Chalk Talk: Wilson and Baldwin beat the Saints’ blitz

By Brady Henderson

The blitz-heavy gameplan New Orleans employed Monday night didn’t come as a surprise to the Seahawks or their quarterback.

“We knew that they were going to bring some pressure,” Russell Wilson said after Seattle’s 34-7 dismantling of the Saints. “We like the sense of pressure because there is a lot of green grass behind it.”

There certainly was on one play, a 52-yard completion to Doug Baldwin that is the subject of this week’s edition of “Chalk Talk” with Brock Huard.

The situation: The Saints had just scored what would be their only points of the game when the Seahawks began the ensuing drive on their own 16-yard line with a 17-7 lead midway through the second quarter. After a pair of Marshawn Lynch runs and a New Orleans timeout, Seattle faced a third-and-3 from its own 23.

The play: The Saints stacked the line of scrimmage with eight defenders, making no attempt to disguise their intentions to come after Wilson with an all-out blitz. They just never got to him, as Seattle picked it up and allowed Wilson enough time to lob a pass off his back foot to a streaking Baldwin for a 52-yard gain.

The statement: “He did a perfect job,” coach Pete Carroll said of Wilson. “He saw it coming and he checked off to it. Then he changes the route and the protection and then makes the great throw and we get the great catch, too. All of that had to happen. It was exactly what we hoped would happen when they came after us, and he did it, and they slowed down and they didn’t do it anymore.

“That’s a real, real illustration of his maturity and where he’s come, and he’ll just continue to get better. But that was exactly what we would hope would happen. He saw it, executed it absolutely perfectly and we got a big play out of it.”

You can watch the play here.