Formation Nation: Seattle Seahawks Week 13 Notes on Personnel Packages & Player Snaps

Here are this week's notes and thoughts on what the Seahawks did, personnel wise, against the Eagles on Thursday. These numbers are brought to us again by the awesome Chad Davis of DraftBreakdown.com.

The Seahawks ran 52 offensive plays, officially 16 passes, 3 sacks, and 33 rushes. The Hawks ran ten less plays than they did last week against Washington and still a ways off the 68 and 67 they ran in Weeks 10 and 11. The Seahawks still won the ToP 30:20 to 29:40 against Philly, but were off their excellent marks of ~35:00 in Weeks 10 and 11.

A couple discrepancies exist here with the official gamebook, if you're keeping track at home - Chad generally charts sacks as passes because in essence they're designed pass plays - and those sacks are counted toward "pass plays" in the groupings charting, because that's what the Seahawks' intentions were in the first place. Because these studies are meant to capture more what the Seahawks are game-planning and their play-calling, it makes sense here to do it that way (and a snap-count, run/pass number that is off by one or two isn't going to make or break anything).

Though the Seahawks officially rushed 33 times and passed 16 (and were sacked thrice), our numbers reflect a run:pass ratio of 32:20. This includes 16 of Tarvaris' official passes, his three sacks, and a Golden Tate 'run' that was really a backwards pass. Hopefully this makes sense.

Anyway, as is becoming expected, the Seahawks featured a very run-heavy offense, relying on Marshawn Lynch to carry the load. The Seahawks ran with a tight end in nearly all of their offensive sets, something they've consistently done this season, but ran out of 2TE sets on nearly 70% of their snaps this week. That's huge.

The Hawks went 5-wide twice, passing in both instances. They went empty backfield in their "02" personnel grouping once, passing on that snap. Their most commonly used set was out of "22" personnel, two running backs and two tight ends, rushing 18 times and passing seven.

Offensive Personnel Information

• 2 out of "00" (5-wide)...2 passes
• 1 out of "02" (0 RB, 2 TE)...1 pass
• 3 out of "10" (1 RB, 0 TE)...3 passes...Tate TD
• 4 out of "11" (1 RB, 1 TE)...1 run, 3 passes
• 10 out of "12" (1 RB, 2 TE)...7 runs, 3 passes...Lynch TD
• 1 out of "13" (1 RB, 3 TE)...1 pass
• 5 out of "21" (2 RB, 1 TE)...5 runs
• 25 out of "22" (2 RB, 2 TE)...18 runs, 7 pass
• One offensive play is missing, due to Chad's small child draped all over him :)

Notable Snap Counts:

Golden Tate was the obvious beneficiary of Sidney Rice being placed on IR. He saw 46 offensive snaps, and was frequently the wide receiver out on the field when the Hawks went with their 2TE, 2RB heavy sets, which is fairly surprising. Tate shined, catching all four of his official targets for 47 yards and a big touchdown as he fell out of the back of the endzone. He also caught another backwards pass that officially went for a 'run', and that one he took for eight yards.

Ben Obomanu only played in seven plays, and even Doug Baldwin only saw ten snaps. Deon Butler saw eight total snaps, but wasn't targeted. Doug Baldwin caught one big first down pass and was only targeted one other time. Obomanu caught his two targets, netting 28 yards.

Mike Williams played 23 snaps and was targeted twice but ended up with zero catches. This lack of production, in particular, has been worrisome to Seahawks fans. Williams caught 65 passes last season for 751 yards and in on pace this year to finish with about 20 catches for 270 yards. I think it's obvious that some of the blame goes to the QB situation but the fact is, Mike has missed on some of his chances. I'm still a huge fan and hope to see him break out and stick with this team, but at this rate it's not looking great. We need BMW to go back to being BMMFW.

Michael Robinson continued to see plenty of action - logging 29 snaps (equal to Marshawn Lynch's number), and was part of the offensive passing attack, snagging four catches for 41 yards. He's gone from being a, mainly, special teams contributor and infrequent fullback to seeing over half of the team's snaps. Pretty interesting and it's still of note that he's in his contract year. What the Seahawks decide to do with him remains to be seen.

The big surprise, other than Golden Tate's prominence, was that of Cameron Morrah, who got 38 snaps. This came at the expense of Anthony McCoy, who flip flopped in playing time with Morrah from last week (Cam had 2, McCoy 28). I'm not sure what this means for McCoy - there's two thoughts that come to mind - either Morrah has leapfrogged McCoy on the depth chart or this last part of the season has become his audition time. Either way, it was good to see him out there making some key blocks and motioning out the wing to play receiver. I like Morrah for his versatility and for the fact he's a late-round value pick. We'll see if he sticks.

Individual Offensive Snaps (does not include kneel downs, special teams, or the mysterious missing play)

• Golden Tate played in 46 snaps (14 in 1st quarter, 14 in 2nd, 6 in 3rd, 11 in 4th)
• Mike Williams played in 23 snaps (10, 5, 2, 6)
• Doug Baldwin played in 10 snaps (5, 4, 1, 0)
• Ben Obomanu played in 7 snaps (1, 5, 1, 0)
• Deon Butler played in 8 snaps (3, 3, 0, 2)
• Zach Miller played in 45 snaps (15, 13, 4, 13)
• Anthony McCoy played in 2 snaps (0, 0, 2, 0)
• Cameron Morrah played in 38 snaps (11, 11, 5, 10)
• Marshawn Lynch played in 29 snaps (8, 8, 5, 8)
• Justin Forsett played in 8 snaps (2, 4, 1, 1...5 on 3rd down)
• Leon Washington played in 11 of 50 plays (4, 3, 0, 4)
• Michael Robinson played in 29 of 50 plays (7, 9, 3, 10)

The Seahawks again stuck with their base 4-3 personnel and their nickel package for the vast majority of the game. This is no different, philosophically, from the last couple of games, and they only broke out of those two looks when they went with their dime package on three plays and had one goal line set.

Defensive personnel information

• Seattle saw 57 plays on defense
• They were in base 4-3 personnel on 31 plays
• They were in nickel personnel on 22 plays
• They were in dime personnel on 3 plays
• They were in goal line personnel on 1 play

Notable Snap Counts:

Once again, the DB's are iron men. Sherman and Browner only missed 1 play each (a goal line play), while Chancellor and Thomas never missed a snap.

What a game for Hawthorne, from not knowing if was going to play, to not missing a single play.

After not playing last week, Alan Branch logged 42 snaps, most of the defensive tackles.

Raheem Brock might have played his best game of the season, and only in 20 snaps. This seems like a much more productive number for him.

Past that, there aren't that many really interesting or notable things that happened on defense. With Alan Branch returning to the lineup, Clinton McDonald went back to his backup role after seeing 57 snaps last week.

Roy Lewis was again the principle nickelback, logging 25 snaps. As an aside, this is likely the role that Walter Thurmond will take when returning next season, which should be interesting. Atari Bigby and Roy Lewis will likely have to fight for a roster spot if that's the case...

Here are the rest of the snap counts...

Individual defensive snap information(does not include kneel downs or special teams)

• Chris Clemons played in 50 of 57 plays (26 base, 20 nickel, 3 dime, 1 goal line)
• Brandon Mebane played in 39 of 57 plays (25 base, 13 nickel, 1 goal line)
• Alan Branch played in 42 of 57 plays (23 base, 17 nickel, 1 dime, 1 goal line)
• Red Bryant played in 39 of 57 plays (29 base, 9 nickel, 1 goal line)
• David Hawthorne played in ALL 57 plays
• Leroy Hill played in 54 of 57 plays (30 base, 21 nickel, 2 dime, 1 goal line)
• K.J. Wright played in 34 of 57 plays (31 base, 2 nickel, 1 goal line)
• Kam Chancellor played in ALL 57 plays
• Earl Thomas played in ALL 57 plays
• Brandon Browner played in 56 of 57 plays (all but goal line)
• Richard Sherman played in 56 of 57 plays (all but goal line)
• Raheem Brock played in 20 of 57 plays (7 base, 11 nickel, 2 dime)
• Clinton McDonald played in 24 of 57 plays (14 base, 9 nickel, 1 goal line)
• Anthony Hargrove played in 12 of 57 plays (9 nickel, 3 dime)
• Malcolm Smith played in 3 of 57 plays (1 base, 1 nickel, 1 dime)
• Roy Lewis played in 25 of 57 plays (22 nickel, 3 dime)
• Atari Bigby played in 4 of 57 plays (3 dime, 1 goal line)

As always, big thanks due to Chad Davis, who does a really great job of compiling these numbers. Give him your support by following him on Twitter and make sure you check out DraftBreakdown for all your scouting needs.

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