Seahawks Offense Embraces Tight End/s
The Seattle Seahawks offense is using TEs at a league-leading rate. With injuries to star WRs, this has only grown more important. It's time for the Will Dissly-Noah Fant-Colby Parkinson show!
The Seattle Seahawks offense has embraced the tight end. Or tight ends, rather, with Will Dissly, Noah Fant, and Colby Parkinson getting on the field in two- and three-tight end looks at a league-leading rate.
Per Sports Info Solutions, Seattle’s 12 personnel (1 running back, 2 tight end) usage ranks 1st in the league at 33%, with the 32-team average at 18%. Meanwhile, their 13 personnel (1 running back, 3 tight ends) usage of 13% is also 1st in the NFL, well above the league-wide average of 4%.
In a league that is still dominated by 11 personnel (1 running back, 1 tight end, 3 wide receiver) looks, the Seahawks using multiple tight ends for nearly half of their offensive snaps speaks to the talent they have at TE. Indeed, on Monday, Pete Carroll described the tight end room as “a marvelous position group for us.”
That’s lucky: with their top two wide receivers and target-leaders DK Metcalf and Tyler Lockett questionable to play this Sunday, we can only expect Seattle to build on their already-high tight end deployment.
A source told me on Tuesday that the team, privately, expected Metcalf to be out 2 to 4 weeks but “wouldn’t be surprised if he’s out a few weeks longer.” It is remarkable DK, suffering a partial tear to his patellar tendon with superimposed tendinopathy last Sunday, participated in Friday’s practice and looks to be a gametime decision.
Lockett, meanwhile, is dealing with an “oblique kind of something” that showed up on Thursday, head coach Pete Carroll told reporters on Friday. That was after the receiver appeared on previous injury reports with a hamstring injury.
It's time to find out the extent to which Dissly, Fant, and Parkinson can step up.
Their versatility has already been a visible strength. “All three guys can catch, all three guys are blocking,” Carroll said on Monday. That means Seattle is able to plug-and-play each of the trio, moving them around to find the mismatch in both the run and the pass game. “They interchange their roles,” Carroll described.
“We really feel comfortable in, that we know we have a variety of them and we’re not gonna stick them in their roles where, ‘this guy only does this’ and ‘this guy only does that.’ We don’t want that to happen, we want to be versatile with these guys because they can and just to make it difficult for the opponent too.”
Here’s Seattle in a 12 personnel grouping but with a sniffer, two-back look courtesy of Noah Fant. They then shifted Dareke Young into the backfield for a super iso-style run, although technically mid zone. Ken Walker III was able to cut the run back for an 8-yard 1st down run.
Walker’s first touchdown arrived via 13 personnel. However, rather than Seattle align via an under center formation—the typical look for 3 tight end groupings—they did this through the shotgun, off-setting Walker to the weakside of the formation.