Waldron-22: Walker building chemistry with Dissly and Parkinson

Kenneth Walker III has been a revelation for the Seattle Seahawks offense; according to Pro Football Focus, he ranks 16th among all running backs — and third among rookies — in total yards on the ground with 411, and his 6.1 ypc is good enough for 4th among running backs with at least 25 carries on the season. Interestingly enough, he is tied with teammate Rashaad Penny, who also averaged 6.1 YPC before he got injured. But even the mighty rookie gets by with a little help from his teammates; this week, we are going to be taking a look at one of the lesser-highlighted plays from last Sunday. This particular play happened in the first quarter; it ended up only being a 7-yard pickup for Walker, but the blocking is what really stood out to me. Let’s take a look.

As you can see above, Parkinson is motioning across the formation when the ball is snapped. This toss play looks like an extension of the wide zone running concepts that are a staple of Waldron’s offense, and the Seahawks line does a great job of moving the entire Los Angeles Chargers front off the ball; Phil Haynes in particular does a great job to reach and seal Austin Johnson off from the play. Walker ends up finding a huge running lane between Damien Lewis and Austin Blythe, and he nearly picks up a first down.

But the real star of the show here is Colby Parkinson — he looks like he has was fired out of a cannon at the snap. Will Dissly makes initial contact with linebacker Chris Rumph II and already has him on his heels, but then Colby arrives and puts the finishing “touch” on the block. His herculean handcheck sends Rumph flying and takes away any chance of him containing this play. But Parkinson isn’t done yet — without even losing a step, he gets to the second level and drives corner Asante Samuel jr. a good ten yards out of the play. Sure, Samuel may have never really had a chance here anyway, but the effort and performance is still worthy of watching a few times.

Oh yeah, and don’t forget about Dissly... he turns into the playground bully as he emphatically reprimands Rumph for trying to get back up before the whistle. I could watch the end of this clip on repeat for days and I would still be laughing maniacally like C. Montgomery Burns.

Getting back to the matter at hand, Shane Waldron and Andy Dickerson seem to be coaching some great blocking performances out of this team; after years of feeling like the offense had to succeed in spite of mediocre-to-poor performances from their blockers, Dickerson has been phenomenal in his first year as head of the line. This energy and attitude is a welcome addition to a position group that is looking like a formidable unit heading into mid-season. This is especially impressive when you consider the fact that both tackles are rookies, their starting right guard is injured, and their center wasn’t even on the team last season.

We knew that Will Dissly was a capable and willing blocker, but seeing Colby Parkinson putting that kind of effort into a run like this is awesome; as I have noticed repeatedly, this team loves to trot out multiple-TE formations frequently, and they have had some great success in the running game, in no small part to the performances of these guys. This will likely come up again on Sunday, as the New York Giants have been vulnerable against the run this season. I am hopeful that we will see Parkinson and Dissly plant a few Giants on the ground and pave the way for some big lanes for Walker.