Doug Baldwin: Don’t blame Darrell Bevell for Seahawks’ offensive woes

RENTON – Darrell Bevell has acknowledged the reality that – right or wrong – the heat will usually fall most squarely on the play-caller when a team’s offense isn’t performing.

That has been the case with Bevell in recent seasons and especially this one, but wide receiver Doug Baldwin thinks that criticism is misguided.

“Obviously, people who are saying that aren’t looking at the games. They’re not watching the films,” Baldwin said Wednesday. “I don’t know what film they’re watching if they’re saying that Darrell Bevell is the problem because, like I said, there’s plays out there and we just have to get to them. We consistently have been inconsistent in getting to them.”

To hear Baldwin tell it, execution of the plays and not the plays themselves is the primarily the reason why Seattle ranks in the bottom half in several offensive categories through nine games. The Seahawks are 18th in total offense (352 yards per game), tied for 20th in scoring (22.1 points per game) and 21st in third-down conversions (35.9 percent), to name a few.

Of course, even if he did feel like the offensive coordinator was to blame, Baldwin and most other players would know better than to publicly express as much. At the same time, Baldwin is as honest in his assessments as any player in Seattle’s locker room, and his defense of Bevell was a fairly adamant one.

Baldwin didn’t get specific, but there were several plays in the Arizona game, at least, that support his notion. Russell Wilson misfired on a number of throws, including his interception (when he also failed to see an open receiver) and the first of Seattle’s two failed two-point conversions. Jimmy Graham dropped two passes and also had a would-be touchdown knocked out of his hands on a perfectly-placed throw. Marshawn Lynch dropped as pass as well. Pass-protection was again an issue at times.

And then there were all the penalties, which Baldwin noted. The Seahawks were assessed eight of them on offense, which constantly backed them up – Seattle faced first-and-20 or worse five times – and forced them to alter their game-plan.

“We shoot ourselves in the foot,” Baldwin said. “So there’s not much more that Darrell Bevell can do. He’s calling good plays. We just have to execute when it comes down to the execution.”

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