Countdown to training camp: Seahawks upset Chiefs in Week 16

With just a little over two weeks to go until the Seattle Seahawks open training camp on Thursday, July 25, and here at Field Gulls we are counting down until then by working backwards through each 2018 game. In doing so, I’ll be making some sort of observation, some meaningful, some meaningless regarding one piece of the game or the team about each game.

The countdown started with a look at how the defense of the Dallas Cowboys switched things up depending on which running back the Hawks had in the game in the Wild Card round of the playoffs, and on Monday looked at how the Arizona Cardinals exploited the Seattle tendency to pass on third and long in 2018. Today it’s on to Week 16 and the Seahawks victory over the Patrick Mahomes and Andy Reid led offensive juggernaut known as the Kansas City Chiefs.

I could talk at length about how Seattle may have been helped out by the fact that this was a primetime game against a team from the Central Time Zone, but that’s not what I’m here to do. I’m here to enjoy one of the best plays of the season for the Seahawks offense. Facing second down with twelve yards to go following a loss of two on a first down run by Chris Carson, the clock was stopped following a Kansas City timeout, and the Hawks clinging to a three point lead. The Hawks need a first down in order to burn clock, keep the ball away from the KC offense and force the Chiefs to use their two remaining timeouts.

So, what should Brian Schottenheimer do?

Without question he should take advantage of the most efficient quarterback to receiver combination in the NFL in 2018: Russell Wilson to Tyler Lockett.

It was a play that made every highlight reel, was immortalized as having bounced off the moon in the @CableThanos_ video on the Hawks making the playoffs and it gave Seattle a first down in Chiefs territory with less than three minutes to go in the game.

It’s also a fantastic example of something I’m constantly yammering on and on about: Russ getting the ball out quick. Now, I’m sure very few of you are interested enough to pause the clip just before the snap and then count the number of frames between when Justin Britt snaps the ball to Wilson and when Wilson launches the pass to Lockett. However, lucky for all y’all I’m the kind of weirdo that eats that kind of task up. In any case, it’s 83 frames, and while that may not mean a lot to the overwhelming majority of people, what that means is large.

With a frame rate of 30 frames per second and 83 frames, when you do the math on how long Russell held the ball, it means he threw the ball 2.77 seconds after he got it. That’s important because I am constantly seeing fans state that one of the reasons Russ holds the ball is because the playcall is for a slow developing deep shot. Well, on this play Lockett caught the ball at the Kansas City 25 yard line, 41 yards beyond the line of scrimmage after Russ delivered the pass in 2.77 seconds. That’s all the longer he needs to hold the ball in order for Lockett to get down the field on a long pass because it took the ball more than three seconds to travel from Wilson to Lockett. In any case, it’s simply one piece of evidence that Wilson does not need to hold the ball a long time in order to make an attempt at an explosive play with a deep pass.

However, let’s not get too deep into the details, and let’s simply enjoy how fun this play was yet again.