The Seahawks Scheme Behind Josh Jacobs' 86-Yard Walk-Off TD
In the aftermath of Josh Jacobs' 86-yard overtime TD, scapegoating inevitably occurred. I look at the press conferences, scheme and history to explain what actually happened to the Seahawks' run fit:
As expected, the last snap the Seahawks played has been the major talking point of the week. Yeah, Josh Jacobs’ 86-yard game-winning run will take some getting over. At least this Raiders fan was happy:
“It’s one of those ones that’s gonna burn and eat at you for as long as you live. There’s games and plays in my career that you never forget. And that’s one of those that’s not going to go away,” defensive coordinator Clint Hurtt said on Wednesday.
Such an emotional ending to the 40-34, Week 12 home defeat to the Las Vegas Raiders inevitably led to hasty and incorrect blame being applied.
Cody Barton—seemingly the 2022 defensive scapegoat in Jamal Adams’ absence—received the bulk of the criticism for the walk-off score. That was laughable: the fourth-year linebacker executed his assignment perfectly. And just this week Barton’s recent performances overall received praise from Hurtt and Carroll.
On the Jacobs TD, Seattle was in—without yet getting into the specific terminology of their system—a reduced under front. On the back end, they ran a quarter-quarter-half pass coverage. This placed Barton to the cover 2 side in the weak A-Gap. With Josh Jones playing a deep 1/2 zone over the top of Davante Adams and Tariq Woolen removed from the core by this receiver too, Barton was all alone past the line of scrimmage to this side of the formation. He was the one guy.
Furthermore, even with the fullback going away from Barton, the angle in which the offensive linemen in front of him looked to combo block nose tackle Al Woods before climbing to the linebacker required him to hold in the A-Gap. Barton absolutely had to honor his initial gap assignment. This was a tight run that Jacobs could easily have cut back.
Take it from the schematic history of Vic Fangio, the man whose language and system Hurtt has applied to the 2022 Seahawks D. As we can see from this Eagle Wide drawing—what Dom Capers and Fangio were calling this front back in 1997 with the Carolina Panthers—the “MAC” was responsible on run away for “Pursuit” but needed to “know cutback threat is backside A Gap.” Just like Barton.
Fangio’s 2000 Indianapolis Colts playbook features run fit drawings of “Eagle 6”—essentially the same fit as what Seattle was trying to get done here. Again, notice that on the wider, more outside pursuit requiring, lead stretch away drawing, the backside inside linebacker, “W”, was still shown fitting into the A-Gap.
So: if not Barton, who messed up?
When head coach Pete Carroll was asked on Wednesday about Jordyn Brooks leading NFC linebackers in pro bowl voting, he took his answer into a revealing area.
“More comfort with the scheme,” Carroll said of the areas Brooks can still grow. “So he’s again more accurate with everything he does. Because linebackers get in trouble they get out of position, you know, and sometimes you know, and he’s such an aggressive player. He’ll just get better as he’s going.”
On Jacobs’ score, Brooks was very aggressive indeed—and perhaps this was the play on Carroll’s mind. The end result was detrimental. Brooks was supposed to spill the block of fullback Jakob Johnson through his C-Gap, attacking it with his inside shoulder staying in the C-Gap. This would then have made the run go further outside.
Instead, Brooks played so violently downhill that he took the fullback on more head up, albeit with his inside shoulder, and he ended up being sealed to the outside.
Why this really mattered is that fitting the run is about leveraging blocks and the ball to your defensive help. And Brooks, in getting sealed out, ended up letting the ball go in between a big crease inside of him and the nearest help of Barton, a man occupied by the away A-Gap. If Brooks had spilled the ball, then—in theory and by design—help could have joined the play more easily, more reliably, and sooner.
“They were issues where we weren’t as connected as we want to be, where we fit right,” Carroll assessed of the run fit problems on Monday. The Jacobs TD is a prime example of poor connection.
Seattle on this play was probably in something similar to a “luggage” call, a base tool to always shade a cover 2 to the dangerous Davante Adams. (Visible below)