Seahawks Preseason Retrospective: Run Defense, Rushing Attack

The effectiveness of both the Seahawks' run defense, and their rushing attack in the 2012 NFL Preseason was, frankly, pretty absurd. The Hawks led the NFL in rushing with 713 yards, 178.2 yards per game; they averaged 5.1 yards per 140 carries and scored four touchdowns. Obligatory and necessary 'it's preseason' caveat.

They did well on the other side of the football, holding opposing teams to 78.8 yards per game, 2nd in the NFL, on 3.8 yards per carry. Put these two numbers together, and the Seahawks are succeeding in one area of the game that is extremely important to Pete Carroll: the time of possession battle. The Seahawks averaged 34:04 ToP per game, which was about a minute and a half longer, per game, than the 2nd ranked team in the NFL, Jacksonville. Now, is this a big deal? Not really. It's the preseason, of course, I must say. You can't really extrapolate a whole lot from these types of preseason statistics, and I think history would tell you that these numbers don't project into the regular season on any consistent basis. That said, they do certainly reflect the type of game this coaching staff wants the Seahawks to play, especially when you look at their +7 turnover ratio (also tied for best in the NFL during the preseason), and it's nice that they were able to execute, even if it's just the preseason.

Now, when we're doing preseason retrospectives, it's much more important to look at the individual battles won and lost, the individual player performance, and the skills those players exhibited that helped them succeed, over just looking at team stats. So, I'm not going to harp about those numbers above and I really hadn't even researched them until just now. That's where these preseason retrospectives come in: You can watch each play with a specific player in mind and it becomes easier to see who's doing their job and who isn't. With thanks to Nate Dogg for all the work he has done, these short videos should give yourself a better idea about the difference makers in those areas -- run defense and run offense -- play-to-play, rather than just sitting there and watching a game with TV timeouts, commercials, reviews, etc.

Without further ado, check out the videos of the Seahawks' performance in the run game and in run defense against Kansas City, Preseason Week 3, after the jump. Another huge thank you to Nate Dogg for putting these retrospectives together.

The Seahawks' first-team unit gave up a paltry 36 yards in the first half and it's obvious that the Chiefs were having issues getting much of a push along the line at all. With Red Bryant, Alan Branch, and Brandon Mebane plugging up the middle, and K.J. Wright, Leroy Hill and Bobby Wagner flowing the ball, the run defense was very effective. In the second half Kansas City rattled off 109 yards and the battle at the line of scrimmage was much more evenly matched.

As for the run game, the Seahawks ran for 189 yards on 28 attempts, averaging 6.8 yards per carry. Not a bad clip. 109 of those yards came in the first half on 16 attempts against Kansas City's 'first-team' unit, a 6.8 ypc clip as well.