Does Wilson's height affect our ability to run HB screens?

I want to be clear that I'm not knocking Wilson. I love the guy and grateful we finally have a franchise QB.

However, I know the threat of the screen game can in some cases put DEs on notice... and at least put a little doubt in the back of their minds when pinning their ears back.

I know we've tried it before but it's never worked. I was just watching the top 10 plays from Eddy Lacy on another thread and noticed 3/4 out of 10 were screen passes.

I would expect height is the reason, but I would really hope they could work out some sort of variation of a HB screen to add a wrinkle to our offense... Plus, it should feel pretty familiar for DEs to get free runs at the QB

I think our linemen's inability to execute screen passes probably has a lot more to do with it. That's a criticism of the line that I will freely cite. It never gets enough discussion.

I think it is actually Russ' ability to move in the pocket that impacts this more. If the LB goes out to cover the RB and Russ sees a lane, he can run through that hole, so naturally the numbers might be down in comparison to pure pocket passers with no wheels.

Not at all.

Teams tend to either run RB screens or bubble screens with their WRs. The Hawks run a TON of bubble screens.

The upside of the RB screen is you're using misdirection to get the ball out into potential space, with lineman and hopefully secondary defenders being out of position due to the trickery.

The benefit of the bubble screen is that you're using the speed of the play to get the ball out into potential space, with lineman and secondary defenders out of position because they don't have time to react to it.

Upsides of the bubble is there's no chance of your QB getting clobbered, it's much less likely for the play to result in no yards at all, it's a great little easy play to get your QB in rhythm, and the turnover risk is lower. Upside of the RB screen is there's more chance of a bug chunk play when it goes right.

Basically though, it's two offensive ways to skin the same cat. I think the Seahawks would be using bubbles regardless of who their QB is.

It's not a matter of if Wilson's heights affects it. Wilson's height affects just about every throw less than 20-25 yards down the field.

Geometry dictates as much.


I know it's hard to admit for some, but it's one of the biggest reasons for his accuracy issues on slants and shallow crosses as well. Now, is that sometimes negated by passing windows and timing? Yes. Do the pros still outweigh the cons? Absolutely.

It is what it is though and I'm sure folks will argue against high school level mathematics like geometry for the sake of faith and belief.

I do not believe on short RB screens that his height is as much of an issue myself. Any QB throwing a short dump off pass is not going to throw over a 6'4"+ lineman, as the ball would be over the RB's head anyway. They typically have an open lane or find a void to wait in for the QB to have an open throw. I think this is more a Bevell / oline issue as to why we do not use it more. With Prosise in the lineup, I believe we should see more of this.

vin.couve12":qqadbynn said:

one of the biggest reasons for his accuracy issues on slants and shallow crosses as well.

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A couple inches of height doesn't really change throwing lanes on those types of passes, IMO.

The lane is their or not.

I think Wilson might be the best touch passer in the NFL -- definitely the best when including deep ball ability, which eliminates Brady.

IMO his accuracy issues pop up when he's trying to rifle into tight windows -- give him a 35 yard rose field touch pass to loop into a bread basket and he's amazing, but give him a slant that needs a well placed rifle shot at 5-7 yards and he's gonna miss it sometimes.

We are typically terrible at misdirection, most teams know our plays before we execute them based on how they are defended, on rare occasions we have went with a naked screen in the np0ast to Lynch on the roll out away and he had been left wide open and alone. Those were few and far between though.

We ran them with Beast during our championship run. He scored a couple of times with out being touched. I don't know why we stopped. Maybe one day someone will ask Pete why we don't run screens to slow down the blitz like every one else does.

I'll get this back on track as the OP intended, so as far as Wilson's height, taking snaps in the shotgun allows him to either float a pass over a charging DE in the flats to our back or give a fake toss and then run past the DE for a nice gain. He's done that multiple times. I think Prosise will be very adept in this department. Lacy too. As Popeye said, the bubble screen gets us 4-5 risk-free yards a crack, so that's a big part of our offense, too. And like vin. mentioned, the height probably comes more into play when trying to zip a pass through a crack in the line on a drag route or quick slant over the middle.

brimsalabim":uhj4ft0x said:

maybe one day someone will ask Pete why we don't run screens to slow down the blitz like every one else does.

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I heard Holmgren on 950 last year talking about the RB screen. He was saying that you need to commit a lot of time in practice to get it down well, and many teams just don't spend the time. Especially with the more limited practice times they are dealing with nowadays.

Seymour":30pmdrna said:

brimsalabim":30pmdrna said:

maybe one day someone will ask Pete why we don't run screens to slow down the blitz like every one else does.

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I heard Holmgren on 950 last year talking about the RB screen. He was saying that you need to commit a lot of time in practice to get it down well, and many teams just don't spend the time. Especially with the more limited practice times they are dealing with nowadays.

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This.

The screen game is a lot of work.

What they do in KC isn't easy to do.

It may be the case for Russ, but they'll never tell us so. In addition to the great post above by Popeye, the bubble--as much as people on here hate on it--has benefits over the RB screen:

Russ can see it easily without linemen in the way, if it is indeed an issue.

The bubble screen is basically a WR running play putting a faster WR with lateral agility on a heavier, slower LBer creating a bit of a mismatch in space.

The bubble screen also forces the LBers to play up to counter it since the CBs will (ideally) be blocked. Enough of these plays and eventually the field opens vertically which gives the big-play opportunities that Pete craves.

But it would certainly also be fun to see more RB screens, and that were run effectively. This is especially true against teams like the Rams whose front 7 seem to be in our backfield in almost the same amount of time it takes Russ to get the ball.

Death, Taxes and people talking about Wilson's height. Which clearly hasn't affected his play one bit.

But hey, whatever gets you thru the day :2thumbs:

Our Bubble screens are failures about 70 percent of the time, if we got 5 plus yards a crack it would be one thing, but typically we have a guy that isn't the best at acceleration or nobody to make a wedge for him to get past the first wave, seems like most are no gain or losses.

It may give the defense another aspect top prepare for, but they never break anything open and or long so the defenses have this scouted well.

FlyHawksFly":77u0hnms said:

chris98251":77u0hnms said:

Our Bubble screens are failures about 70 percent of the time, if we got 5 plus yards a crack it would be one thing, but typically we have a guy that isn't the best at acceleration or nobody to make a wedge for him to get past the first wave, seems like most are no gain or losses.

It may give the defense another aspect top prepare for, but they never break anything open and or long so the defenses have this scouted well.

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Any stats to back this up?

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I will back it up. It may have gone down to 65% since Bryan Walters left, but rarely do we see a 5+ yard gain from my observation.

FlyHawksFly":1z1v5p6n said:

chris98251":1z1v5p6n said:

Our Bubble screens are failures about 70 percent of the time, if we got 5 plus yards a crack it would be one thing, but typically we have a guy that isn't the best at acceleration or nobody to make a wedge for him to get past the first wave, seems like most are no gain or losses.

It may give the defense another aspect top prepare for, but they never break anything open and or long so the defenses have this scouted well.

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Any stats to back this up?

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It's off memory, last guy to have a bit of success was Lockett on a couple plays, before it was a design specifically for Harvins skill set. someone that can make people miss and accelerate quickly in a crowd, Kearse, Baldwin, or just about anyone else we have used it with does not have those intangibles.

Seymour":2ql2z6sj said:

FlyHawksFly":2ql2z6sj said:

chris98251":2ql2z6sj said:

Our Bubble screens are failures about 70 percent of the time, if we got 5 plus yards a crack it would be one thing, but typically we have a guy that isn't the best at acceleration or nobody to make a wedge for him to get past the first wave, seems like most are no gain or losses.

It may give the defense another aspect top prepare for, but they never break anything open and or long so the defenses have this scouted well.

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Any stats to back this up?

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I will back it up. It may have gone down to 65% since Bryan Walters left, but rarely do we see a 5+ yard gain from my observation.

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My observations are the opposite. We routinely gain that much. Bevell has gotten better at throwing to the right guys (Lockett and Baldwin), and our experience has grown.

FlyHawksFly":7gn4vqm7 said:

chris98251":7gn4vqm7 said:

FlyHawksFly":7gn4vqm7 said:

chris98251":7gn4vqm7 said:

Our Bubble screens are failures about 70 percent of the time, if we got 5 plus yards a crack it would be one thing, but typically we have a guy that isn't the best at acceleration or nobody to make a wedge for him to get past the first wave, seems like most are no gain or losses.

It may give the defense another aspect top prepare for, but they never break anything open and or long so the defenses have this scouted well.

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Any stats to back this up?

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It's off memory, last guy to have a bit of success was Lockett on a couple plays, before it was a design specifically for Harvins skill set. someone that can make people miss and accelerate quickly in a crowd, Kearse, Baldwin, or just about anyone else we have used it with does not have those intangibles.

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Throwing out a stat like 70% of the WR screens fail needs a little bit more backup than "going off memory" as memory can be faulty and biased.

I highly doubt if they had a play in their playbook that failed that much, that they would ever call it again, especially considering how much they run it the last few years.

Also not taking into account the way Bevell's offense works by showing teams a certain look and then using that look as a misdirection. Bubble screen is really used to setup bigger plays later in the game/season.

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Show me the STATS!!!!!

That's a generalization and opinion which can biased based on your love for the OC and not subjective.

FlyHawksFly":20s9mqup said:

Seymour":20s9mqup said:

FlyHawksFly":20s9mqup said:

chris98251":20s9mqup said:

Our Bubble screens are failures about 70 percent of the time, if we got 5 plus yards a crack it would be one thing, but typically we have a guy that isn't the best at acceleration or nobody to make a wedge for him to get past the first wave, seems like most are no gain or losses.

It may give the defense another aspect top prepare for, but they never break anything open and or long so the defenses have this scouted well.

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Any stats to back this up?

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I will back it up. It may have gone down to 65% since Bryan Walters left, but rarely do we see a 5+ yard gain from my observation.

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That's why I said stats. Your observations are fallible.

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I agree. But sometimes certain stats are far too time consuming to dig up and you need to apply seat of pants stats. I think this is one of those cases.

If anyone does do the research, could they please forward them to Bevell please?