Seattle offense has NFLs worst field position through Week 2

http://www.espn.com/blog/seattle-seahaw ... d-position

The average starting field position for the Seahawks' offense so far has been their own 20 yard line. That's the worst mark in the NFL.

Last year, they started drives (on average) at their own 29.2 yard line, which was eighth-best.

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Say what you want about our OL troubles but the real killer to me has been field position. It's hard enough to travel 80+ yards to score points on each series but with this line it's nearly impossible.

Aros":3eblnx9n said:

Say what you want about our OL troubles but the real killer to me has been field position. It's hard enough to travel 80+ yards to score points on each series but with this line it's nearly impossible.

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That would then flip back to our defense getting turnovers, hard when your playing a soft zone keeping everything in front of you unless your getting strips on tackles.

To me the biggest problem with the offense besides the obvious:

Can't stay on schedule ( too many stupid drive killing penalties, drops, missed assignments )
too many 3rd and longs
too many 3 and out because of third and longs

I posted this in another thread, but over the past few seasons the offense THRIVED on turnovers. It's tough to blow teams out in the NFL, so in close games when someone would get a huge late quarter pick, the offense would come out fired up and often scored on a big play. Marshawn would drag someone 15 yards into the endzone and the defense would be screaming and jumping, ready to go out and make another play. That just doesn't happen anymore.

The zone defense is dominate but it doesn't generate takeaways anymore. Teams don't take chances. Everything is short and safe ever since the Pats showed the league the blueprint. I would love to see some more man press, leave Sherm on an island, send an extra rusher or two.

Funny how that tends to happen when the O doesn't move the ball except backwards and the D bends enough to trash field position.

Seymour":381yy5i6 said:

Funny how that tends to happen when the O doesn't move the ball except backwards and the D bends enough to trash field position.

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Exactly right. Don't ignore the offense inability to move the ball leading to punts further back leading to your opponent starting further ahead and ie when they punt you start further back......

The field position is a byproduct of poor drives. You really don't have to look past 1st and 2nd down stats to figure out what's happening.

Example - Seattle's offense on 1st and 2nd down the numbers look like this:

1st Down (avg to go: 10.43)
Passing: 20/27 (74.1%), 243 YDS, 9.0 Y/A
Rushing: 30 ATT, 100 YDS, 3.33 Y/A

2nd Down (avg to go: 8.48)
Passing: 19/28 (67.9%), 169 YDS, 1 TD, 6.0 Y/A
Rushing: 18 ATT, 46 YDS, 2.54 Y/A

37 of the 48 plays on 2nd down began with 5 or more yards to go (despite terrific efficiency when passing on 1st down).

We can't run the ball and we have too many passes negated by penalties.

Laloosh is right. No run game and constant penalties early in drives is going to make it impossible to flip the field. To my eye, the passing game wasn't quite terrible. Above 60% completion and a respectable (but not great) YPA, despite being in a lot of bad down-and-distance. I didn't watch the game film, but in the stadium, it looked like they were going after a specific corner and were betting right (some unfortunate OPIs aside...). Without those flags, the passing numbers would've really blown up.

Big difference: 10 penalties, 7 on the offensive side. Our starting RB had -7 rush yards.

After Sunday, that was my thought as well David vis a vis the passing game. It's not terrible, it's not bad, it simply isn't materializing in points. The run game on the other hand needs much improvement.

I remember before the regular season started about talking both offensive and defensive schemes. The general opinion seemed to agree that we needed to use aggressive schemes on both sides of the ball this year. So far as posted above we run a loose, bend but don't break zone defensive scheme and an attempted power run game with a big play offensive game plan as our offensive scheme. Or something similar to these two viewpoints.

In other words, our schemes have far more to do with our bad field position than any other factor.

I suspect this will improve to the median before very long. Penalties are killing the fie;d position and keeping the team facing 3rd and long situations again and again. As far as the return game is concerned i'd rather take a shot with Lockett for a big return.