Field Gulls
The Seattle Seahawks are finally back on the field! After a long wait, we can see the additions the team made during the offseason (although most of the starters didn’t play). This article focuses on analyzing the rookies’ performance in the draw against the Las Vegas Raiders.
I don’t want to get carried away, it’s only preseason, but it was a great debut for Zabel. There are still technical details to improve, but I only saw two poor snaps from him (one pass block and one run block). On the other snaps, he was dominant, including the fourth-best run block grade with a 79 and no pressure surrendered or penalties committed.
Zabel’s hands are a little higher than ideal, but he remains calm and finishes the play with the defender on the ground.
This was the bad snap I mentioned earlier. He does a great job double-teaming Josh Jones (who had a great game at LT), but he can’t get to the LB at the second level, who ends up tackling the RB.
Reach block is tough to execute. Zabel reaches the defender and got the pancake. Dominating!
PS: Anthony Bradford can’t be this team’s starter. If he’s the best option we have, the team urgently needs to look for ways to improve on the market.
Good footwork and he is able to stay between the defender and the QB.
Note that I didn’t classify him as a safety. None of his snaps came in this alignment; they all came as nickel. This gives Macdonald the ability to run a variety of blitzes and boosts the running game. The big issue is Emmanwori’s (poor) change of direction work covering the middle of the field.
He’s an athletic beast. Still, timing is crucial when blitzing. It’s not a great mistake, but the millisecond he loses on the snap is the difference between hitting Geno Smith and not.
Blitzed again, he correctly checks the QB and quickly adjusts to go after the RB for the TFL.
It’s this type of play that will give Macdonald a hard time refining Emmanwori. He has trouble changing directions, and this is most evident in off coverage. Playing against more agile slot receivers can lead to significant gains for opponents.
He was the player I was most excited to watch. He was clearly the star of practice. Even playing with both the starters and the reserves, he only managed two receptions and struggled to block.
It’s not ideal to have your TE blocking the edge, but Arroyo doesn’t create any resistance for the opponent, making the tackle with ease.
There’s a lot of expectation for Milroe’s game, but I think it was a good debut. It’s far from spectacular, and it shows he still needs refinement in his game processing and his arm usage, as evidenced by the pass he missed to Tyrone Broden on the final drive. Broden did...
