Field Gulls
It’s that time of year! Aaron Schatz, the godfather of DVOA, has released his annual Football Almanac, which for the third year in a row is in partnership with FTN Fantasy. The Seattle Seahawks chapter is filled with all sorts of terrific advanced analytical insight, along with the league-wide statistical appendix. Here are the biggest Seahawks observations I’ve noted going through the almanac.
(Spoiler: There are a lot of positives)
The Seahawks passing game was a monster out of 12 personnel
When Seattle deployed two-tight end sets, they averaged 9.3 adjusted net yards per pass attempt, third-best in the NFL behind the Buffalo Bills and Detroit Lions. As you might regrettably recall, Seattle was heavy on 11 personnel in 2024 under Ryan Grubb, to less than desirable results. Seattle flipped its identity under Klint Kubiak, and the expectation is that we’ll see Brian Fleury continue to utilize heavier formations moving forward.
Play action vs. non-play action difference was stark
The Seahawks offense without play action was good but not great. They were exceptional as the best play action team in the NFL, and no team had a wider disparity in PA vs. non-PA than Seattle. Seattle was the only team to average north of 10 yards per play action pass, which is phenomenal. Sam Darnold in PA passing is as lethal a QB as there is.
Health was instrumental in Seattle’s offensive success
As a whole, the Seahawks did not suffer many long-term injuries to key players. The defense might have lost the likes of Jarran Reed and Julian Love to injured reserve at times, but the offense was among the cleanest for Adjusted Games Lost, a metric “which measures how often a team’s starters and other important players are missing games or playing at less than 100%.” Seattle’s offense had the third-best AGL, which makes sense when you consider only Charles Cross and Jalen Sundell missed multiple weeks due to injury among all starting players. Cooper Kupp and Zach Charbonnet each missed a game during the regular season but no more than that.
The bane of Seattle’s offense for years was seldom used
This might be considered sweet music given how bad this aspect of Seattle’s game has been for an eternity:
“The Seahawks used only 10 running back screens, the lowest figure in the league.”
The Seahawks excelled at breaking tackles and making people miss
I consider this to be an astonishing statistic that is worth quoting:
Seattle led the NFL in broken and missed tackles on offense by a large margin. The gap in broken tackle rate between the Seahawks and the No. 2 Falcons was larger than the gap between the Falcons and the No. 23 Bears.
A lot of that can be attributed to Kenneth Walker III, who had 105 of the 203 broken tackles and ranked third among all running backs. Jaxon Smith-Njigba was ninth among receivers and tight ends with 16.
**Seattle’s pass catchers did not leave yards...
