Huard on Seahawks: What stands out in each of 3 phases

The Seattle Seahawks are getting ready to return to the field following their bye week, and there is a lot of positivity around the team thanks to their 3-1 start to the season.

Bumpus: How Seahawks’ Kenneth Walker III can help open up offense

The bye week allows to dig deeper into analysis, which is exactly what Seattle Sports’ Brock Huard did over the week. So when the former NFL quarterback and current FOX football analyst hit the airwaves for Monday’s edition of Brock and Salk, he had some extra focus to cover all three phases of the game.

Here’s what Huard said stands out to him about the Seahawks’ offense, defense and special teams.

Brock Huard’s Seahawks observations

• Offense: Play-action success

Huard highlighted not just quarterback Geno Smith but also his backup Drew Lock, who saw a little action in a Week 4 win over the New York Giants. But because of the Hawks’ success in the play-action game, he challenged offensive coordinator Shane Waldron to keep pushing in that arena.

“No. 1, their play-action game is outright deadly, as it was a year ago. Geno is so good, and every number and metric tells you that,” Huard said. “So Shane Waldron and that offensive staff have to continue to do what (49ers head coach) Kyle Shanahan does in San Fran: innovate. Find new ways to continue to be creative with your scheme and your personnel and everything in the play-action game because Geno’s phenomenal – and frankly, Drew Lock’s really good at it, too. So that play-action game will continue, I think, to be a staple of what you are.”

• Defense: Troubles in pass coverage

The Seahawks currently rank in the bottom half of the NFL in total yards allowed per game (367.5) and points allowed per game (22.8), and if there’s one number that’s glaringly responsible, it’s the 280 passing yards allowed per game that is worse than all but two other teams in the league.

“When you look at their first four games last year to these first four, in just about every measurement – total defense, rush defense, rush yards against, next level stats – everything’s great,” Huard pointed out. “One area they’ve got to sharpen is their pass coverage. When they play zone coverage – not (man-to-man defense), they’re doing some good stuff in man – but when they play zone coverage, just really trusting one another, communicating with one another, knowing where your vulnerabilities are within those zone coverages so when you face (Bengals QB) Joe Burrow this weekend, he doesn’t just nickel and dime you like (Rams QB) Matthew Stafford did a lot of Week 1.”

• Special teams: Kicker inconsistency

Jason Myers made his second career Pro Bowl team last season after an impressive campaign with the Seahawks, but the 32-year-old kicker has struggled so far in 2023, making 9 of 13 field goals. The four misses are already more than the three he had all of last year (34 of 37).

“Lastly, we’ve got to get Jason Myers on it,” Huard said. “We know how the Seahawks play. They pound the ball, they play-action, they play good defense, but you have to have the complementary special teams phase. Jason Myers was unreal last year. He’s a captain on this team. He’s got to just continue to be ‘Steady Eddie’ and not have some of the peaks and valleys we saw through the first four games.”

Brock Huard answers three football questions in Blue 88, a segment that airs at 7:45 a.m. each weekday during Seattle Sports’ Brock and Salk. Listen to Monday’s full edition in the podcast at this link or in the audio player near the top of this post.

More on the Seattle Seahawks

• Seahawks Notebook: Week 6 preview, NFC landscape, health updates
• Seattle Seahawks Check-In: What we’ve learned through four games
• The route concept for Seattle Seahawks to get JSN more involved

Follow @BrentStecker