Brock Huard explains why Seahawks’ play-calling is frustrating

Nov 25, 2024, 3:10 PM | Updated: 3:17 pm

Geno Smith of the Seattle Seahawks during a Nov. 24, 2024 game against Arizona. (Steph Chambers/Getty Images)

(Steph Chambers/Getty Images)

Seattle Sports

In an eight-day span, the Seattle Seahawks flipped the trajectory of their season and surged atop the NFC West with back-to-back victories over division rivals.

Brock Huard on Seahawks: What’s sustainable, and what’s not

At the center of Seattle’s success has been a sudden turnaround on defense. The Seahawks held the San Francisco 49ers to just 17 points and 277 total yards in a dramatic victory last week, and then limited the Arizona Cardinals to just six points and 298 yards in Sunday’s triumph.

But while the defense has excelled, Seattle’s offense has continued to sputter.

The Seahawks rank 15th in the NFL with 22.4 points per game. But when you exclude scores on defense and special teams, their offense is averaging just 19.7 points per game and 1.86 points per drive – the latter of which ranks 20th in the league. Things have been worse of late, with Seattle averaging just 15 points per game on offense over its past four contests.

The rushing attack has been particularly problematic. For the season, the Seahawks rank 28th in both rushing yards per game (89.1) and yards per carry (3.9). And over their past three contests, they have mustered just 3.3 yards per carry.

Mike Macdonald addresses the state of Seahawks’ struggling run game

As the Seahawks went scoreless for most of the first half in Sunday’s win over Arizona, former NFL quarterback Brock Huard said he was growing frustrated with the play-calling from offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb.

“If you play defense like that, you’ll have a chance against everybody in this league,” Huard said Monday on Seattle Sports’ Brock and Salk. “But this offense, man, I was just getting so frustrated because it was so predictable.”

That prompted Huard to post the following on social media during the first half on Sunday:

For a former OL Coach I’ve been really surprised at Ryan Grubb’s inability to adjust & call plays that protect that group. No boots, no movement of the pocket, minimal play action, very little creativity in the run game.

Make the OL job’s easier. That’s duty 1 of an NFL OC

— Brock Huard (@BrockHuard) November 24, 2024

The root of Seattle’s offensive struggles have been in the trenches, where a slew of injuries and inconsistent play along the offensive line have resulted in frequent pressure on quarterback Geno Smith and little space to get the run game untracked.

Huard believes that more varied play-calling could help mitigate some of the issues in pass protection and run blocking.

“You have to, as best you can, make that job on those five guys as easy as you can,” Huard said, referring to the offensive linemen. “And when you get in the shotgun and you go dropback – or you get in the gun and you got the back to one side or the other – you saw (All-Pro Arizona safety) Budda Baker just laughing. You saw those guys just hitting plays before they could ever get started.

“What is the hardest thing as a left tackle?” Huard added. “Get in the gun and do dropback (when) the other team knows it. Get in the gun and the back’s offset, (giving away) that’s where’s this run is likely gonna go nine out of 10 times. … So that is where a ton of my angst was, especially in that first half.”

Huard liked what he saw from some of Seattle’s play-calling at the end of the first half and into the second half – including a 46-yard gain by Jaxon Smith-Njigba on a tunnel screen. After totaling just 72 yards over their first four possessions, the Seahawks gained 202 yards over their final four non-end-of-half drives.

“They got under center a little bit, we saw some screens and they got into a funky four-by-one formation that you don’t see a lot in the NFL,” Huard said. “You get the exact right call, the little tunnel screen to Jaxon. (The Cardinals) were bringing the house, they couldn’t peel back in time and (Jaxon) gets the longest play of his career. And then I saw a little play-action, a little bootleg, getting Geno out of that chaos.”

In defense of Grubb

For the sake of argument, co-host Mike Salk then asked Huard to look at the situation from Grubb’s perspective – specifically with regard to a Seattle offensive line that’s undergone a major shakeup in recent weeks.

On Sunday, right tackle Abraham Lucas played his second game since returning from offseason knee injury. Second-year center Olu Oluwatimi made his third career start. And after starting right guard Anthony Bradford suffered an ankle injury on the Seahawks’ first series of the game, rookie third-round draft pick Christian Haynes came in and played the rest of the way after entering the day with just 104 career offensive snaps.

Huard responded from Grubb’s point of view: “I think (Grubb) would say, ‘Hey, why don’t you settle down, Huard? That’s great to say on a whiteboard and that’s all really, really nice. But we’re just trying to run plays that this group up front has gotten stacked reps on. … You can say you want to do all these things, but when that group that I’m supposed to protect, (when) they haven’t played together, I’m just trying to keep things simple and have alignment and assignment.

“‘And oh by the way, we’ve fumbled snaps, we’ve had operation issues, we’ve had these other little bungles. I’d like to get to more volume, but I’ve kind of gotta start on chapter one and keep this thing really simple.’ I think that would be the answer.”

Huard also pointed to just how difficult it is to run the ball in the NFL – and how an inability to mount a consistent rushing attack can cripple the entire offense.

Grubb has an extensive background as an offensive coordinator and offensive line coach in college, but he is in his first season coaching at the NFL level. In his past two stops with the UW Huskies (2022-23) and Fresno State (2017-21), he rarely dealt with struggles this severe in the run game. Excluding the COVID-shortened 2020 campaign, none of those Washington or Fresno State teams finished in the bottom third of the FBS in yards per carry.

Seattle’s season-long struggles on the ground were encapsulated by a jarring stat from Sunday’s game: According to Pro Football Focus, running back Kenneth Walker III finished with more rushing yards after contact (46) than rushing yards (41).

“I think sometimes we over-complicate this game so much with all this different scheme (talk),” Huard said. “The bottom line is when you can’t run consistently and you don’t know what your run game is, it makes everything else really hard. … And Ryan Grubb in college, I don’t think he had many of these circumstances.

“They knew what kind of run team they were at Fresno State and certainly at Washington. And along the way it was like, ‘This is what we’re going to do. This is who we’re going to be. And it will set the table for everything else we want to do.’ And here, they are still in search mode.”

Listen to the full conversation on Brock and Salk at this link or in the audio player near the top of this story. Tune in to Brock and Salk weekdays from 6 to 10 a.m. or find the podcast on the Seattle Sports app.