “They’re good on defense, they’re creating a lot of sacks and turnovers,” he said in his Friday press appearance at FC Bayern’s campus.
Indeed, Seattle’s 15 takeaways are just two away from the league-leading Patriots. And their 27 total sacks are 6 off the first-placed Dallas Cowboys.
Carroll was eager on both Thursday and Friday to look ahead, though. “That doesn’t mean anything, that’s what already happened,” he said of the defensive turnaround on Thursday. “We gotta do it again, you know? So we gotta come out and play a really good game against a great club. And hopefully we take the next step.”
“I’m hoping that we can just keep growing,” he added on Friday. “We still have a lot of learning in our scheme that’ll take place. And we can get a lot better.”
Here’s a clip showing the ass-kicking the Seahawks are doing up front in their bear, with Poona Ford driving his man back as a 4i-technique, notably more downhill than before the defensive shift. He was able to impressively win into the C-Gap when the ball went that way—the 4i part to the equation.
Meanwhile, Uchenna Nwosu dominated physically on the edge. Numbers-wise, this should have been a big gain for Arizona, given they ran their QB, pulled, and did it against a two-high defense. Instead, the result was a tackle for loss.
Pistol a Core Offensive Component
The pistol formation has been regularly used by Seattle as a changeup look in 2022. This is something Ollie Connolly picked up on as a way of the McVay tree keeping things fresh: Why the Pistol will be back en vogue in 2022 (substack.com) The formation serves as a halfway house—literally for the quarterback’s depth—between the under-center formations and the shotgun. It features positive elements from each.
“The reason that people have done that is because of what being in shotgun gives you,” Carroll responded on Friday. “It gives, if you’re on the defensive side, if the guy’s on this side of the quarterback, you know a lot about what’s coming. When he gets in the middle…you didn’t know which way the thing was—because you really do have pre-snap alerts, you know, based on the fact that the back’s on one side or the other. So the pistol eliminates that.”
“Well I think pistol gives us a chance to, obviously, you know be in the dot and kinda hide some of our run plays and pass plays,” agreed Geno Smith on Thursday. “So it gives different options. You know it’s really just one of those things where you just mix it up. You don’t always want to be with a back offset. It can be a tell for some teams and so you go to pistol to try eliminate that.”
These Rookie Corners Are Special
Tampa Bay wide receiver Chris Godwin was full of praise for “27” (Tariq Woolen) and “8” (Coby Bryant) when I asked him about Seattle’s cornerbacks. “I think they’re a really good group [overall],” he evaluated. “I think they’re really going to challenge us.”
Carroll spoke about Bryant, Seattle’s 5th round rookie, after I asked him if the nickel coping with the large amount the Seahawks staff has put on his plate is testament to his learning ability. “Yeah, he is a really, really gifted football player in general,” the head coach started.
“And that’s why he was recognized, you know, as the college player of the year at his position. Because he did so much and so many things were easy and come easy to him.”
The Seahawks have asked Bryant to pass defend in cover 1, cover 2, cover 3, cover 4, cover 6, cover 8 and fire zones—that’s a lot of different coverage techniques. They have blitzed him. They have even deployed him as an outside linebacker in a special bear front look.
“He’s just scratching the surface,” Carroll continued. “And he is such a great competitive kid. And he can see things and sense things and he’s aware. But he just needs to get through it so that he can kinda log all the stuff that’s happening you know.”
That’s an interesting approach that we have already started to see pay off, with Bryant visibly improving and growing in comfort from week 1 until now.
“He’s going to be a phenomenal playmaker I think, in the years ahead,” finished Carroll, raving about Bryant in a way he rarely does. “He’ll be a five or six interception guy. You know he may wind up with four or five when the years over, he already had two taken away, you know? He’ll be a blitzer and a tackler and all that stuff. So he’s got great makeup, you know, to be a fantastic nickel corner. He should be as good as anybody, I think.”
Woolen, meanwhile, played a great game versus the Cardinals that featured a ton of press technique variety and shut down DeAndre “Nuk” Hopkins. “That was really astute for you to see that, because that was his first time really he did a bit of everything that we’ve been working on,” Carroll said to me on Friday. “And I thought it was that time that he could use it versus DeAndre and he put together a really good game.”
“All that we’ve been working on he rolled out the whole ball of wax. He did it all,” Carroll said of Woolen’s technique. “Meaning the changeups and the different timing and things that we do.”
I had asked Carroll specifically about Woolen’s impressive quick jam, something he startled Hopkins with and was able to employ even in one-high defense, see here:
“After all the years of coaching it, you know, there’s a lot of different ways to do it within the technique kinda confines,” Carroll described of how to decide which technique to coach which player. “And l’ve always tried to match it up to the person and his style and his abilities and all. Some guys have a, you know, different traits. Even though they look very similar. And so, how you do that is wait, watch them, see them, see what they do, see how they handle things. And then adapt to them. With always keeping kinda the baseline of the principles together.”
That baseline of principles, at least in Seattle, certainly includes trying to stay on top, something Woolen did when quick-jamming. Carroll likened the toolkit of press techniques that each corner has to baseball.
“So all of our guys, they have similar—it’s like pitchers have, you know they all throw curveballs and changeups and fastballs,” the coach said. “But they come out different. And that’s kinda the same thing for these guys.”
As for the 6-inch outside read step and kick that the Seahawks coached Richard Sherman to stardom with? It isn’t NFL officiating that means Woolen doesn’t use the technique. “No, it’s no different,” Carroll stated on whether officiating has impacted the step or not. “We’ve been confined by the five yard rule for a long time, you know. And so that’s just something that’s built in to the way we talk and the timing of it and all that now. But it’s not different.”
It’s like Carroll said: “Some guys have a, you know, different traits. Even though they look very similar.” Woolen doesn’t fit the read step in the Seahawks’ eyes; Sherman most certainly did. Instead, Woolen—with his incredible athletic gifts—is a pure mirror stepper and kicker as his fastball. His new quick jam is a nasty changeup.
Route Timing Is Everything With Geno
Finally, the importance of route timing in the 2022 Seahawks offense was explained to me by DK Metcalf.
“Timing is big, especially with the type of quarterback that Geno is,” the wide receiver said on Thursday. “But, you know, we nailed all of that down here in training camp. And during the offseason me and Geno threw for a little bit. And we went down to Texas and threw to Tyler, as well. So, I mean we worked out our kinks.”
These struggles continued into the start of the season according to Metcalf. “We struggled the first couple of weeks, you know, during the season with timing and with routes and trying to get used to each other. And how we communicate,” he admitted.
However, the work of Geno Smith and Tyler Lockett continued to help smooth out this process. “But like I said man, Geno is a great communicator along with Tyler,” Metcalf said. “And they just made it easier to talk things out on the side and you know, to tell each other how they’re gonna run the routes and, you know, Geno’s anticipation with ‘okay, we’re gonna break at this point, and we’re gonna be at this point’ is great. So, just our communication’s got way better.”
Smith’s anticipation, and the importance of route timing, can be seen on this 3rd and 12 dig strike to Lockett. Smith checked the backside safety and expanding flat defender in his drop; he knew with the defensive leverage that this would be there. You can see as soon as Geno hitched up in the pocket, Lockett was breaking in on his cut. Perfection.
When I asked Metcalf if his route tree has changed with Geno, the receiver instead went back to the subject of timing. “I would say the only thing that’s changed is the timing,” he answered. “Because, you know, Russ was a scrambling quarterback. And, you know, Geno can sit in the pocket. So that’s pretty much the only thing that’s changed.”
Seattle has themselves a pocket quarterback to rival Tom Brady this Sunday.