Seahawks defense once again struggles in base personnel

With just six weeks remaining in the 2022 NFL regular season, the Seattle Seahawk find themselves on the outside looking in when it comes to playoff seeding in the NFC. The Hawks have plenty of time and a favorable schedule to alter that, but following consecutive losses to teams that ran the ball almost at will, things are certainly nowhere near as bright as they were just a few weeks ago.

Turning to those players who were on the field for the Hawks in the 40-34 loss to the Las Vegas Raiders on Sunday, on offense the Hawks used tight ends less and wide receivers more than they had in recent games. Prior to the bye the team had slightly reduced the snaps that both DK Metcalf and Tyler Lockett were playing as they nursed injuries, and Sunday against Las Vegas both returned to playing roughly 90% of offensive snaps.

However, what is more interesting is what took place on the defensive side of the ball, where the Hawks were unable to do much of anything to slow down Josh Jacobs and Derek Carr. Specifically, it is once again a situation where Seattle lost in the trenches while playing a significant amount of base personnel. In particular, the group averaged just 4.81 defensive backs on the field per play, with Cody Barton outsnapping Coby Bryant 56 to 53.

For those curious, the team again continued the trend of losing when Barton plays more than 50 snaps, dropping to 1-5 on the season when he is on the field for 56 or more snaps, while maintaining a perfect 5-0 record when he plays 46 or fewer snaps. Also of note on the defensive side of the ball is that in his first game action since returning from a knee injury suffered against the Arizona Cardinals last season, second year cornerback Tre Brown played three snaps in place of Mike Jackson, and logged a single special teams snap.

And for those who felt the inability to stop the run game of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers was the lack of Bryan Mone, he and Al Woods combined to play 56 snaps, but that didn’t seem to slow Josh Jacobs much, if at all.

Sticking with the special teams theme, the leaders among snaps for that group were, as usual, Nick Bellore, Cody Barton, Josh Jones, Tanner Muse, Travis Homer, DeeJay Dallas and Dareke Young, all of whom were on the field for more than 20 special teams snaps.

Now it’s on to face the last place Los Angeles Rams in Week 13.