Can Dallas be the turning point for Seahawks’ O-line? It was before

RENTON – The overhaul of the Seahawks offensive line left Seattle running in place for much of the first seven games and the quarterback enduring the type of repetitive beatings generally reserved for bass drums and dead horses.

That began to change with the team’s eighth game in Dallas.

That’s not a prediction for what will happen the rest of this season, but a recitation for what occurred the last time the Seahawks turned over three starters along their offensive line to start a season.

This was 2011, back in Pete Carroll’s second season as Seahawks coach and Tom Cable’s first year coaching Seattle’s offensive line. The team spent its first two picks on offensive linemen that season, choosing James Carpenter in the first round to play right tackle and planting John Moffitt right next to him at guard. Throw in veteran Robert Gallery, and there were three new starters on the Seahawks line.

The Seahawks have two first-time starters on the offensive line this year in center Drew Nowak and right tackle Garry Gilliam, and then there’s Justin Britt who’ve moving from right tackle to left guard.

The changes up front resulted in similar turbulence this time around, most evidently as Russell Wilson has been sacked a league-high 31 times.

“We’ve gone through some growing pains,” coach Pete Carroll said. “And hopefully we can get out of it.”

The status of left tackle Russell Okung – who’s questionable because of a sprained ankle suffered on Thursday – isn’t the only uncertainty along Seattle’s offensive line. Perhaps an even more important question is whether the Seahawks can show improvement up front against a Dallas pass rush headlined by Greg Hardy.

That’s where the comparison to 2011 might be most instructive.

The Seahawks had given up 28 sacks through seven games that season, an average of four per game. That number declined to an average of less than 2.5 per game over the final nine weeks.

And in some respects, the Seahawks are already farther along this season than they were four years ago. That’s true both in the standings and in the rushing statistics (see chart), but also in the construction of the team. The Seahawks are a finished product now, whereas in 2011 they started Tarvaris Jackson at quarterback and turned to Charlie Whitehurst when Jackson was hurt.

But it’s the trajectory that’s important both for Seattle’s offensive line and the team’s season.

The Seahawks got better in 2011. Significantly better, and that improvement started to take hold in Game 8 at Dallas when Marshawn Lynch rushed for 135 yards against the Cowboys. The Seahawks lost that game, in large part because Jackson was picked off three times, but the Seahawks were up and running from then on out. That was the first of the 25 times that Lynch has rushed for 100 yards in a game for the Seahawks, the most of any player in the league going back to the start of the 2011 season.

That 2011 Dallas game was a turning point for Carroll’s coaching regime here in Seattle. The moment in which his power running game first took root.

The Seahawks may have begun a similar improvement in San Francisco in Week 7 when Lynch rushed for a season-high 122 yards. It’s an enthusiasm that has carried into this week.

“There’s a real sense and a confidence that we’re feeling the running game the way we want it,” Carroll said.

If that’s true in Dallas Sunday, the Seahawks will take a running start to the second half of the schedule. A victory in Dallas would put Seattle back at .500 with one week off before resuming a schedule in which they will play five of eight games at home.

For the first two months of this season, Seattle has paid the price for the changes that were made on the offensive line. Over the final half of the schedule, the Seahawks may reap the benefits.

“I didn’t want it to take us halfway through the season,” Carroll said, “but we have run the ball better the last few weeks and you can tell that we’re improving. So we’re going to try to build on that and hopefully turn this game again and play another good football game up front and get us going.”

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