The Seahawks emerged from Arizona with one piece of ominous news about their running game — the continued uncertainty over the health of running back Kenneth Walker III.
Coach Mike Macdonald said during his afternoon press conference Monday it remains unclear when Walker will practice or play again after he sat out Sunday’s 30-18 win over Arizona with a calf injury.
“It’s some medical stuff I don’t really know, but it’s his calf at this point, it’s not his ankle,’’ Macdonald said, a reference to Walker being listed with injuries to both body parts last week. “And in terms of his status, right now we’re not sure, so there are some more tests we are doing right now on it as we speak and so we’ll hopefully know more over the next 24-48 hours.’’
The mention of tests and results in the next one-two days obviously leaves open the possibility that some sort of significant injury is found. And with just four regular-season games remaining, an absence of any length could be critical.
But everything else about the running game Sunday was the best it’s been all year as the Seahawks rushed for a season-high 176 yards on 31 carries with Walker’s replacement, Zach Charbonnet, rushing for a career-high 134 on 21.
Charbonnet’s yards were by himself more than Seattle had rushed for in any game all year since getting 146 in the opener against Denver.
It was also the most Seattle had rushed for since the regular season finale in 2022. The Seahawks high a year ago was 146 in a September win over Carolina.
And it came a little bit out of nowhere.
While Macdonald and other coaches and players have said they’d seen progress in recent weeks, the stats didn’t really show it.
Seattle rushed for 94, 65 and 84 yards in their three previous games before Sunday against the 49ers, Cardinals and Jets, a combined 243 yards on 71 carries, or 3.4 per attempt.
Sunday, the Seahawks averaged 5.7.
So what led to the sudden rushing uprising?
Coaches and players pointed to a few factors.
Continuity on the offensive line
Sunday marked just the second game that rookie Sataoa Laumea played right guard in place of injured Anthony Bradford.
Two weeks with the same five can hardly be declared as having had a real stable lineup.
But Sunday also marked the fourth game in a row that center Olu Oluwatimi played center in place of Connor Williams, who shockingly retired during the bye, and that Abe Lucas had played right tackle along with the season-long starters on the left side, tackle Charles Cross and guard Laken Tomlinson. Those four jelling appears to have made it easier to quickly integrate Laumea.
“It is nice to have some continuity to that group,’’ Macdonald said. “And I think you’re seeing them play with more confidence.’’
It’s the fifth different starting group Seattle has used but may be the one that finally shows some staying power.
Crossing up Arizona
After rushing for just 65 yards on 25 carries against the Cardinals in a 16-6 win on Nov. 24, the Seahawks approached Sunday’s game a bit differently.
Specifically, Seattle ran more often using gap blocking schemes than zone schemes.
At its most basic, gap blocking is typically defined as attacking a particular gap or hole in the defensive line, while zone blocking is defined as players blocking a particular area of the field. It’s often defined as gap schemes being like playing man defense, and zone like playing zone defense.
Both can work.
But Sunday, Seattle not only used more gap schemes but seemed to have more success with them.
Via Pro Football Focus, the Seahawks ran 14 running plays out of zone blocking in the first gap to nine in gap scheme but switched that up to 21 gap scheme plays and 10 zone on Sunday.
One gap blocking play produced the biggest run of the day, Charbonnet’s 51-yard TD that put the Seahawks up 24-10 at the half.
While schemes can have varying effectiveness from week to week based on what the opponent does, Macdonald said it was a positive that the Seahawks showed they could switch things up some and make it work.
“Nowadays, the way the NFL is, you can’t just live in one world,’’ Macdonald said. “So you’ve got to be able to run both. We had success with some gap (scheme) yesterday and we had a holding call on a zone run that I thought was a really well-blocked play and we had a holding call (a 15-yard run by Charbonnet called back by a hold on Oluwatimi). So there are another couple of zone runs, too. So I wouldn’t say it’s just exclusively gap. But it is nice to have that kind of world of plays come to life for us where we’re not in a predictable operation where all types of play types are kind of on the table at any given point, so that’ll be beneficial for us moving forward.”
Scott Huff’s persistence and influence
Like almost the entire staff, offensive line coach Scott Huff is in his first year with the team. Huff came to the Seahawks after spending the 2017-23 seasons at the University of Washington
All of his previous experience also came at the college level. And given that there are some specific differences in the college and pro game — notably, the hashmarks being wider in college — as well as adjusting to new personnel, a little bit of a learning curve would be expected.
But Sunday gave evidence of the work of Huff and the rest of the offensive coaching staff to get the running game working paying off.
And afterward, Macdonald gave Huff a game ball.
“He’s been a steadying force for those guys, bringing it every day’’ Macdonald said. “Attention to detail to connect the offensive line room, especially when there are a lot of moving parts is not an easy job. I thought he’s done a tremendous job with that. …. It’s great to see us make strides in that area because we needed to, and he knows that. It’s not for a lack of urgency or lack of trying. I just go back to defense.
“Like ‘Hey, we were having troubles in our run defense. What do you do?’ You go to work, keep hammering it out, and keep making some tweaks here and there to make it work. Then, all of a sudden, you start to make some progress, and then you can kind of keep building from there. I think the way he’s led our group and our run department has had the same mentality. He’s done a good job working through it’’
