Football rules give a team four downs to gain 10 yards and get a new set of downs. On the surface, each down would seem identical to the other. The reality is that every down in football has a distinct personality, with unique strategies and considerations. No down may be more eccentric than 3rd down. Most teams consider it their last opportunity to get a first down on a given series. Defenses bring out their most exotic disguises and play calls. Offenses have plays and players tailored for those moments. Success or failure on this down separates the best offenses from the rest, and the champions from the losers. All eight of the top-scoring offenses in the NFL last season finished with a 3rd down conversion rate of 41% or better. The team with the higher 3rd down conversion rate in the Super Bowl has won 10 of the last 12 Lombardi Trophies. This down, however, has not treated the Seahawks kindly for many years. There is reason to think this new coaching staff can change that, and quickly.
A problem on both sides of the ball
One of the crowing achievements of the Legion of Boom era Seahawks defense was leading the league in scoring defense for four straight seasons. They were also top five finishers in yards against for five straight years. One thing they never did was lead the league in 3rd down defense. They ranked as high as 4th in 2015, but that legendary 2013 crew only ranked 10th.
Third down was often a frustrating down for Seahawks fans where Pete Carroll’s defense seemed more vulnerable. That went from a mild annoyance to a crisis by 2020, when the team slid all the way to 27th in defending 3rd downs, while allowing a frustrating 47% of opponents 3rd downs to result in a new set of downs. They recovered a bit in 2021, but slipped right back to 27th in 2022 and finally to a rock bottom 30th in Carroll’s final season.
The Seahawks offense, built more for explosive plays than sustained drives, only finished among the top 10 in 3rd down offense once during Carroll’s tenure. They were 4th in 2015, but even then they ranked 23rd for the first eight games of the season. It was only after a change made during the bye week midway through the year that the offense rocketed to 1st in the NFL for the final eight games with a sterling 52.5% conversion rate. Basically, the Seahawks offense has been mediocre on 3rd downs for every season under Carroll outside of an 8-game stretch in 2015.
While not as dire as the defense, Seattle’s performance on 3rd down on offense has slipped from the mid-teens to the low 20s, bottoming out at 23rd last season.
The combination of struggle on both sides of the ball on this down has led to dismal -10.1% differential on 3rd downs, allowing opponents to dominate the ball and leaving the Seahawks often with no answers. Great teams are rarely negative in 3rd down differential.
Breaking down the issue on offense
The picture is not as gloomy as it may appear, especially on offense. The importance of 3rd downs reduce when a team can move the ball on 1st and 2nd downs. Seattle was 4th in the NFL in EPA (expected points added) per play on 1st and 2nd downs last season. They were second in the NFL in EPA per dropback on those early downs. And there is no rule that requires a team to only earn a new set of downs on 3rd down. Seattle finished 6th in the NFL in converting 1st or 2nd downs into first downs (26.8%).
Want more good news? Geno Smith was the best 1st down quarterback in the NFL last season. He was the 3rd best QB by EPA/play on 1st and 2nd downs, behind only Brock Purdy and Josh Allen.
This means Seattle had one of the best early down offenses in football last season, powered by a quarterback who was nowhere close to mediocre in those situations. That begs the question: what changed on 3rd downs?
There is one more detail to add before addressing that question directly. Believe it or not, Seattle was not bad at all 3rd downs. The reality is a bit bizarre.
Seattle was one of the best teams in the league in converting 3rd and long (7-10 yards). They were awful at 3rd and super long (11+ yards), but let’s set that situation aside for a bit given it is a low probability conversion for any team.
Given the Seahawks elite performance on early downs and very good performance on 3rd and long, it almost makes you wonder if the offense was better equipped with intermediate-to-deep plays. What really jumps out, though, is how poorly Seattle did on 3rd and short-to-intermediate.
They actually converted fewer 3rd downs (as a percentage of chances) when they only needed 4-6 yards to go versus when they had to gain 7-10 yards. That really defies logic.
If you combine the top two rows from the table above and look at 3rd downs from 1-6 yards, Seattle ranks 29th in the NFL, converting just 44.2% of their chances. The best teams in football converted roughly 60% of those situations. If you get to 3rd and 1-3 yards, those rates go over 70%, and yet the Seahawks were roughly a coin flip on those moments.
The upside is that the down was not a total loss. There is some success to build on with 3rd and long.
One possible clue to the reason behind the 3rd and short struggles was that Shane Waldron called running plays just 35.8% of the time when his team needed 3 yards or fewer to gain a first down. That ranked 29th in the NFL. Many of the teams who ranked best in the NFL in these situations were the exact opposite of Waldron in this regard.
The Bills and Ravens ran the ball almost 70% of the time. The Eagles ran it 60% of the time. The 49ers were well over 50% of the time.
Another clue to where the Seahawks struggled on 3rd down was due to pass pressure. Smith had a cringe-worthy 16.6 QBR when the pass rush created pressure on 3rd down, per Brady Henderson of ESPN.com. When he was kept clean in the pocket, his QBR soared to 78.7. To put that in context, the highest QBR in all of football last season was 72.8. Protecting Smith is clearly at least part of the remedy here.
Pressure can often be the responsibility of the quarterback. Studies have shown that sacks tend to follow quarterbacks wherever they go, regardless of offensive line or offensive coordinators. We should check to see if Smith is creating his own problems.
Thankfully, Pro Football Focus has a statistic they track called Allowed Pressure where they assign responsibility to every pressure a QB experiences throughout a season. They include the QB in that assessment, as well as positions beyond the offensive line. Russell Wilson led the NFL in percent of pressures attributed to the QB with 24.3% deemed to be his responsibility. Smith was all the way down at 6.5%, which ranked 25th. He did not seem to be the pressure problem. So who was?
Keep in mind that ranking high in this number is not a good thing. The Seahawks right tackles were tops in the NFL in terms of percentage of pressures allowed, and it was not close. The second place team was the Colts, and their right tackles allowed 31.6% of their team’s pressures. That is a huge gap between #1 and #2 on the list.
This should not come as a major surprise given the time Abe Lucas missed and the fact that Jake Curhan and 41-year-old Jason Peters were out there for most of the season. Still, it is a key part of the problem here.
Left tackle is not great either. Charles Cross did miss a few games at the beginning of the season due to injury, but he played most of the season and was the culprit on over 26% of the teams pressures.
It was interesting to see that the interior offensive line, the positions that have received the most scrutiny and attention this offseason performed relatively well by this metric.
Reasons for optimism on offense
There seem to be some pretty straightforward changes that can dramatically improve the Seahawks performance on 3rd down on offense. First, sign a backup right tackle who is good enough to allow the team to function if Lucas gets injured again. John Schneider checked this off his list by signing George Fant, who has been a starting tackle in the NFL for years, and is plenty capable of stepping in if needed.
Lucas is also not expected to have a chronic knee issue, according to Henderson who heard from a source on the team that Lucas should be fine once he finishes rehabbing. Just adding Lucas back to the lineup would be a huge step forward. Right tackle was responsible for just 19.2% of allowed pressures in 2022, when Lucas was playing. That’s a far cry from 37.3%.
Another simple change is to run the ball more on 3rd and short. It is one of the few situations where running is a decision that both analytics and common football sense agree is a good idea. Whether it is continued development from Anthony Bradford, new blood in Christian Haynes, or the veteran addition of Laken Tomlinson, the Seahawks should have the beef to be effective in running in those moments.
This is also where new coordinator Ryan Grubb comes in. He had one of the most high-powered offenses in college football last season, led by a Heisman candidate at QB. When it came to 3rd and short, though, he ran the ball 65.5% of the time. Grubb is also a guy who has proven to have the guts and creativity to make the big call in the key moment. Anyone who saw his 4th down call against the Cougars late in the 4th quarter knows what Grubb is capable of.
Seattle also has more wide receivers who have the potential to stretch the field horizontally, either through jet sweeps or bubble screens in Laviska Shenault and Dareke Young (and maybe finally Dee Eskridge?). That can help hold defenders long enough to open up the middle for more standard rushing plays.
Better play at RT and more running on 3rd and short are things that feel simple and probable. There are more reasons to believe things could be getting better.
Grubb was not just a highly effective OC at University of Washington, he was highly effective on 3rd downs. Washington finished 1st in the nation in 3rd down conversions during Grubb’s first season, converting nearly 57% of their opportunities. He did not maintain that sizzling rate in 2023, but still ranked 28th with a 44% conversion rate. That ranking actually improved against ranked opponents, where the Huskies were 16th in the nation.
Jalen McMillan was a big part of that offense in the slot, and Grubb should be heartened to know Jaxon Smith-Njigba showed signs, as the season wore on, of becoming the 3rd down weapon he was expected to be when drafted in the first round last year.
JSN had 12 plays that resulted in +2 EPA on 3rd downs last year. All of them happened in second half of the season, including this beauty against the 49ers.
Put it all together, and the recipe looks something like:
- Better RT play (Lucas + Fant)
- Better LT play
- More rushing plays on 3rd and short
- Better play caller on 3rd downs (Grubb)
- Second year growth from JSN
All of these things fall into the “probable” bucket. The amount of improvement for Cross is probably the biggest question mark. Seahawks fans have to hope Scott Huff, the new line coach, can do for him what he did for Troy Fautanu and others at UW. If Cross takes a big leap, this team may rise from 23rd all the way into the top 10.
Improved pass protection would also mean you get more the “Top 5” version of Smith who was elite when operating from a clean pocket last year. Better play from Smith and better 3rd down performance could finally make this offense a problem for opponents instead of Seattle fans.
Breaking down the issues on defense
The problem is not nearly as tidy on defense. By at least one measure, this was the worst 3rd down defense in football last season. The following image is “Rated R,” not suitable for all audiences.
Not only were the Seahawks the worst EPA team on 3rd downs last season, but look at the gap between Seattle and the next closest team in terms of dropback EPA/play. Seattle made the Commanders 3rd down passing defense look like the Legion of Boom.
They were not a ton better against the run. Seattle ranked 28th in the league in defending the run on 3rd downs. There is no salvation when breaking it down by distance.
You might think Seattle struggled to create pass pressure, as that can be a killer on 3rd downs. The Seahawks actually finished 9th in the NFL in pressure rate for the season, and even if you limit to looking at 3rd and 7-9 or 3rd and 11+, the Seahawks were in the top half of the league in creating pressures and even sacking the QB.
Pressure, at least by itself, is not the full answer.
Maybe coverage was the issue. Seattle ranked 10th in the NFL in coverage grade by PFF for the year. They had three corners (Devin Witherspoon, Tariq Woolen, and Mike Jackson) all graded at 75.0 or higher in coverage, and also had a safety in Julian Love who was graded at 80.4.
This might be less about systemic problems and more about individuals being exploited. If you look at who had the most tackles on 3rd down, a flawed proxy for who was being targeted by offenses, Bobby Wagner led the way with 29 tackles, Love was second with 18, Quandre Diggs was third with 17.
Keep in mind that a tackle on 3rd down could be a very positive thing. These are all 3rd down plays, so some of these tackles resulted in stopping a conversion. One way to weed some of those out would be to find plays where the results was a positive EPA play for the opponents.
When you do that, you wind up with this list:
- Bobby Wagner: 19 (tackles on positive EPA 3rd down plays for opponents)
- Julian Love: 14
- Devon Witherspoon 11
- Quandre Diggs: 10
- Tariq Woolen: 8
- Jordyn Brooks: 8
- Mike Jackson: 7
- Tre Brown: 6
- Jamal Adams: 6
- Artie Burns: 5
- Coby Bryant: 5
This is not a smoking gun. Wagner could still have been covering for someone else’s mistake and making the tackle to save a bigger play from happening. Just 6 of those 19 plays were passes. Those seem more likely to be his responsibility or that another team was targeting him.
For Witherspoon, five the 11 plays happened in his first few weeks on the field. Three of the plays were penalties that resulted in first downs. Woolen also had three penalties that turned into first downs.
Adams and Bryant stand out given how few games they played, especially Bryant.
It does feel like there were a few players who were targeted by opposing teams. A number of those players are no longer with Seattle. Whether their replacements are improvements remains to be seen.
A very clear issue for Seattle was penalties. The Seahawks gave up 11 first downs on the year via penalty on 3rd down plays. That ranked 29th in the NFL. Eight of those came from cornerbacks.
Stepping back from 3rd downs, the Seahawks had a penalty problem on defense overall. They gave up 35 first downs on the year from penalties, which ranked 7th-most in the NFL. Woolen and Brown were two of the worst offenders with eight apiece.
Unlike the Seahawks offense, the Seahawks defense was bad on every down. They ranked 23rd in EPA/play against on 1st down and 21st on 2nd down. That porous performance on early downs led to more manageable 3rd downs, and helped to nullify what was a decent pass rush.
This was just a bad defense in almost every way last year. Narrowing it to 3rd down is a little misleading.
Reasons for optimism on defense
Despite the gloomy truth Seahawks fans must face about the state of the 2023 defense, there are legitimate reasons for hope heading into 2024.
Foremost among those reasons is the addition of Mike Macdonald as the new Head Coach. Macdonald was tasked with studying 3rd downs and pressure packages when he was early on in his career with John Harbaugh. He took the best of a variety defensive coordinators pressure packages and incorporated them into his scheme.
That helped the Ravens rise from 15th in EPA/play on 3rd downs in 2021 to 4th last year. His scheme is the envy of every team, and beyond his scheme, is his penchant for adaptive game-planning and play calling.
Seattle has been so predictable on defense for so long, opposing QBs and OCs rarely felt uncomfortable or pressured into mistakes. One particularly telling statistic that shows just how much Macdonald created confusion with his scheme and play calling compared to the Seahawks came in terms of turnovers on 3rd downs.
The Ravens created turnovers on 3.8% of 3rd down plays between 2022 and 2023 when Macdonald was the DC, good for 1st in the NFL. The Seahawks defense forced turnovers on just 1.6% of their 3rd downs, dead last in the league. Baltimore was 14th the year before Macdonald was hired, so his presence did change the course of that defense in this way.
Another reason for hope here is that Seattle drafted a potential franchise-changing defensive tackle in Byron Murphy. Pairing him with Leonard Williams has the potential to be the best defensive tackle combination in the division and one of the best in football. Seattle has not been able to make that claim since the 90s when Sam Adams and Cortez Kennedy occupied the middle of their line.
Witherspoon had a terrific rookie year, but his role under Macdonald figures to be even more impactful. The game will not only slow down in his second season, but his mind meld with Macdonald could catapult him into rarified air.
On paper, there is another huge difference between this 2024 Seahawks defense and the 2023 squad. Seattle was one of the worst tackling teams in football last season. They ranked 31st in PFF’s tackling grade, missing a whopping 181 tackles.
The top three offenders: Brooks (21), Diggs (20), and Adams (15) are all gone. In their place, Rayshawn Jenkins and K’Von Wallace come in as two of the best tackling safeties in football. Wallace went two seasons without missing a tackle at one point.
There is a lot more projection required to plot a course to dramatically improved 3rd down play on defense for Seattle, but there are real reasons to think it will happen with Macdonald leading the way. It certainly cannot be worse.
Starting the climb
The combination of Macdonald and Grubb arrive in Seattle with a ton of promise. Their ability to not only improve their side of the ball, but challenge each other to get better has the potential to accelerate Seattle’s overall move out of the messy middle of the NFL.
Grubb would seem to have a more clear path to changing the team’s fortunes on 3rd down. Gains on that side of the ball would lead to more points and more possession, and should have a positive impact on the types of plays the defense can call (if they are ahead), and how rested they are.
The trail to the top is grown over, but these two are equipped with machetes to start clearing the way. Their combined performance on 3rd down will be an early indicator of just how fast this team will ascend.