The Seattle Seahawks made it clear this offseason they were looking to make a shift in offensive philosophy.
The franchise moved on from offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb and hired Klint Kubiak to bring his Shanahan-style system to the Pacific Northwest, with hopes it would revive the Seahawks’ dormant run game. Seattle even spent a draft pick on a fullback, something that doesn’t happen all that often in this era of football.
The Seahawks showed their commitment to run game under Kubiak in their season opener Sunday against the division rival San Francisco 49ers. However, it didn’t result in much success during a slog of a day for new starting quarterback Sam Darnold and the rest of the group as they fell 17-13.
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Seattle mustered 230 yards of total offense on 50 plays, good for just 4.6 yards per play. And outside of one touchdown drive that the run game carried (with the help of two defensive penalties as well), the ground attack was stuck in neutral against the Niners’ defense.
The Seahawks finished with 84 yards on 26 carries, averaging just 3.2 yards per pop. The numbers shrink when looking solely at the production of the team’s running backs, who averaged just three yards while accounting for 67 yards on 22 rushes.
“Not the start that we wanted,” Darnold said postgame. “Obviously credit those guys. I thought their defense came out and played really well. They had some good schemes. … For us, it was just not enough today, and I felt like we weren’t as efficient as we wanted to be on first and second down. And third down we got to be way better as well.
“So, just not our best day today, but we’ll bounce back and be better next week.”
Darnold finished with the Seahawks’ longest rush of the day – a 9-yard carry on a well-designed misdirection play that set up a field goal late in the second half.
For as much as the run failed to get consistent traction, the passing game didn’t provide much outside on the one-man show put on Jaxon Smith-Njigba. He accounted for 124 of the Seahawks’ 150 yards through the air, but also had a costly fumble. The rest of Seattle’s offense combined for 26 yards on seven receptions, with none of those catches going for more than nine yards.
It all added up to an offense that couldn’t stay on the field for long. San Francisco beat Seattle in time of possession, holding the ball for 37 minutes, 58 seconds compared to the Seahawks’ 22:02.
With Seattle’s defense spending much of the day on the field, it faded late and surrendered a seven-play, 68-yard TD drive in the final minutes that won the game for San Francisco.
“I think it’s an indicative of we need to play more complementary football, and we need to be more efficient on first down,” head coach Mike Macdonald said of the time-of-possession discrepancy. “… We just have to play better in those situations, and then we’ll maintain the ball better.”
Macdonald also noted time of possession being a team stat. He pointed to San Francisco’s first drive of the game when the Seahawks allowed three third-down conversions and had a third-down stop negated by a roughing the passer penalty as one that impacted the large difference.
Sunday’s game was the first extended look at Seattle’s new offense, which played its starters together for only a single series in the preseason.
When asked about the lack of in-game reps had an impact on the performance, Darnold was dismissive.
“After I came off the field after the game, I knew that wasn’t our standard and that’s not how we that’s not how we do things. And we knew that,” Darnold said. “I knew that personally. I talked to some of the guys already, and we’re just going to continue to grow and get better from it. We’ll be alright.”
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