The emerging defensive narrative

[MontanaHawk05]

I've seen a narrative emerging, from the postgame interviews after Sunday to the breakdowns of Mike's performance in Baltimore. Basically, it's that this team performs well in pass defense but falls apart in run defense, and it's actually a problem that went back to Mike last year.

His Baltimore defense gave up a lot of yards per carry (4.5), on par with the Hawks (4.6), something that somewhat flew under the radar because of the low yardage total - in itself an artifact of fewer rushing attempts against (6th fewest in the league), most likely due to opponents falling behind early.

Based on certain things that are becoming commonplace enough to be predictable in his Seattle portfolio (run looks lining up super wide, LBs mugging the line and getting gashed by any RB capable of a cutback or outside bounce), it's looking like this is by design.



I'm curious how Mike plans to evolve. Tyrel Dodson and Jerome Baker are starting to feel like Jordan Babineaux's - they make big plays but take themselves out of position for others. Tyrice Knight got very little playing time Sunday. Obviously, we can't just remain where we are, employing a tradeoff defense.

 

[CouchLogic]

Yeah, I'm not sure why people thought the run D would be dramatically different stats wise. The Ravens conceeded a lot of yards on the ground. Pete had a very bend-don't-break mentality on the ground too. So, again..not sure what fans were expecting.

 

[SoulfishHawk]

Good point. A lot of yards between the 20s, but not a lot of TD's given up.

 

[CalgaryFan05]

I've seen a narrative emerging, from the postgame interviews after Sunday to the breakdowns of Mike's performance in Baltimore. Basically, it's that this team performs well in pass defense but falls apart in run defense, and it's actually a problem that went back to Mike last year.

His Baltimore defense gave up a lot of yards per carry (4.5), on par with the Hawks (4.6), something that somewhat flew under the radar because of the low yardage total - in itself an artifact of fewer rushing attempts against (6th fewest in the league), most likely due to opponents falling behind early.

Based on certain things that are becoming commonplace enough to be predictable (run looks lining up super wide, LBs mugging the line and getting gashed by cutbacks), it's looking like this is by design.



I'm curious how Mike plans to evolve. Tyrel Dodson and Jerome Baker are starting to feel like Jordan Babineaux's - they make big plays but take themselves out of position for others. Tyrice Knight got very little playing time Sunday. Obviously, we can't just remain where we are, employing a tradeoff defense.

Wow. Nice post - thanks for that.

You can see in his examples clearly that the edge rushers are too aggressive on run plays and end up opening huge lanes.

Thanks!

 

[AROS]

Yeah, I'm not sure why people thought the run D would be dramatically different stats wise. The Ravens conceeded a lot of yards on the ground. Pete had a very bend-don't-break mentality on the ground too. So, again..not sure what fans were expecting.

For me personally, I would assume it was because we expected the DL to be a strength headed into the season with some decent depth. I'm no X's and O's specialist but I think it's safe to assume if your DL is upgraded, you should anticipate a better statistical baseline in the running game. However, I don't know anything about gaps and fits and beeps and boops when it comes to X's and O's so clearly I have no understanding of what creates an oppressive defense against the run.

 

[keasley45]

Thanks for posting. Ive been wondering about this myself. If what this trend is pointing to ends up being fact, what i thought was a tradeoff for the sake of injury in weighting the defense toward defending the pass and playing a high risk run defense is actually just THE strategy.

Thing is, its not one that can win against the run regularly if you dont have a difference maker somewhere along the line to force offenses to play to a side... and thats something we havent had reliably. Nuosu is that guy. Mafe CAN be that guy. But BigCat and Smurph have been dinged up.

The other part of that is we havent been playing with enough of a lead to force teams to become more predictable.

With those two deficiencies, opponents have been able to keep the run D guessing too much.

But if they can better control the flow of the opponents run game by forcing a double team and dictating which way the runs are directed, the personnel and schematic shortcomings can be mitigated.

In Baltimore, with the superior talent they had in R Smith and solid play from Queen, they didnt suffer from the gap fit problems as often as we have with our MLBs . On the edge, Mafe / Nwosu dinged up just arent what Clowney was - he was always a beast shutting down the edge.

But get out guys back, get the O ti the point it can more often than not hold enough of a lead to get offenses tbrowing and the D will look MUCH better.

 

[Tech Worlds]

Should have never let Mebane walk.

It is known

 

[Sperrydogg]

For me personally, I would assume it was because we expected the DL to be a strength headed into the season with some decent depth. I'm no X's and O's specialist but I think it's safe to assume if your DL is upgraded, you should anticipate a better statistical baseline in the running game. However, I don't know anything about gaps and fits and beeps and boops when it comes to X's and O's so clearly I have no understanding of what creates an oppressive defense against the run.

Look it’s simple the beeps gotta stop booping so much when the boops are beeping and start filling in the gaps and then we won’t give up so many beeping yards.

 

[knownone]

His Baltimore defense gave up a lot of yards per carry (4.5), on par with the Hawks (4.6), something that somewhat flew under the radar because of the low yardage total - in itself an artifact of fewer rushing attempts against (6th fewest in the league), most likely due to opponents falling behind early.

This was my only concern with MM's defense in Baltimore. The Ravens are a dominant scoring and time-of-possession offense, which tends to force teams out of the run and hide that deficiency in MM's scheme.

So, the formula (to use a Peteism) for Seattle stopping the run might come down to our offense. We saw this against Atlanta: Get a lead, force the opposing offense into obvious passing situations, and feast.

The numbers don't lie: MM's splits, with Seattle and Baltimore, show a defense that dominates when teams are in obvious passing situations. So Grubb, Geno, and Co. must get things started early to mask that vulnerability.

 

[CouchLogic]

Look it’s simple the beeps gotta stop booping so much when the boops are beeping and start filling in the gaps and then we won’t give up so many beeping yards.

 

[WmHBonney]

Look it’s simple the beeps gotta stop booping so much when the boops are beeping and start filling in the gaps and then we won’t give up so many beeping yards.

Yeah, but that only works if Betty is doing the booping....

 

[AirStrike]

I agree with a lot of the above. Baltimore controlled the clock on offense, averaged well over 20 points per game and were ahead most of the time which forced teams to throw the football to keep up. They were also in A TON of nickel due to this and when they played their base defense, Queen was exposed time and time again on the ground because he couldn't tackle worth a lick, and teams rightfully ran away from Roquan Smith.

I'd actually argue Roquan and Clowney were big reasons why their run D wasn't as terrible as it could have been. They did a lot of the heavy lifting there, and even Kyle Hamilton to some extent when he played nickle.

 

[MontanaHawk05]

This was my only concern with MM's defense in Baltimore. The Ravens are a dominant scoring and time-of-possession offense, which tends to force teams out of the run and hide that deficiency in MM's scheme.

So, the formula (to use a Peteism) for Seattle stopping the run might come down to our offense. We saw this against Atlanta: Get a lead, force the opposing offense into obvious passing situations, and feast.

The numbers don't lie: MM's splits, with Seattle and Baltimore, show a defense that dominates when teams are in obvious passing situations. So Grubb, Geno, and Co. must get things started early to mask that vulnerability.

One could say it's a problem Mike has never had to face in any significant volume thanks to Lamar Jackson. It will be, shall we say, a growth opportunity.

 

[DarkVictory23]

I think it's important to keep some of the context in mind here though.

The Ravens defense was worst against the run in the 4th quarter. This fits with the idea that because they were winning so often last year, they would be bringing in extra secondary players and were more willing to give up yards in the run game. Now, giving up almost as many YPC as our very bad defense last year isn't great, the fact that you have a team that was essentially gifting extra YPC as a strategy means it's not really comparable.

We aren't that right now. We give up the most rushing yards in the third quarter. We've been in every game coming into the third quarter. We are facing a fairly neutral offense in terms of tone. Some games we've been ahead, some we've been behind but we haven't been in a situation where a team *should* be thinking they can run out the clock on us and yet that's when we're getting the most blown up.

It's not that certain weaknesses/failings can't be drawn from Mike Mac's time with Baltimore, we certainly can, but I think this issue has its own Seattle-specific flavor.

I honestly think we didn't look as terrible against the run up front against Atlanta as we have looked the previous three weeks, we honestly had a lot of moments where we were in the right spot, right time, just facing the wrong damn RB who cooked us out of our cleats.

That said, we still saw the issues in the second level where our MLBs just washed themselves out of the play by over-pursuing. I'm not 100% if this is a scheme issues, an issue of those dudes trying too hard to make a play, or both. But it also feels like something that CAN be fixed either schematically or by coaching which is why I don't believe we are necessarily 'stuck' with the level of defensive performance we are currently at.

 

[Ozzy]

I think it's important to keep some of the context in mind here though.

The Ravens defense was worst against the run in the 4th quarter. This fits with the idea that because they were winning so often last year, they would be bringing in extra secondary players and were more willing to give up yards in the run game. Now, giving up almost as many YPC as our very bad defense last year isn't great, the fact that you have a team that was essentially gifting extra YPC as a strategy means it's not really comparable.

We aren't that right now. We give up the most rushing yards in the third quarter. We've been in every game coming into the third quarter. We are facing a fairly neutral offense in terms of tone. Some games we've been ahead, some we've been behind but we haven't been in a situation where a team *should* be thinking they can run out the clock on us and yet that's when we're getting the most blown up.

It's not that certain weaknesses/failings can't be drawn from Mike Mac's time with Baltimore, we certainly can, but I think this issue has its own Seattle-specific flavor.

I honestly think we didn't look as terrible against the run up front against Atlanta as we have looked the previous three weeks, we honestly had a lot of moments where we were in the right spot, right time, just facing the wrong damn RB who cooked us out of our cleats.

That said, we still saw the issues in the second level where our MLBs just washed themselves out of the play by over-pursuing. I'm not 100% if this is a scheme issues, an issue of those dudes trying too hard to make a play, or both. But it also feels like something that CAN be fixed either schematically or by coaching which is why I don't believe we are necessarily 'stuck' with the level of defensive performance we are currently at.

Good post. A couple people keep implying Macdonald was a bad choice because he can’t stop the run but ignore the context of Baltimore’s defense situationally last year. Mike focus on what the modern NFL is about and that’s smart.

 

[MontanaHawk05]

I decided to go back and chart Baltimore's run defense from 2023.

I think it's important to keep some of the context in mind here though.

The Ravens defense was worst against the run in the 4th quarter. This fits with the idea that because they were winning so often last year, they would be bringing in extra secondary players and were more willing to give up yards in the run game. Now, giving up almost as many YPC as our very bad defense last year isn't great, the fact that you have a team that was essentially gifting extra YPC as a strategy means it's not really comparable.

Except this isn't really the case once you get into the weeds; it was more of a case that their run defense in every quarter was questionable and their 4th quarter was just really, really bad.

I always appreciate some context, so I went through and did the game charting (yes this took a while, thank you chronic singleness), omitted the QB kneels, asterisked the games featuring 4th quarter garbage time, and (just to stack the deck against myself) removed Week 18 where they played their backups.

1st		2nd		3rd		4th		OT
Att	Yards	Att	Yards	Att	Yards	Att	Yards
2	11	11	28	5	12	4	21			HOU*
1	1	5	27	6	21	3	17			CIN*
4	32	12	40	4	11	7	36	7	20	IND
7	1	4	0	4	14	8	69			CLE*
6	14	4	22	4	19	11	40			PIT
3	4	4	10	7	97	5	18			TEN
2	8	2	5	5	26	5	45			DET*
9	28	11	51	7	24	4	27			ARI*
7	19	4	11	2	-4	1	3			SEA*
7	35	10	60	11	36	7	46			CLE
3	18	7	37	7	29	6	52			CIN*
11	32	1	3	1	2	6	49			LAC*
9	42	9	34	6	11	4	26	1	6	LAR
5	20	6	13	2	3	4	49			JAX*
5	29	6	58	2	0	4	31			SF*
6	63	5	28	1	11	3	9			MIA*
11	66	7	25	6	22	14	44			PIT
4	6	3	9	4	17	2	7			HOU
5	24	13	36	6	18	6	16			KC
96	397	117	472	84	347	90	561	8	26	Total
YPC	4.15		4.03		4.13		6.23		3.25

You can tell that yeah, there's a lot of opponents getting in big runs against prevent defenses and it results in a 6.23 YPC for the season 4th quarter.

But that doesn't explain the whole season. There were competitive games (IND, LAR, the notorious 2nd CLE game) in which they didn't put away the run game in the 4th either despite a close game situation, and then there were several games where they just really got gashed in the first half, especially after Week 8.

Overall, 4.1 YPC for each of the first three quarters isn't a hugely inspiring number. It's a little better than I thought, but enough to see why Baltimore fans still feel they got gouged vs. the run. So I can't say I'm dissuaded from the idea that Mike's system still needs some work, especially considering what I see on the field. Of course there's going to be a downgrade from Roquan, but...I dunno.

 

[Ozzy]

I understand people being worried about it but if you finish with the #1 scoring defense isn’t it a worthy trade off? He appears to have focused on things that matter as the end result ended up a success. I don’t care if we have a middle of the road run defense if we are a really really good scoring defense.

 

[Sperrydogg]

I understand people being worried about it but if you finish with the #1 scoring defense isn’t it a worthy trade off? He appears to have focused on things that matter as the end result ended up a success. I don’t care if we have a middle of the road run defense if we are a really really good scoring defense.

And if we can score more points then teams won’t be running anyway and I think this offense will be able to score

 

[nanomoz]

More rotation clearly benefitted the pass rush later in the game.

 

[Mick063]

If the defense tackles, the schemes work. If the defense tackles and doesn't commit penalties, then the defense routinely gets off the field. The rules, by a large margin, favor the offense. No defense can be expected to be dominant anymore. The defense just has to be more fundamentally sound than the opposing defense. Tackle and don't commit penalties.
No need to complicate things. It really is that simple.