Hawkscanner":13umpg03 said:
1) Offensive Line play -- the line has been pretty shoddy all season long. Due to Unger's injury and Sweezy's and Carpenter's inconsistent play, teams have been able to get pressure right up the gut. Justin Britt has struggled quite a bit in pass protection as well this year. As a result, Russell has been running for his life a good percentage of the time. Part of the reason that he holds the ball so long is that he's spending a lot of time dodging and running away from defenders. During those few times he's actually had a clean pocket, he's looked pretty good. Outside of re-signing Russell Wilson and Bobby Wagner, addressing the woes of this offensive line has to rank as priority #1 this coming offseason.
2) That said, production from the WR spot has been the other part of the issue. Russell is also holding the ball so long because many, many times guys simply aren't getting open. Sidney Rice was brought up and that's precisely the point. Since 2012, this team has missed Sidney Rice from an offensive standpoint. It's missed a receiver who can really stretch a defense -- someone whom the defense has had to respect. Why did Carroll and Schneider invest so much to bring in Percy Harvin? That's exactly why. Those guys know that this receiving corps (as a whole) benefits from having a real big play making WR out there. A Sidney Rice type -- someone with great hands who can consistently beat press coverage, has the moves to juke opposing DB's out of their socks, and who has the instincts to consistently bail the QB out when he's in trouble -- is exactly what this Seahawks team has been missing. A guy like that makes the entire offense better because he makes those DB's back off and creates space for everyone else.
I think there's a #3 that some people are avoiding (or maybe just not noticing).
Russell Wilson is still in development, too. There are still many plays where he's locking onto receivers, not going through progressions, bailing from the pocket
without any pressure at all, failing to step up, and essentially holding on for the big play far longer than he should. A lot of this is on Russ.
The Richardson pick the other day was a good example, ran backwards INTO pressure and made his O-line look bad, instead of stepping up and finding a wide-open outlet route (he had two on the play).
This doesn't have to be a horrible thing. Plenty of third-year receivers are still figuring it out. But it does have an effect on our passing game. In the second half of the Arizona game, Wilson settled down and started taking the smaller stuff, and even before then we'd been keeping some traction.
A true #1 receiver would help. But so would some improvement from Wilson.
And it may be that part of it is because, yes, he's short and can't always see through his offensive line. I don't think that fact has to be damning upon his potential, but we'd be silly to say it isn't a factor at all.