Seahawks Insider: You know, you don’t have to win games in the 4th quarter
Nov 16, 2017, 9:04 AM | Updated: 1:11 pm
Can you win the game in the fourth quarter? Seattle has shown you can. But Pete Carroll's Seahawks could make it a whole lot easier by starting faster. (AP)
(AP)
The Seahawks have scored as many touchdowns in the fourth quarter through nine games this season as they have in the first three periods combined.
That’s certainly not a bad thing. It shows that when this team needs points most, quarterback Russell Wilson is capable of providing them. Seattle has scored 86 points in the fourth quarter this season, third-most of any team in the NFL.
Seahawks Insider: When it comes to improving offense, Seattle will pass
But the fact that Seattle isn’t nearly so potent in the first three quarters isn’t exactly a good thing. Seattle has scored 125 points in quarters one through three, which ranks No. 21 in the league.
That’s certainly not a positive, and the question isn’t how to spread out Seattle’s productivity so much as how to make the first three quarters as productive as the final period for the Seahawks offense. If they were more efficient early in games, the Seahawks wouldn’t have to be as prolific in the final period to win them.
But that makes it sound like scoring is a matter of emphasis or desire, and that’s not really the case. If improving scoring in the first quarter was as simple as believing it’s important to score in the first quarter, or telling the team it was important to score, or emphasizing the importance of first-quarter productivity in practice, no NFL team would struggle to score in the first quarter.
The real question to unravel about Seattle’s point distribution is why the Seahawks are so much better in the first quarter. I think it’s because the fourth quarter is when Seattle’s offense is more free-form, playing at a faster pace and the quarterback not only has a larger hand in what the Seahawks call but is more willing to improvise over the course of a single play.
Consider that of Wilson’s 17 touchdowns passes this season, 12 have been thrown in the fourth quarter.
That – in itself – is either a criticism of the structure of the offense the Seahawks have in place or an indictment of the team’s ability to execute the plan. Either way, Seattle needs to have a plan to improve its production earlier in games because while it’s not a problem that Seattle is at its best in the fourth quarter, there’s a definite need for improvement in the first three quarters of a game.
