Seahawks offense still isn’t great, but it’s showing improvement

The Seahawks offense was only half bad on Sunday.

That constituted an improvement from the first two weeks of this season in which the Seahawks had managed a combined total of about 15 minutes worth of solid offensive efficiency that would not only keep the chains moving, but actual put the ball in the end zone.

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The Seahawks punted only once in the second half, rookie Thomas Rawls rushed for 104 yards and the tight end who some said was frustrated last week caught seven passes and scored his second touchdown for Seattle.

“I didn’t know I was frustrated last week,” Jimmy Graham said afterward. “But just to clarify things, I’m not frustrated at all because we won, and that’s really all I care about.”

And as much as Sunday’s victory will temper the long-term concern over Seattle’s season, it’s important to look at more than just Seattle’s second-half dominance and see what happened in the first half.

There’s not just room for improvement in Sunday’s performance, but a need for it because for the first 27 minutes of Sunday’s game the Seahawks’ offense was painfully impotent. The first four drives produced a combined total of one first down and Seattle’s only points came courtesy of a 62-yard punt return from Richard Sherman that parachuted Seattle into field-goal range. The Seahawks didn’t convert a single third-down opportunity in the first half. Not one.

Even in the second half – when Seattle gained almost twice as many yards as it had in the first half – Seattle twice settled for field goals and scored its only touchdown on a 30-yard pass in which Graham eluded one tackler and a combination hit in the end zone.

“It’s not smooth yet,” coach Pete Carroll said. “It’s not how we want it to be, but it’s a work in progress, and we know we have a lot of plays we can get and playmakers out there.”

The first week of the season, Seattle’s offensive line struggled in pass protection at St. Louis. In Week 2 at Green Bay, the Seahawks couldn’t run the ball effectively. Against Chicago, it was short-yardage situations. Seattle was stopped twice on third-and-1 in the first half, a situation the Seahawks excelled at a year ago.

“Once we started getting our third downs in the second half, and running, then everything worked out really well,” Carroll said.

But Seattle can’t afford to keep stumbling through the first half as it has. The Seahawks offense has yet to score a touchdown in the first two quarters in any of its four games. In fact, all four of Seattle’s offensive touchdowns this season have been scored in a third quarter.

It has to start taking more advantage of scoring opportunities, too. A year ago, the Seahawks scored a touchdown on just more than half of the possessions in which it had the ball inside the opponent’s 20-yard line. That ranked 20th in the league, and Graham’s acquisition was expected to improve that.

After settling for field goals on both of the first-half possessions in which it had the ball inside the Chicago 20-yard line, Seattle has scored a touchdown just three of the eight times it had the ball in the red zone this season.

Just one more thing the Seahawks will need to address before this offense can be pronounced fixed, because while Seattle played better on Sunday, that didn’t mean the offense played well.

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