Field Gulls
The Seattle Seahawks rookies combined for 183 snaps in Week 11 against the Los Angeles Rams. Tory Horton’s absence impacted these numbers. It’s worth noting that the majority of these snaps, 122, were between the Seahawks’ first two picks, Grey Zabel and Nick Emmanwori.
Let’s analyze some of the key plays from this game!
I usually use PFF only as a guide in terms of grades. But, according to PFF, Zabel had the worst grade in run blocking (38.9) and the seventh best grade in pass blocking (64), giving up two pressures. Regardless of these numbers, this was Zabel’s worst performance.
The offensive line had a big challenge against the Rams’ defensive line, but Zabel needed to do a better job. Something that catches my attention is that, as I have highlighted several times in other articles, the rookie has always shown the ability to recover from his mistakes, not repeating them in future situations.
An example of this was being beaten inside on two occasions. In the first instance, Byron Young easily gains inside leverage and forces Sam Darnold out of the pocket.
In this play, Zabel misses his punch with his inside arm. The positioning isn’t the best; he tries to adjust, but in the meantime, the defensive lineman manages to win and pressure the quarterback.
Another recurring problem was his work getting to the second level. He missed angles and at other times lacked speed. It’s worth noting that he spent the week on the injury report. This may have been a factor in this type of play.
Another example of a lack of explosiveness in this pull.
In this play, he shows excellent processing. He helps with the double-team at the first level, identifies the linebacker, and makes the block with an excellent angle.
The Seahawks call an outside zone. Zabel shows good mobility to reach the defender and keep the block moving.
He executes another pull, opening space for Ken Walker’s touchdown. Unfortunately, this is the play where Zabel got injured. However, better than any play I can show of Zabel, the most positive thing is that, according to reports, he avoided a serious injury, something that seemed likely given his condition after the play. I believe he’ll miss two weeks, and that will already be a victory for us. Neither the rookie loses much development time, nor do we need to depend on Christian Haynes, Anthony Bradford’s backup.
There were 3 tackles, one pass deflected on two targets and 1 run stop.
On Trey McBride’s TD last week, Emmanwori at least showed carelessness in the tackle. It seems he doesn’t want to repeat the mistake, showing all his effort in that tackle that prevented the TD.
Very good play by him. He moves forward to defend the run, but quickly notices the...
