How much you want to blame run-run-pass for the Seattle Seahawks’

stalled drives in the regular season and playoffs is up to you. They were guilty of overusing the sequence.But I’m here to offer another culprit. Using data.We know the Seahawks had good and bad games on offense; games where they looked unstoppable and games where they stopped themselves just fine Barkevious Mingo Color Rush Jersey , thank you. So I compiled drive details for the whole season (and the wild-card game, too), to isolate precisely what got most in the way of scoring.This project will take weeks, plural, so look for follow-ups as the offseason zombies its way to the draft and beyond. But I’ve decided to focus on offense because it feels inevitable that Pete Carroll will bring the 2019 defense to a higher plane of performance than we saw in 2018. It’ll be on the offense to keep up; any step forward would possibly allow the Seahawks to win a couple more games while the Rams stew over their karmic last-second Super Bowl loss and figure out how to extricate themselves from the Todd Gurley contract.Anyway, drives and scoring. There were 180 last year; I charted 161 of them, removing kneel-downs, end-of half surrender drives, and any drive ending in a turnover, as those interrupted a possession before its “natural” outcome could be discovered. No sense in trying to guess whether a drive would have resulted in a score, if only the defensive back had dropped the ball or the Seahawk had recovered his own fumble. (Fortunately, the Seahawks hate turnovers like your five-year-old self hated mushrooms, so that wasn’t a lot of lost drives.)I tracked what happened to a drive when a 10- or 15-yard penalty went against Seattle, when Russell Wilson got sacked, and when neither of those unfortunate events unfolded. In certain drives, a sack and a major penalty may have both occurred.There’s two ways I want to break up the data, and two major conclusions I want to share. As always, numbers can elicit more than one valid interpretation. Hey. This isn’t social media. There are multiple right answers and nobody’s an idiot for suggesting the opposite of what you or I conclude.First four games (2-2 record)Overall points per drive: 1.9 PPD with penalty: 0.6PPD with sack: 0.3PPD without either one (no flag, no sack): 2.8Remarks: The Seahawks averaged 2.6 points per drive on the season according to my methodology. You can see, rather evidently, that they did not start the year well in any category. In September, a holding penalty or a sack meant basically zero points were gonna come on that possession. There were a total of two (2) scoring drives that overcame a flag or sack. Both resulted in field goals. As the Seahawks were figuring out how to run their new offense, on the road three times, they made it even harder on themselves more often than was advisable.The offense was hard to watch in Weeks 1-4. They weren’t even that great when they managed to avoid big negative plays. Fortunately, it gets better. Way better.Next four games (2-2 record)Overall points per drive: 2.9PPD with penalty: 1.9PPD with sack: 1.1PPD without either one: 3.8Remarks: Now we’re clicking a little. It helps to play the Rams, Lions Ed Dickson Color Rush Jersey , Raiders and Chargers. It helps to be at home twice.That 3.8 number is enormous. Ten TD drives in 21 tries. The Seahawks scored touchdowns on 29 percent of drives overall last year, but about half the time in this midseason stretch. Even counting the Nick Vannett non-touchdown in Detroit Week 8, when he caught an apparent scoring pass on fourth down, but had stepped out of the end zone. Third part of the season (3-1 record)Overall points per drive: 3.4PPD with penalty: 5.2PPD with sack: 1.0PPD without either one: 3.8Remarks: The Kansas City Chiefs, whose offense led the NFL in points, yards and coolness, scored 3.1 points per drive on the season. They were nothing compared to the Weeks 9-13 Seattle Seahawks. Nothing. Too bad those teams never met in 2018 — wait.More on that later. Look at that 5.2, though. To collect holding penalties is not a sound scoring strategy. Still, they led to Seattle touchdowns in the third quarter of the season. Everything led to touchdowns. Obviously the 5.2 ppd is not repeatable. Obviously it’s noise. However, it is a testament to how the Seahawks offense had several moments in the season when they overcame a ton of adversity; even thrived on it.One bad Seattle number stands out, among all the offensive wizardry led by Wilson, the running backs, Tyler Lockett and Brian Schottenheimer. One hideous number. We’re going to get to that number later, when it shows its ugly face again in the final tally.Fourth quarter of the season (3-1 record)Overall points per drive: 2.4PPD with penalty: 2.3PPD with sack: 1.6PPD without either one: 3.2Remarks: This series of games includes the MNF defense-fest in Week 14, the Ethan Pocic holding debacle of Week 15, the glorious triumph over the Chiefs in Week 16, and the Sackapalooza of Week 17. It’s a mess for the offense, statistically, on a game-by-game basis, but as a composite quarter of the season, it doesn’t stand out so much. Everything is pretty much more or less in line.A lot of month-to-month numbers just threw themselves at you. Add it all up, why don’t we.Entire regular season (10-6 record)Overall points per drive: 2.6PPD with penalty: 2.3PPD with sack: 1.0PPD without either one: 3.3Rapid remarks: The hierarchy hinted at earlier manifests itself. The Seahawks offense is going to do better than a field goal when it avoids negative plays. A penalty doesn’t mean the drive is over. But a sack...Conclusion 1: Sacks were the worstSeahawks went from 0.3 to 1.1 to 1.0 to 1.6 en route to an overall 1.0 points per drive when a sack occurred. Short of a turnover, it was the worst thing that could happen to a Seattle possession. Gving up 51 of them, the eighth-most in the NFL, is a crucial part of understanding the offense’s failures. More plays that get the ball out quickly, more (gasp) running plays when the defense expects pass Jaron Brown Color Rush Jersey , and more decisiveness from RW would cut down on the drive-killers. And raise points scored, dramatically, more than maybe any other tweak.Easier said than done, though. Pete Carroll enjoys explosives, which demand time in the pocket. You can’t really run that often on 3rd and long, or even 3rd and medium. Wilson magic is going to come attached with costly sacks. They’re inseparable.But ten fewer sacks would mean more 3.3 points per drive... drives, and fewer 1.0-point drives. 41 sacks instead of 51 might mean another win or two, or possibly three, in a season where the Seahawks lost six times by a single possession. Conclusion 2: The poor bookends to the season obscure a larger reality.Which is, the offense was good overall, and great for long stretches. Elite. Comparable to the very best offenses in the league. Reread the remarks about the third part of the season. But when the offense was bad, it was bad and visible.Games 1-2-17-WC would be probably the offense’s worst four-game stretch.Overall points per drive: 1.9PPD with penalty: 2.0PPD with sack: 0.4PPD without either one: 2.8Each of those numbers is worse than the overall annual figures. Seven-tenths of a point off the average overall, and even the clean drives lost half a point. It doesn’t help impressions that in the wild-card game, two crucial drives were ruined, one by a sack and the other by a penalty. The sack came on third down and forced a punt; the penalty halted a drive in the fourth quarter. Those events tend to stick out in a first, and last, impression of a football team.It’s also important to remember that the Seahawks finished sixth in scoring for a reason, and tenth in scoring percentage (41.4) for probably the same reason: they can move the ball, they have the quarterback and the playmakers, they have coaches who’ve been there, they have the ability.Just not always at the right time.Recovering from sack-related setbacks is going to be one way the 2019 Seahawks can improve upon 2018. But with a quarterback who likes to push the envelope with his scrambles, and doesn’t always get the ball out quickly, taking more sacks than average is going to be a part of the Seahawks offense. That’s not changing. Like it or not. With Wilson, you take the drawbacks with the You take the “Nonononononono ahhh you needed to throw that, Russ” with the “NononononononoYESYESOHMYGODYES.” But maybe you try and take the under on 51 sacks again.This isn’t the end of my drive analysis — there is so much more to consider. Namely, did sacks affect the Seahawks more than the average NFL team Tre Flowers Color Rush Jersey , and how much did the decrease in penalties called on Seattle this season impact scoring in a positive way? I’d also like to dive a little deeper into some of the season’s most infamous drives, and the effect of run-run-pass sequences on scoring. (Who knows! It might even be positive. You don’t know until you look.)We’ll get to most of those questions, if not all. Week 1 isn’t exactly going to sneak up on us. RENTON, Wash. (AP)Before he left town a few weeks ago after working out for the Seahawks, Brandon Marshall picked up a little bit of Seattle-related gear at the airport.He was that confident an opportunity to continue his career was going to happen with the Seahawks.”I went in there and bought a couple of things, some shirts, socks because I knew that moment was going to happen. I felt good about the workout,” Marshall said.Marshall became the latest addition to the Seahawks when he signed a one-year deal Wednesday and was immediately on the field as Seattle continued its second week of OTAs. Marshall displayed some of that gear he bought when he announced on social media his intent to sign with the Seahawks.His work was limited in his first day, understandably, but it was a sign of how quickly Marshall wants to get this latest – maybe last – phase of his career started.Marshall is coming off an abbreviated 2017 season where he was limited to five games with the New York Giants due to an ankle injury that required surgery. He was due to make $5 million this season with New York but was released by the Giants in mid-April. At age 34, Marshall said he didn’t have many options after he was released.”I think the sentiment around the league is that I’m done. And I get it, rightfully so, when you get on the other side of 30 and your production slips and you have a big injury. People count you out,” Marshall said. ”It was an interesting process. It was a humbling process.”While Marshall had his ankle repaired surgically, he also had surgery on his toe for an injury suffered during the 2015 season while with the New York Jets. The combination of procedures extended Marshall’s recovery, and it was only just before being released by the Giants that he was able to progress beyond just rehabilitation from the surgeries.Marshall said he was originally going to wait until he retired to have the toe surgery.”That’s the thing that took the longest. Right when I was released from the Giants, probably a few days later I was able to run pain free. I was able to run routes and do things and train while rehabbing, but it wasn’t pain free. … I’ve been working ever since. I feel good. I don’t feel great. Obviously I’ve got a lot of catching up to do.”Getting Marshall to Seattle is the fulfillment of a wish coach Pete Carroll had early in his tenure with the Seahawks. At that time, Marshall was in the prime of his career and Seattle wanted to make a show of its lakefront practice facility by bringing him in on a seaplane for the visit.”We flew him into the dock or something like that. It was crazy,” Carroll recalled. ”We went all out. It didn’t work out. We’ve had our eye on him for a long time because of his style of play. Very aggressive. Can be the big receiver in the offense and his playmaking has always been something we’ve kept our eye on.”The question for Seattle and Marshall is what kind of role he can play now. Carroll has made it clear this offseason that the team is going to be rededicated to the run, but Marshall could certainly be a desired red zone target thanks to his 6-foot-4 frame and the absence of another player like him on the roster. He is three years removed from being a second-team All-Pro in 2015, when he caught 109 passes and 14 touchdowns with the Jets.Marshall said he had a very candid conversation with the Seahawks during his visit.”The process they take you through in terms of the screening process is worse than the TSA line,” Marshall said. ”They did their due diligence to say the least and really broke down everything since I’ve been in the league and had some great conversations, some transparent conversations, some challenging conversations and I had to answer some tough questions.”—