The word is out: Don’t bother passing against Seahawks

The perplexity that is the Seattle Seahawks defense continues.

It’s an infuriating knock against coaching decisions everywhere, that this team has been this bad against the run for this long. Unfortunately, it should get worse because it’s only too apparent that the word is out around the NFL.

Just run.

The Carolina Panthers had 46 rushing attempts against the Seahawks in Week 14. According to Pete Carroll’s old mantra they only would have needed to complete seven passes to hit the magic 53 number that wins football games.

Those 46 carries resulted in 223 rushing yards, bringing Seattle’s total to 160 allowed per game. That’s second place in the NFL behind the one-win Houston Texans.

Before we get deeper into the statistics, this season is hard to reconcile. It’s nearly intellectually unintelligible that Carroll was this right about Russell Wilson, Geno Smith, the draft class, and Shane Waldron.

So, what is going on with the firing of Ken Norton Jr., the Clint Hurtt defense that has done no different, and above all the inability to make a molecule of change for five straight weeks? Travis Homer had 26 yards on Sunday and I bet he would have gone for 90 against his own defense.

The Seattle Seahawks will not set the NFL record this year. There was a time, before many of us, that humans didn’t throw as well as they run. That time was the 1950-70s, and it has passed.

But recently?

Only the 2016 San Francisco 49ers stand in between Houston and Seattle at the moment.

The mark to not beat is 173, held by the Super Bowl champion ‘06 Colts. If the Seahawks continue this pace they will break that yards per game allowed record and be the worst rush defense of the 21st Century. They have given up over 173 yards in five games this year.

The disappointing part is watching successes elsewhere become meaningless, while nobody knows what’s going on. KJ Wright has thoughts on the aggressiveness of the defensive players, Dave Wyman doesn’t know what the tackles are even trying to do.

If nothing else, it’s going to force the issue this draft, and perhaps the team can fill in with enough elite talent in the middle that whatever it is the coaches are trying to accomplish might be achievable.

For now, teams will just keep running until it doesn’t work.