Defense is the talk of the NFL this season. Scoring is down for the fifth season in a row. The league has not seen four straight seasons of decline in scoring since 1989-1992, and has never had five straight. A primary contributing factor is the weakening passing offense. Passing yards per game have dropped 15.6% from an average of 240.2 yards per game in 2020 to just 202.8 so far this season. The last time the NFL saw passing yards that low was in 1997, before John Elway had won a Super Bowl or Tom Brady had played a game. In this barren offensive desert, there is still an oasis of lush growth. It resides in the always fertile Pacific Northwest. Geno Smith, Ryan Grubb, and the Seattle Seahawks are on pace for record highs while the rest of the league is trying to avoid record lows.
The last thing most NFL fans heard about Smith was that he was “not writing back” during his Comeback Player of the Year season in 2022 when he set career-highs in nearly every offensive category and led the NFC in passing touchdowns (30). It was a good story, but when his vanity numbers dipped in 2023 and Seattle failed to make the playoffs, many went back to writing him off.
What most of them missed was that Smith made substantial improvements to his game last season. The two biggest were related to his ability to avoid sacks. His movement within the pocket took a clear step forward, and his time to throw dropped dramatically over the final five weeks of the season. Smith had been averaging a hefty 2.97 seconds to throw over the first 13 weeks, which ranked 29th among QBs. He trimmed that to 2.56, starting with his game against Dallas, which ranked 6th-fastest over that span. That improvement has sustained into this year.
Of the 1,410 sacks that happened in the NFL last year, only 16 of them (1.1%) happened in less than 2.56 seconds, per NFL Next Gen Stats.
These changes also helped him drop his pressure-to-sack rate from 20.7% in 2022 to 13.9% in 2023. A Seattle offense that had an underperforming and injury-riddled offensive line saw the team sack totals drop from 46 in 2022 to 31 last season due largely to Smith’s improvement.
Still, the Seahawks quarterback registered declines in passing yards, touchdowns, completion percentage, yards per attempt, passer rating and QBR. It seemed Smith was not immune to the gravitational force dragging passing down around the league. Enter Ryan Grubb.
From Washington to Washington
Grubb had made a name for himself as a college play caller who maximized his quarterbacks. His second season as an offensive coordinator at Fresno State saw him take Jake Haener from obscurity to a conference-leading quarterback who averaged over 336 yards passing per game. Haener threw for over 4,000 yards the next year, along with 33 touchdowns.
Grubb took his talents to University of Washington when Kalen DeBoer took the head coaching gig in 2022. He once again unlocked the best in a young quarterback when Michael Penix Jr. threw for 357 yards per game and 4,641 yards to lead the Pac-12 after never having thrown for more than 274 yards per game or 1,645 yards in a season. Meanwhile, Haener saw his numbers dip significantly after Grubb departed.
Penix and Grubb made it all the way to the College Football Championship last year before both made the leap to the NFL.
New head coach Mike Macdonald had met Grubb at the NFL Scouting Combine the year prior, and the two had stayed in touch. It was kismet when Macdonald took the Seahawks job the same year DeBoer was leaving Washington for the Alabama job. Grubb had been passed over for the University of Washington head coach position, but preferred to stay in Seattle and experience the NFL over leaving for Alabama.
Grubb inherited Smith at the quarterback position, and immediately sat down to go through all his film. Not just his NFL games. Grubb watched all of Smith’s college games as well. He came away excited and impressed.
“The ball comes out of his hand so clean,” Grubb told Dave “Softy” Mahler on 93.3 KJR. “I think that for people that haven’t seen Geno throw in person, I think he’s special. And I’ve watched plenty of NFL film on plenty of guys, and Geno’s throwing talent, arm talent, the way it comes out, the accuracy, it’s not [typical]. You get to know him when you start watching him at practice everyday, and you’re like, hey, two years ago, this guy led the league in completion percentage. I’m not surprised at all. I think he’s an elite quarterback.”
The chemistry between the two developed quickly. Smith had the best training camp of his career. Players on both the offense and defense marveled at his command of a new offense, his pre-snap reads, and his trademark accuracy.
Crawl, walk, pass
The anticipation was palpable as the season opened against the Denver Broncos at home. Seattle took the opening kick and saw Smith get sacked on their first snap, and then throw an interception on the next. The passing attack never really got untracked in a closer-than-expected 26-20 win over rookie Bo Nix and the Broncos. Smith would finish the game 18/25 for just 171 yards and 1 touchdown to go along with his interception.
His second game would come against a New England Patriots defense that held Joe Burrow to only 164 yards passing and no touchdowns in week one. Smith fared better. He had one of his best games as a pro, going 33/44 for 327 yards, with five of those incompletions coming on official dropped passes, and at least 1-2 more that could have been considered drops as well.
He burned the Patriots deep, short, left, right, and middle. The passing chart was a masterpiece.
His game against Miami the following week was more up-and-down. He was brilliant in the first quarter, helping the team to 17 points and punctuating it with a 71-yard strike to D.K. Metcalf. But the offense stalled, partially due to poor field position and penalties. Smith would still finish 26/34 for 289 yards.
Everyone had the chance to watch Smith play against the Detroit Lions on Monday Night Football. Smith was brilliant while being constantly under pressure in a hostile environment even when his defense could not get a stop. Smith did not leave with a victory, but did set career highs in completions (38), attempts (56), and yards (395). Grubb and the offense left with the ignominious honor of being the first team to have 38 first downs in a game and lose.
Smith now leads the NFL in passing yards, completions, attempts. He is on pace for over 5,000 yards through the air (5,024), a threshold not reached since Patrick Mahomes did it in 2022.
Grubb and Smith are not doing it alone. Metcalf is on pace for a career-high 102 receptions and 1,556 yards. He became the first receiver in Seahawks history to have three straight 100-yard receiving games after the game in Detroit. Jaxon Smith-Njigba is on pace for 106 receptions—which would almost double his rookie season reception total of 63—along with 961 yards. All this while Tyler Lockett is on pace to catch 77 passes, just two fewer than last season.
Oh, and it’s not just the receivers catching passes. Running back Zach Charbonnet is on pace for 64 receptions and 489 yards receiving.
How is it possible for everyone’s numbers to be up? There are a few key underlying factors.
Pace
Seattle was the only team in the NFL last season to run fewer than 1000 plays on offense. Some of this was due to their porous defense never getting off the field, but a lot of it was due to an inefficient offense. Smith points to Grubb’s emphasis on pace and use of no huddle as being key to the uptick.
“I would say just a little bit more of just up-tempo,” Smith said. “The more you up the tempo, the more plays you’re going to get. That’s similar to how it is in college and so we’ve been doing some tempo stuff and been on the ball and been able to sustain drives.”
The Seahawks are on pace to have the 3rd-most offensive plays in the NFL this season (66 per game). A majority of those extra plays are coming through the air (64.4%). At that pace, Seattle would wind up with 127 more plays this season, of which roughly 80 would be passes. Averaging 7.4 yards per pass would mean about 600 more passing yards to distribute.
“I’ve always felt like generating tempo against a defense is, for us, (key),” Grubb said. “We feel like we have more calls than they do. So there are more concepts and schemes that we can run on an uptick versus what a defense is capable of running.”
That is only possible with a quarterback capable of making the proper decisions at the line of scrimmage that the offensive coordinator can trust. Grubb has developed that quickly with Smith.
“That’s numero uno is that you can trust your guy,” Grubb said. “No matter what the circumstances or the play call is, you know that he’s on the same page with you. He’s going to be responsible. At the same time, know the right times to be aggressive. I think that those little gray areas for quarterbacks, that’s where that elite quarterback play comes in is finding the times to be really aggressive, knowing the times not to be, and then managing the team. Geno’s doing all three of those things at a really high level right now.”
Make things simple by adding complexity
Pace explains some of the increased production, but not all. Smith is completing a career-high 72.3% of his passes so far, second in the NFL. That is up from 64.7% a year ago, leading to more completions and more yards to go around.
Grubb has played an important role there as well. Smith had made a name for himself in film geek circles with his ability to fit the ball into tight spaces. His exceptional accuracy allows him to do things most quarterbacks would not even think to try.
Pro Football Focus has a statistic they call Big Time Throws (BTT) that they define as, “a pass with excellent ball location and timing, generally thrown further down the field and/or into a tighter window.”
Smith finished 3rd and 1st in the NFL in BTT rate in 2022 (5.6%) and 2023 (6.0%). One of the challenges has been that Smith sometimes has had too much confidence in his ability to rip the ball into a tight space, which has resulted in what PFF calls Turnover Worthy Plays (TWP). Smith was 3rd in TWP rate in 2022 (4.2%) and 7th in 2023 (3.6%).
While Smith is responsible for some of the positive and negative in those numbers, former offensive coordinator Shane Waldron also shoulder’s some of the blame. He had fewer easy throws for Smith to make, leading his quarterback feeling a greater need to take chances.
Grubb has added more easy throws to the menu, which require less tightrope walking. The result has been a big drop in Smith’s BTT rate (3.3%, 16th), while also cutting his TWP rate (2.5%, 20th). That TWP rate is even a little deceiving as four of his five TWP came in the game against the Lions, and three of those four came toward the end when Seattle was being hyper-aggressive to try and come back. Smith had only one TWP in his first three games combined.
Of course, Smith still has the BTT arrow he can pull from his quiver when the easier throws are not available.
What you now have is all of the elite accuracy that Smith brings to the table with more high percentage throws for him to utilize and less need to put the ball in harms way.
Musical chairs
Grubb did not just make things easier for Smith. He made them harder for his receivers. At least, in the beginning. Grubb asked his receivers to learn every wide receiver position. He wanted to make it harder for defenses to plan their coverages against players like Metcalf, who had been exclusively used as an X receiver throughout his career. The transition required a lot of work initially.
“I think the only challenge is that I [had] to learn more plays and more positions,” Metcalf said. “The advantages are that defenses have to stop me on the inside and Jaxon (Smith Njigba), Lock (Tyler Lockett) on the outside, or vice versa. So, I think it just brings in another element that the defense has to stop on our offense.”
Metcalf is on pace for over 150 snaps in the slot, which would be a 50% increase over last season. He’s also lined up in the backfield, which he has never done. Almost 71% of his wide receiver snaps last year came on the left side. He is almost exactly 50/50 on the left and right side so far this season.
Receiver growth
Metcalf has also become a more efficient receiver. He focused on becoming better at making contested catches during the offseason after having a career-low 55.5% catch rate last year. He was asked about his stellar catch against the Dolphins cornerback Kendall Fuller in week three.
“I think probably last year I would’ve dropped the ball,” Metcalf said. “But this year I just so happened to catch it. So I think it’s just me taking the next step of making my contested catches whenever Geno (Smith) trusts me to put the ball up there like that.”
He went on to explain some of the work he put in to make it possible.
“Yeah, that definitely was a focus for me this offseason,” Metcalf said. “Contested catches or 50/50 balls going up and attacking the ball instead of trying to let it come down to me and catch it over my shoulder. Geno (Smith) came down and we threw during the offseason and I had my trainer guard me face up and had his arm up and I just had to jump up over him, catch the ball.”
Meanwhile, Smith-Njigba pestered Smith all offseason to throw with him, and has become a favorite target, especially when plays breakdown. Smith-Njigba has rewarded his quarterbacks trust with a 75.8% catch rate thus far.
Sum greater than the parts
Not all of these factors will sustain for the season. In fact, some of them the team would like to explicitly change. They don’t, for example, want to be passing 65% of the time or be in a shootout that requires 56 pass attempts from their quarterback.
The combination of Smith’s continued evolution as a quarterback, with Grubb’s sprinkling of simpler passes, increased tempo, and better utilization of his more developed weapons should have staying power.
All of this is happening behind an offensive line that has struggled mightily to protect their passer and been inconsistent in creating run lanes. There were some signs of progress there in the last game, and there is some hope things could get better if rookie Christian Haynes continues to earn more snaps and Abe Lucas and George Fant return to take over at right tackle.
If Grubb, Smith, and company are leading the league in passing yards with the line playing at its current level, the Seahawks offense could become lethal should the pass protection and run game improve.
While much of the league continues to wander the desert in search of a drop of offense, Seattle is building a hydroelectric dam to take advantage of the rising river flowing through Lumen Field.