Seattle's Run Defense Puzzle

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As Mike Sando recently posted, the Seahawks were 2nd against the run (3.3 YPC) in weeks 1-6, but fell to 32nd against the run (5.3 YPC) from week 7 through 15. If you wonder why we're less comfortable with our defensive prowess recently, this is it. (Yes, we're not great on 3rd down either, but that's been true all year long.)

So... let's dig a little deeper. During our recent 8-game span we faced the number 1, 2, and 4 running teams (MIN, SF, BUF) and we won two of the three games. Of those, the Vikings game was an outlier.  They put up a whopping 9.0 YPC on us with 243 yards on 27 carries. Yes, it was Adrian Peterson. Yes, we missed some assignments - badly. And, yes, that led to some long runs, including a 74 yarder that Kam Browner ran down at the last moment. Hill KJ Wright was injured in concussed on the first play of that game, and our inexperience (Mike Morgan, 2nd year, USC) showed. Let's call it a "learning experience".

Looking at the other games, we held most teams near their average - some slightly above, some slightly below - except one. Miami. The Dolphins put up 6.8 YPC (189 yards on 28 carries) against us. On average, they gain 4.0 YPC which ranks 20th in the league. (Keep in mind that our bad defensive performance helped inflate that number!)

Week	Team	YPC Rank	Overall YPC	YPC vs. Seahawks	Difference
7	SF	2	5.2	5.5	+0.3
8	DET	16	4.2	3.8	-0.4
9	MIN	1	5.5	9.0	+4.5
10	NYJ	23	3.9	3.8	-0.1
12	MIA	20	4.0	6.8	+2.8
13	CHI	19	4.2	4.0	-0.2
14	AZ	31	3.5	2.7	-0.8
15	BUF	4	5.1	5.6	+0.6

It's not like we can chalk up the Miami game to one breakout run. Their longest gain was 22 yards. It also wasn't that one guy got hot. Tannehill averaged 8.25 YPC (33 yards on 4 carries). Bush got 6.21 YPC (87 yards on 14 runs). Thomas earned 6.67 YPC (60 yards on 9 runs). That tells me that this one was on us.

As I recall, Miami got many of their yards with speed to the outside. It was after this game that Carroll announced that Red Bryant had been suffering with plantar fasciitis. Maybe we were more banged up than we had expected. Maybe we were sluggish after the bye. Whatever the reason, this was a bad day for our run defense.

If you remove the Viking and Dolphin games (yeah, it's a cheat), we end up with 4.2 YPC from Week 7 on. It's still not the 3.3 YPC we started with, but it's a whole lot better than 5.3. In fact, it's right around the league average. We should be doing much better than this.

Fortunately, we don't face Adrian Peterson on Sunday night. Unfortunately, San Francisco's offense is #2 in YPC and Kaepernick adds the threat of speed to the edge to compliment Gore's power between the tackles.

We have to hope that our young players take their experience to heart and that Red's foot is on the mend. Mostly, we need to shut down explosive run plays to keep it close. Keep in mind that even with Minnesota's 9.0 YPC, we beat them. Against Miami's 6.75 YPC, we only lost by three. And even with San Francisco's trap game gashing us with 5.5 YPC, we were within a touchdown.

Finally, keep in mind that this game will be in Seattle. 9.0 YPC wasn't enough to beat us at home.

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