RENTON — So what to make of the Seattle Seahawks at almost the halfway point of the 2022 season?
That was a question put to former Seahawk Richard Sherman earlier this week during a conference call to promote Sherman appearing on Amazon Prime’s broadcast of Thursday Night Football.
“Obviously they were running a different (defensive) scheme, while they are running a different scheme now,” Sherman said. “They’re getting back to the basics now.”
And that, Sherman said, has been one of the keys to the Seahawks winning three straight games to get to 5-3 and a game ahead of the rest of the NFC West heading into a game Sunday at Arizona against the Cardinals.
The Seahawks entered the first game against Arizona at 2-3, coming off a 39-32 loss at New Orleans, seemingly on the way to a lost season.
But the Seahawks reversed course on defense — got back to basics, as Sherman said — reverting to a scheme in which the players were given freedom to shoot gaps when they saw fit instead of reading and reacting.
In the three games since, the Seahawks have allowed just 15 points a game, tied for third in the NFL — with one opponent touchdown coming on a botched punt and another on a 2-yard drive by the Giants last week following a Tyler Lockett fumble (and one other TD in that time came in garbage time against the Chargers).
The Seahawks are sixth in the NFL in rushing yards allowed per attempt at 3.87 and total yards allowed per game at 289.7.
So, the defense seems fixed.
But what about the offense, Sherman?
The Seahawks’ offense, led by quarterback Geno Smith in his first year taking over for the traded Russell Wilson, ranks fourth in points per game at 26.3 and 12th in total offense at 352.1.
“I’m very, very happy to see Geno,’’ Sherman said. “And I’m very happy for (offensive coordinator) Shane Waldron, you know, because every year they’re talking about firing the offensive coordinator in Seattle, and people haven’t realized that it’s not the offensive coordinator’s fault until now. They realized that these offensive coordinators are drawing it up and they’ve been drawing it up for a while.
“But you need somebody to throw the football where you wanted to go and play it the way you want it to be played and that’s exactly what Geno’s doing. Geno’s playing fantastic football. They believe in him, they have a lot of confidence in him. He has a lot of confidence. He worked hard. So it’s really cool to see.’’
Read into that what you want.
If there was a team that got to Smith during his run to the top of the NFL passer rating chats it was Arizona.
In the first game against the Cardinal Smith was 20 of 31 for 197 yards and no touchdowns — one of only two games this year in which he didn’t throw for at least two TDs (the other was vs. the 49ers).
Smith finished that game with a passer rating of 82.3, also his second-worst of the year other than the 49ers game, which was played six days after the season-opening win over the Broncos and the week before Carroll publicly announced that he would take the reins off Smith and the offense.
The Seahawks scored only one touchdown in the first game against Arizona, settling for field goals by Jason Myers on drives of 51 yards or longer, and held seven times to drives of 10 yards or less.
Afterward, Smith said “I know I need to be better and I will be.’’
Asked about that game this week, Smith said: “Thinking about that game, they presented us with a bunch of different fronts and situational challenges. I can remember being down in the red zone and it was right before the half, so they were backed up, pretty much playing goal line. We didn’t do great in the red zone that game, so that’s something that we have to improve on. Really, throughout the entire season, we haven’t been great in the red zone, so we have to just keep getting better in the red zone and really finish drives. We have to finish drives with touchdowns, not settling for field goals, and also doing really well on third down.”
The Seahawks were 4 of 14 on third down and 0 for 1 on fourth down against Arizona, and despite all the offensive success of this season the Seahawks have scored touchdowns on just 40% off tries inside the 20-yard line, which ranks 31st fin the NFL ahead of only Denver.
“Starting with me, just getting the ball out in rhythm and on time,” Smith said of the first Arizona game. “Making sure I’m not holding the ball too long back there, making fast and decisive reads, and getting the ball out of my hands. Also, just finishing drives, finishing in the red zone, being better on third down, and overall, whatever it takes to win. Obviously, I felt like I could have played better in that game, so just improving on the things from that game and seeing if we can get better in this one.”