Brock: What the Seahawks did that got offense back on track

NFL on NBC analyst Cris Collinsworth made a point the broadcast of the Seattle Seahawks’ impressive 20-3 win over the Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday night that jumped out to Seattle Sports’ Mike Salk.

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“He felt like (Seahawks head coach) Mike Macdonald had stepped in this week and made the offense play in such a way as to help emphasize the defense,” Salk relayed Monday morning on Brock and Salk. “Again, to get back to playing complementary football. … Very clearly what we saw yesterday was a team that remembered how to be complementary.”

Salk’s co-host, former NFL quarterback and longtime FOX football broadcaster Brock Huard, said the Seahawks did a good job helping Sam Darnold on Sunday night, and the quarterback in turn was able to speed himself up in the passing game as a result.

“If we went back and listened to every Mike Macdonald Show this year (after a game) where Sam started, I think we would hear him say, he can’t get hit this much,” Huard said. “He’s under duress and he’s getting hit a lot. They ran 28 passes. … Where is Sam Darnold’s sweet spot? It’s when he’s less than 30 passes a game, when he can be in that 20 to 30 pass attempts. It is, the ball is out. And that was so abundantly clear.”

To illustrate how much quicker Darnold and the Seahawks’ offense was operating, the NBC broadcast showed a stat that in the first half, Darnold took just 2.3 seconds on average to throw a pass after the ball was snapped, which was the fastest in his career. Huard pointed out that was a significant improvement over the 3.1 seconds Darnold took on average to throw passes this season going into the Seahawks’ previous game, an Oct. 15 loss at Denver.

“There was operation. They were ahead of the play. They played with tempo. They didn’t sub at times, especially on third down,” Huard said about the Seahawks’ offense on Sunday. “They played more 21 personnel that slows down the opponents. … Get the ball out of your hands. That also requires (Seahawks offensive coordinator) Brian Fleury and the system to have your first option open, and it was open quite a bit. And it required putting the ball up to (star wide receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba) on a couple fade routes and go routes. Give him an opportunity, and guess what? He’s going to make you look good.”

After Sunday’s win, Macdonald was asked about how the Seahawks were able to protect Darnold better against the Chiefs, who registered no sacks and just two QB hits on the night.

“I thought we ran the ball more effectively,” Macdonald responded. “There’s some procedural things, especially early, that I felt like we can attack and be cleaner on that front so we can stay on the attack offensively, which I felt that today this was just cleaner football. Thought our protection plan was great. … Definitely felt more like how we want to play the game.”

Huard credited Macdonald and the Seahawks’ coaching staff for using a mini-bye – Seattle had 10 days between games after the Denver game was on a Thursday – to find answers to Seattle’s offensive issues over the first six weeks.

“I think they spent a lot of time on Friday and Saturday of last week capturing those days and making sure they didn’t let those days pass,” Huard said. “They let the players off, they let some staff off, but the coaches were all going to be in there and were going to find solutions. And this was not going to be a blame game. It was not going to be pointing fingers, just like the team doesn’t do that. From my understanding, it was highly, highly productive. A lot of listening of how to put guys in the best spot.”

Hear the full discussion in the middle segment of the podcast at this link or in the player below. Catch Brock and Salk live from 6-10 a.m. weekdays on Seattle Sports.

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