Seahawks vs. 49ers: Pro Football Focus Signature Stats notes

To preview the Seahawks vs. 49ers matchup for Sunday, our friend from Pro Football Focus, Jim Seki, sent over some notes on a few signature stats. Here's what Jim had to say (and follow him on twitter).

Signature Stats:

-- Splitting the first half of the season in half, from Weeks 1-5, Russell Wilson had an accuracy rate of 78.4% (9^th). From Week 6 on, that's dropped to 68.9% (28^th).

-- We touched on this a few weeks ago, and while the negative differential has come down, it's still the most biggest one (skewed to the negative) in the league: Russell Wilson has a -1.8 YPA differential with (6.5 YPA) and without play action (8.3 YPA). The Seahawks run play-action on 20.7% of drop-backs, which is league-average, so there's definitely something there. Wilson has the fourth-worst play-action completion rate at only 56.6% -- that's down there with Jameis Winston, Blake Bortles, and Andrew Luck.

-- Combining that with the one-dimensionality of targeting Jimmy Graham, there's been a precipitous drop in running back receiving numbers for the Seahawks. In the Russell Wilson era, running backs out of the backfield averaged 1.37, 1.11, and 1.30 YPRR from 2012-2014. While the offense is on pace for 78 running back targets this season, the highest in Wilson's tenure, the YPRR has dropped half a yard down to 0.81.

-- In their upset over the Falcons, Shaun Draughn averaged 3.56 yards after contact/attempt. It's a super small sample size, but among half-backs with at least ten carries this year, that's second-best. That seems to be an anomaly though, since in extreme reserve time, he had 1.20 and 0.75 YAC/A from 2012-13 (with San Diego and Baltimore).

-- Niners RT Erik Pears is probably in for another long game. Four weeks ago, he had his worst game of the season against Seattle, finishing with a -6.0 grade allowing four hurries. Pears will probably see more of Clif Avril since Michael Bennett hasn't been lining up on the left as much. Where Avril is the LEO for over 80.0% of pass rushing snaps, Bennett's alignment on the left has dropped from 70.0% in 20113-14 to 57.9% this season. He's still being productive from other spots, as there's no drop-off when extrapolating his current numbers.

PFF Content:

Week 11 Power Rankings with Seattle dropping one spot to 17^th. San Francisco ranks 30^th.

Top 10 pass rushers thus far with Bennett and Avril both in the top five.

Grade recaps from the Week 10 Seahawks and Week 9 49ers games.