Seahawks vs. Bengals: Snap count analysis

Let's take a look at the Seahawks' snap count from Sunday's game. That's all I got for you for an intro. Oh, uh, Marshawn Lynch, Marcus Burley, Kevin Pierre-Louis, Demarcus Dobbs, and Tye Smith missed the game with injuries, and Alvin Bailey was inactive because he tweets stupid shit. Rookie OL Kristjan Sokoli was inactive as well.

Offense:

Jimmy Graham's snap count share continues to gradually decline and I'm guessing it will bottom out somewhere right around that 70-73% mark from Sunday. When you look at the snaps share by fullbacks Will Tukuafu and Derek Coleman, it's clear the Hawks are running more "heavy" I-formation style sets of late, perhaps due to Thomas Rawls' running style and strengths.

It had seemed to me that Rawls is very good out of the I-formation and single back looks (perhaps better than he is in the shotgun read-option stuff), and sure enough his big touchdown run came from this type of look. I would guess that both Tom Cable and Pete Carroll like running this down-hill style because it's more smash-mouth than the read option.

(Via @WhoIsJoseRivera)

It's pretty incredible that Rawls got 169 yards on just 31 snaps (only 52% of Seattle's overall offensive snaps) as he shared time with Fred Jackson (22 snaps) and Rod Smith (5 snaps).

At receiver, it's clear that the "big three" are Doug Baldwin (38 snaps), Jermaine Kearse (38 snaps), and Tyler Lockett (34 snaps). Ricardo Lockette is the fourth in line, and got 16 snaps, while Chris Matthews logged 13. I'm guessing that when a healthy Paul Richardson returns to the fold in a few weeks, he'll bump in front of those two, but we'll see.

Cooper Helfet got some playing time in this game as well, getting onto the field for 4 snaps.

Defense:

Nothing terribly surprising in how the Seahawks' defense logged snap counts, except maybe that DeShawn Shead continues to be a very big part of the action. Shead played 58 snaps in the slot with Marcus Burley and Tye Smith still out, and his versatility as a safety, nickel, and boundary corner has been pretty huge for Seattle this year.

Frank Clark continues to see his playtime percentage slowly rise -- he was at 30% last week and 31% this week, and hopefully that will continue to grow as his role does with the defensive line. Cassius Marsh has been getting more snaps of late as well -- he played in 18% last week and 21% this week.

With Jordan Hill missing big chunks of this game, David King was the beneficiary. Brock Coyle was in for two plays when Bobby Wagner left with a pectoral strain.

Special teams only:

As you can see, Mike Morgan, Steven Terrell, and Kelcie McCray are the three core "special teams guys" from this game. I noticed McCray on punt and kick coverage a few times, so perhaps that trade has added some value to that area.