Obsessive Run Game Analysis - Week 1

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Sea Hawk Run! Obsessive Run Game Analysis - Seattle @ Arizona; 09-Sep-2012

Here's my first run analysis of the year, and my first on the Sea Hawk Run! blog. (I've been doing this since 2007 at NW Sports Talk.)

Our running game wasn't bad, but it wasn't all that good either. We have a lot of opportunity for improvement. But give credit where it's due: The Cardinals defense didn't exactly make things easy.

Overall, our runners (including Russell Wilson's plays) had 115 yards on 32 carries for 3.6 ypc. Lynch averaged 4.0 ypc on 21 touches, which is near his minimum target. Turbin and Washington both got five yards on two carries. (And don't forget Leon's awesome returns!)

The goal of the Zone Blocking Scheme (ZBS) is to suffer no losses in the running game. We accomplished that. We had no losses and a single run for no gain. Everything else moved the sticks forward. One thing we have to clean up is penalties. Four yards per carry doesn't add up to much when you get too many plays of negative five to fifteen yards from breaking the rules.

We had a few new twists. We often had a tight end playing fullback. I don't know if the staff was taking it easy on Robinson or if this was designed to confuse the defense. We also ran a lot out of '20' personnel. (That's two runners and no tight ends.) The third new twist was what I'll call a "split zone". Normally in the ZBS, the line pushes everybody right or left. The defense has to go with the flow to maintain gap integrity.  However, in this game, we had a few plays where the zone split between guard and center. If the defenders flow in two different directions, it parts the Red Sea. It gives lots of room for the fullback to lead up the gut.

Here are the running plays...

*** Q1 - 30 yards on 8 carries for 3.8 ypc. We started out slow and then gained momentum. We generated one first down.

[14:53] 1st and 10 at the Seattle 23. Zone left. Giacomini let #90 (Dockett) through. Yeah, Dockett wasn't just a force against the pass, he was a tackling machine against the run. Lynch should have followed Robinson but made the wrong read. Gain of 2.

[13:31] 1st and 10 at the Seattle 34. Zone left. I'm pretty sure Okung messed up as he looked like the odd man out, taking the man to his right. Lynch was met in the backfield and tried to cut back. Gain of 1.

[12:45] 1st and 10 at the Arizona 37. Zone right. Turbin tries to cut back, but Okung had two defenders and failed to block either. Gain of 1. Two bad plays for #76 in a row, but he cleaned it up after that.

[12:06] 2nd and 9 at the Arizona 36. Zone right. Lynch makes a good read and continues to the front side. Gain of 4.

[9:47] 1st and 10 at the Arizona 31. Zone left with clean blocks as Wilson keeps the ball on a naked bootleg and gains 4 yards before going out of bounds.

[9:17] 2nd and 6 at the Arizona 27. Zone left. Okung releases to the 2nd level as McQuistan seals the front side. Lynch gets a good initial hole and batters for 10 yards and a first down.

[8:30] 2nd and 10 at the Arizona 17. Zone left with Miller slashing back against the grain from the H-back spot. Sweezy let his man through, but Turbin was still able to gain four yards.

[7:54] 3rd and 6 at the Arizona 13. Wilson takes off on a designed run from shotgun. The line faked pass protection. Four yards to the left sideline.


*** Q2 - 29 yards on 9 carries for 3.2 ypc. The line played below par in this quarter with seven carries of less than four yards. One first down on an 8 yard run.

[15:00] 2nd and 10 at the Seattle 17. Inside zone left. Not much stretch. Robinson helps Baldwin and Lynch busts through. Nice block by McQuistan and a good read by Lynch for 6 yards.

[13:22] 2nd and 20 at the Seattle 30. It looks like Sweezy goes zone right rather than pass protection leaving Dockett unblocked. Wilson barely escapes and gets one yard.

[12:13] 3rd and 24 at the Seattle 26. Inside zone left, but McQuistan struggles on the front end of his combo block with Unger. Washington for 3.

[5:58] 1st and 10 at the Seattle 20. Zone right, but there's not enough flow. A MLB is waiting for Lynch, who made a good read. 3 yards.

[5:23] 2nd and 7 at the Seattle 23. Zone left. Robinson leads inside left tackle. Lynch made the wrong read. He should have followed his fullback. Lynch cuts back into traffic. Sweezy had made it quickly to the second level, but he's pushed to the ground as the defender adjusts to Lynch's cut. 2 yards where there could have been much more with the right read.

[3:28] 2nd and 6 at the Seattle 35. This is the first "split zone" play that I've seen from Cable. Sweezy and Giacomini zone right as the rest of the line zone's left, parting the seas. Robinson leads Lynch straight ahead. Gain of 8 and a first down.

[2:51] 1st and 10 at the Seattle 43. Inside zone left. No stretch, so nobody can release to the 2nd level. Lynch, meet unblocked linebacker. Gain of 2.

[2:12] 2nd and 9 at the Seattle 45. McCoy is at fullback. Zone right with Lynch cutting back. Unfortunately, Edwards is lined up too wide to be able to come back in and finish the seam. Had that block been made, it would have been huge. Gain of 2.

[:45] 1st and 10 at the Seattle 14. Zone left with the FB and Leon Washington running counter. Unfortunately Sweezy and Giacomini get confused, both release, and their down lineman is effectively unblocked. Make that block and Leon would have been in open space. Gain of 2.


*** Q3 - 35 yards on 9 carries for 3.9 ypc. The line was better coordinated in this quarter. Two first downs and five runs of four or more yards.

[13:14] 1st and 10 at the Seattle 14. Nice zone left. A free LB blitzes past Lynch, who gets 9 yards before the fumble. Wilson recovers after going back one yard and doesn't attempt to advance the ball. (In the stats, Lynch gets 8 yards on a carry and Wilson gets no yards on a carry. Go figure.)

[12:34] 2nd and 2 at the Seattle 22. Zone left. Unger is unable to "club" the defender's armpit to protect the back side and he loses the nose tackle. Lynch fights for a short yard.

[11:54] 3rd and 1 at the Seattle 23. Bootleg. Wilson is rushed from the edge, but by the time Lynch turns to look for the ball, he's covered. Wilson keeps it and rushes to the edge for a hard two yards and a first down.

[9:17] 2nd and 4 at the Arizona 18. Miller is in the fullback position. Split zone with Miller leading Lynch up the gut for seven yards and a first down.

[7:42] 1st and 10 at the Arizona 34. Miller at FB again. Zone right. McQuistan loses his man to a swim move. Miller to the rescue as Lynch fights for four yards.

[7:05] 2nd and 6 at the Arizona 30. Pass protection with lots of time for Wilson, until Sweezy is beat on a spin move. Wilson gains a yard by taking it to the sideline where he biffs a ref.

[6:01] 3rd and 10 at the Arizona 34. The Arizona D rotates clockwise, overloading our right side. The OL fails to adjust. Gay has a clean shot at Wilson who is able to turn it up the middle for a gain of five.

[3:32] 1st and 10 at the Seattle 31. Zone left with the backside man unblocked. The front side defender has his helmet to the outside, so Lynch cuts back. Nothing there, but Lynch is able to fight for 3 yards.

[2:48] 2nd and 7 at the Seattle 34. A power run play with Sweezy and McCoy pulling left. Lynch breaks through, but there is an MLB waiting for him. Gain of 4.


*** Q4 - 21 yards on 6 carries for 3.5 ypc. The line might have started to fatigue as they delivered some really sloppy play. We had a long run on 3rd and long, one first down on a scramble, and the famous two yard run before our 4th timeout.

[14:20] 1st and 10 at the Seattle 43. Zone left. Miller and Robinson aren't able to plow the front side. Giacomini is beat on the back side. There is a scrum in the middle. Lynch for no gain.

[10:58] 1st and 10 at the Arizona 16. The D is loaded for bear. The line is swamped. One ugly yard.

[10:11] 3rd and 26 at the Arizona 32. Zone left. Giacomini is beat but Miller cleans it up from the fullback spot. Okung and McQuistan open a big hole. Lynch cuts it back for his biggest gain of the day. But 11 yards don't count for much on 3rd and 26. Gotta stop those penalties!

[4:26] 1st and 10 at the Seattle 31. Unger and Sweezy are confused and both let the nose tackle through. Lynch breaks the tackle and turns a four yard loss into a four yard gain.

[1:51] 3rd and 2 at the Arizona 34. Wilson has time, sees nothing open, and runs for two yards and a critical first down.

[:38] 1st and 6 at the Arizona 6. It looks like we tried the split zone again. Miller cleans up a free man on the edge from the fullback spot. Sweezy releases from the combo block on Dockett, but Giacomini can't handle him solo. #90 brings down Lynch on a two yard gain.

*** Overall blocking - Our line's boneheaded mistakes weren't limited to pass protection. We messed up some running plays too. Oh well. It's just Week 1. That said, our blocking was coordinated more often than not. Hey, we still look way better than we did from '07 to '09. That said, missed assignments and false starts made things way tougher than they needed to be. Our guys got beat here and there, but we won a number of battles too. It will improve.

*** Play calling - The split zone looked new to me. Cable put our TEs in the fullback spot way more often than he usually does. Robinson was still playing late in the game, so this looked intentional rather than injury driven. Maybe he's grooming the TEs as backup FBs. We rarely had a TE on the line, so we had few calls with a TE slashing back against the grain. Overall, the play calls were still all based around the standard, Alex Gibbs zone blocking system.

*** Runners - There was one Lynch fumble (not counting the screen) recovered very quickly by Wilson. Lynch mostly made good reads, but he missed at least a couple as well. Even with a new contract in hand, Lynch runs like a wild beast. Turbin and Washington didn't get enough carries to get into much of a rhythm.

The good news is that even with our mistakes while facing a great defense, Lynch was able to put up four yards per carry and was never tackled for a loss. I expect a lot of these bugs to be ironed out this week before Dallas comes to town. I wish Moffitt had more practice time. We can only hope that he brings some improvement. But frankly, we have more work to do on pass protection than on run blocking this week.

It was in Dallas where our running game emerged in 2011. I expect that we will have more than enough confidence to run strong against them at home in Seattle.

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