Seahawks beat Browns: Pro Football Focus Signature Stats

As we do every week, here are a few notes and tidbits on the Seahawks' win over the Browns from Pro Football Focus' Jim Seki. His notes in italics, and my comments follow.

Offense

-- Wilson continues his torrid pace -- since Week 11, his 9.6 YPA (yards per attempt) is best in the league as is an astounding 143.6 QB Rating.

No surprise here. Wilson is playing historic football.

-- Christine Michael averaged 2.4 yards after contact per rush attempt.

This is solid. The eye test for me said that Michael looked very explosive and powerful out there and it's good to see the numbers back that up. He was not only running through arm tackles and evading defenders in the backfield, but he was pushing the pile and grinding it out with his feet once he got wrapped up. Trying not to get too excited about Michael's return here but he has looked strong so far.

-- The Seahawks ran between the tackles on 21 of 36 rush attempts, the most being eight times right of center.

This could be a gameplan thing, or this could be a personnel thing. I think Bryce Brown and Derrick Coleman are both "between the tackles" types so there might be a swing to doing this a little more often this season. Will be worth monitoring.

Defense

-- Michael Bennett with another solid game and in the past three weeks, he's graded out as the second-best 4-3 DE (behind Miami's Olivier Vernon). He's had four QB hurries in each of the past four games and on the season, has multiple hurries in EVERY game. He's registered a QB hit in each game since Week 10.

It's almost like we're so conditioned to seeing Michael Bennett wreck shop in the backfield that it doesn't even register that he's playing so well. Bennett continues to be an elite defensive lineman and it's cool to see the numbers on that.

-- On the flip side, Cliff Avril had not only his worst graded game as a Seahawk, but also of his career, finishing with a -4.9. While he did have two QB hurries, he led all 4-3 DEs in penalty grading (and not in a good way). Further more, Frank Clark ranked second in penalty grading, so the Seahawks went 1-2.

Those penalties were certainly frustrating. Alex Mack had a nice game in getting the Seahawks to jump, but it's obviously been a season-long issue that hopefully won't be too big of a deal down the stretch.

-- Things were jumbled in the secondary with Kam Chancellor out and DeShawn Shead leaving early. Marcus Burley ended up leading the team with 21 snaps at slot CB, Jeremy Lane three, and Bobby Wagner, K.J. Wright, and Kelcie McCray mixed in as well.

It will definitely be interesting to see how the Seahawks use their personnel this week. Shead should be back, and Kam might make it back as well. Sounds like there is still a competition between Shead and Lane for that outside cornerback spot as well.

Signature Stats

-- Wilson's %YIA (percentage of yards in air) has jumped from 46.1% last year to 56.4%. Obviously this correlates strongly to YPA, but it shows that it's not only the WRs gaining yardage after the catch, but also Wilson displaying more verticality.

Wilson is pushing the ball downfield with the likes of Carson Palmer and Ben Roethlisberger. Importantly, he's doing it from the pocket.

-- Tyler Lockett and Doug Baldwin remain 1-2 in terms of WR rating at 145.2 and 141.6, respectively. Jermaine Kearse ranks 9th at 118.0. It goes without saying no other team in the league has three receivers in the top ten, and €”for context, the Cardinals would be closest with three in the top 22.

Efficiency is the name of the game.

-- Weekly O-line update: the big guys rank seventh this week in PBE (pass blocking efficiency) at 85.0. While they did drop from the best PBE team from last week, hosting a bad non-conference opponent with two bigger games on deck, there's zero reason to hit the panic button. Since the bye week, the Hawks rank 8th with a 79.7 PBE.

This obviously has been a huge boon for Russell Wilson and the Seahawks offense. A major factor for their success.