Frank Clark put on a clinic on Thursday!

[hawknation2016]

Jumping and knocking the ball down for a pass deflection.

3rd and 1 . . . Clark runs down the RB from the backside.


Beautiful job immediately drawing the holding call and staying with the play to record the sack.


He does it all. Draws another holding call on 3rd down, then chases down the receiver before the 1st down marker.

 

[Largent80]

He's going to be a superstar......BOOM !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[kearly]

This is part of the beauty of football. Ten people could watch the game and come away with ten unique impressions.

Clark has always been a phenomenal "football player" as coaches would say. A guy that chases plays down, hustles everywhere, and plays with 110% effort. I'm in the camp that believes there is hidden value in having players who play with 110% type intensity in that it seems to rub off on others. Not everyone buys into the intangibles stuff but I do, and Pete does as well.

As a jack of all trades player, Clark is doing a great job and I also love that he very rarely if ever makes mistakes that hurt the team. But what I can't really convey through gifs are the dozens of snaps where Clark got lost in hand fighting 1 on 1 against 2nd and 3rd stringers that Michael Bennett would be abusing on the regular. Clark is already a good football player, but I don't yet see a great pass rusher. There are moments when he looks awesome especially on the move, awesome enough that I understand why others hype his pass rush potential so much. HN makes a great point about Clark forcing holds. Holds forced is an indicator of dominance, that plus a hold called is almost as valuable as a sack. I'm just a little more cautious, I want to see a little more out of him as a guy that creates headaches every down at DE before I crown him as the next big thing for our pass rush. He improved this week, I really hope he keeps improving.

 

[HawKnPeppa]

This is part of the beauty of football. Ten people could watch the game and come away with ten unique impressions.

Clark has always been a phenomenal "football player" as coaches would say. A guy that chases plays down, hustles everywhere, and plays with 110% effort. I'm in the camp that believes there is hidden value in having players who play with 110% type intensity in that it seems to rub off on others. Not everyone buys into the intangibles stuff but I do, and Pete does as well.

As a jack of all trades player, Clark is doing a great job and I also love that he very rarely if ever makes mistakes that hurt the team. But what I can't really convey through gifs are the dozens of snaps where Clark got lost in hand fighting 1 on 1 against 2nd and 3rd stringers that Michael Bennett would be abusing on the regular. Clark is already a good football player, but I don't yet see a great pass rusher. There are moments when he looks awesome especially on the move, awesome enough that I understand why others hype his pass rush potential so much. HN makes a great point about Clark forcing holds. Holds forced is an indicator of dominance, that plus a hold called is almost as valuable as a sack. I'm just a little more cautious, I want to see a little more out of him as a guy that creates headaches every down at DE before I crown him as the next big thing for our pass rush. He improved this week, I really hope he keeps improving.

That hand hand-fighting aspect is what both Clark and his veteran DL teammates say he needs to improve. Kinda disappointing that it's still an issue. If he could get proficient at that, I think we'd see a dramatic improvement in pass rushing from him.

 

[hawknation2016]

I think he's definitely making strides as a pass rusher.

He's always been good at plays like this one where he uses his explosiveness to bullrush a lineman into the QB's lap.



Carroll went through a similar thing with Everson Griffen, who had the same innate power/speed at USC, yet struggled in his first few years as a pass rusher. He was famously replaced by Clay Matthews, after USC's sole loss in the 2008 season that cost them the opportunity to play for a National Championship. Carroll would try to get Griffen to use his speed to run by or around blockers, rather than always trying to bullrush and outmuscle them. It took him a years in the league, but Griffen has finally picked it up.

 

[Laloosh]

Good stuff, dude. I miss these threads... it's football, boys!

 

[Laloosh]

That last play... fake the blitz and give up the first down. Was that Bobby? I'm on my phone.

 

[hawknation2016]

That last play... fake the blitz and give up the first down. Was that Bobby? I'm on my phone.

Yes. :2thumbs:

Not a great showing so far this season by him in coverage. He played the run a lot better though in this last game.

 

[Smellyman]

He played really well in KC too. For some reason some people didn't think so.

 

[Seafan]

When Bennett, Avril and Clark are on the field at the same time I expect this defense is going to be solid.

Hopefully we'll finally get to see some of that against Dallas.

 

[kearly]

Carroll went through a similar thing with Everson Griffen, who had the same innate power/speed at USC, yet struggled in his first few years as a pass rusher. He was famously replaced by Clay Matthews, after USC's sole loss in the 2008 season that cost them the opportunity to play for a National Championship. Carroll would try to get Griffen to use his speed to run by or around blockers, rather than always trying to bullrush and outmuscle them. It took him a years in the league, but Griffen has finally picked it up.

I had a similar inkling, that Clark reminds me of the kind of DE's Carroll had at USC, big guys like Lawrence Jackson and Eversen Griffen that are more all-around football players than sack artists. Carroll did end up getting solid sack production out of them in college, and Griffen eventually managed to make it translate in the NFL.

 

[hawknation2016]

Here's a well-executed inside stunt by Clark with a swim move to create separation. Looks like he was held on the play too (not called).

 

[bigskydoc]

FWIW, the offensive play call in the first two examples leave him effectively unblocked. Those are plays that any average defensive lineman in the NFL should be able to make. I worry that Clark is being miscast this year. I hope it works out because he looked a lot better last year.

 

[hawknation2016]

FWIW, the offensive play call in the first two examples leave him effectively unblocked. Those are plays that any average defensive lineman in the NFL should be able to make. I worry that Clark is being miscast this year. I hope it works out because he looked a lot better last year.

If any average defensive lineman could make those plays, then they would have blocked him. In both examples, Clark was just too explosive in getting into the backfield and making a play (backside TFL while lined up at the 4 technique and deflection of a quick screen pass from the "LEO" 7 technique). It allowed him to destroy how those plays were drawn up.

I don't think Clark's role has been cast quite yet. As you can see from the clips above, he is lining up just about everywhere in the reps he is given (LDE, LEO, 4T, 3T, inside stunts, outside stunts, standing up, etc.). And he's making plays just about everywhere he is lined up -- inside or outside. I think they are still figuring it out. Where do you think Clark should be cast?

 

[FlyingGreg]

I also think they are experimenting to see where Clark can do the most damage.

We need him to be a big-time contributor this season.

 

[Hawks46]

Looking at film of Clark in college, he wasn't playing this light at Michigan either. It's probable that he's still working out some things about how his body works at 255.

Also, hand fighting is probably the one thing that takes rookie and newer DE's the longest to pick up. It's not like Bennett came into the league being elite at it, yet he's one of the best out there now.

 

[hawknation2016]

No one stood out more than defensive end Frank Clark. He was the team’s highest-graded player after collecting five total pressures and a batted pass to go with three stops in run defense.

https://www.profootballfocus.com/pro-pr ... arapppolo/

 

[kearly]

Now that I think about it, back in the earliest days of this era Pete Carroll traded Lawrence Jackson for a bag of Doritos a few days after he traded a bag of Doritos for Kentwan Balmer, who was a similar kind of player. He also drafted a DE in the 4th round that year who was a bust, but fit the same kind of profile as those guys. So maybe this type of player has been a Pete kind of DE all along, but he did some experimenting along the way for speed DEs like Irvin, Avril, and Bennett.

So anyway, there is a degree of precedent for Pete having a big all-around DE philosophy with the Seahawks as well. It was just easily forgotten about since it was back in year one and it didn't amount to anything. Obviously, Clark is a much better player than Kentwan Balmer or EJ Wilson could ever have hoped to be.

Calais Campbell has shown that you can be an elite DE without needing huge sack numbers or constant pressures. I would take Calais Campbell on the Seahawks in a heartbeat over Cliff Avril. If Clark can be a Campbell type all-around force then I could certainly live with that.

 

[hawknation2016]

Five pressures is a great game for any defensive lineman, including Michael Bennett. Clark is way ahead of where Bennett was in his 2nd year. He just has to keep improving.

“I think he looks really good," Carroll said. "He’s exciting, he’s explosive, a dynamic football player and like we were saying, we just need him on the field more. We’ve got different ways to do that and he’s been effective and hard to deal with so far. We’re hoping we’ll just keep adding him in and you’ll see him in different spots during the season. We’ll have to wait and see what that is but we’re preparing him to do that.”

http://www.seahawks.com/news/2016/08/22 ... k-3-sunday

It's kind of bizarre to me that Bennett could be thought of as a "speed DE" but not Clark. Their raw speed and explosiveness are very similar. Clark was in the top 1% of defensive players in SPARQ score (141.6). His 4.64 Pro Day 40, 38.5 vertical, and 4.05 short shuttle are amazing for a player of his size and arm length (83-7/8" wingspan and 34-3/8" arm length). He's not where Bennett is now, but the potential is obvious.

 

[Smellyman]

you'd take a 6'8 300 pound pro bowler over Avril? That's going out on a limb.

Although Campbell is more of a DT and is listed as such now. Most of his snaps are from the inside and he plays in 3/4