Again, You are Kidding Yourself.
First it was Wilson who was supposedly "Living Rent Free" in the Minds of folks around here, Not any longer, Pete Carroll has ALSO taken up residence RENT FREE in the minds of his detractors.
As for RW not scoring in the first half of games, that IS on Russ.
Lot's of 3 & outs, they were NOT in the game plans, & most certainly NOT ON PERPOSE.
No matter WHO Pete brought in as OC, the game ALWAYS reverted to RW's way, or no way at all.
In retrospect, Pete already KNEW that Russell Wilson had ALREADY QUIT on the TEAM Seahawks brand, so In the final few games in 2021, Penny's success @ running was a big FU to ALWAYS doing it Wilsons way.
Yup. The first half is when we would try to execute the designed gameplan based on what Wilson was comfortable with. Bubble screens. Read options. Quick, one read slants, and play action passes. We'd lean run heavy at times to loosen up the defense to hit long passes and open up routes that Wilson liked that they'd clamp down on. Remember how we'd never use J Graham? Well where was Jimmy running his routes? Jimmy was underutilized in part because Russ needed time to process and so was held back to block, AND because in our offense, unlike in NO where he'd line up outside quite a bit, he was pushing the middle of the field. Granted, we had a string of bad lines after our SB runs that also necessitated the extra blocker, but Russ has never been one to make a defense pay with his anticipation and ability to diagnose and get the ball out.
But throughout his career, our passing offense under #3 wasn't great on 3rd down. SO, as the game progressed and we couldn't run enough to open up a Wilson's passing, contests would turn into conservative slugfests, by process of elimination. Wilson couldn't throw us into first downs consistently, so we'd lean on the run and defense, and invariably, Beastmode would break things open enough that the over the top PA would net results, or when he ran more by design layer in games, we'd start to make a run and either come back from a small deficit, or pull ahead.
Either the above, OR, Russ would just rely on his legs to make defenses play us the way he needed to get the passing plays he wanted, either in the flow of a design, or more often, improvising. But the improv act and intentionally running with #3 wouldn't happen until it HAD to, later in games. In quarters 1,2 and 3, it was trying to execute the offense. This pattern is what I think spawned the belief that it was Pete who was playing the games close until he and the OC decided it was time to just let Russ be Russ and make up the game plan with uptempo calls, chunk runs, and his tendency to do the spectacular.
Russ just legitimately struggled to run a designed offense. He ran the plays he liked and spurned the rest, preferring to make up his own results.
FF to 2019 and his desire to put the game on his legs or the legs of a running back had waned. Russ drank his own kool-aid and was determined that he didn't need the rush game to work or an offense to bail him out. So the RPO all but disappeared. We flourished for a bit just letting Russ improvise more early in games and he was always good at the PA. So good at both that we would be in talks for MVP. But his not running and then also losing a step reduced his bag of tricks to PA and a less potent improv game without a willingness to rely on the run. But he didn't care. And so 2020 and 2021 made it plain who he is when he refuses to stray from his own script or work within a run first offense.
The solution in his mind to compensate for his inability to make the quick presnap adjustment or post snap read - get a good enough o line that he can stand 10 yards behind the line of scrimmage and wait for his guys to come 2 yards open.
Can Denver provide him that? Maybe. But I don't think it's gonna happen, Cap'n. He's extraordinarily talented and incredibly limited, guven the success he's had. But that in large part is a result of the teams that were built around him that didn't ask him to do anything but what he was good at, and his own ridiculous accuracy, and tendency to not throw risky balls.
It's gonna be a fun season to watch.