Seahawks vs Falcons: 5 takeaways from a close win

4. Kris Richard needs to adapt faster

The Seahawks came out with a brilliant game plan. They rarely blitz, but they brought pressure early and often in this game. Atlanta wasn’t prepared for it, and the Seahawks completely shut down the Falcons’ offense in the first half.

Then the Falcons adjusted. The brought in more TEs to help with pass protection. The used more play-action. Most importantly, they took advantage of Seattle’s tendencies to manipulate assignments so Sherman wasn’t covering Julio Jones.

Kris Richard was slow to adapt. The third quarter saw the Falcons able to move the ball at will, and they erased Seattle’s 17-3 lead in under 9 minutes.

This has been a frustrating trend for Richard as a defensive coordinator. He simply doesn’t adapt fast enough to adjustments made by opponents.

At some point in almost every game, the Seahawks defense struggles in the second half. Usually it happens in the 4th quarter. This is a trend that cannot continue.

Seattle’s defense finally made a couple of adjustments in the fourth quarter, but by that point the 17-3 lead had become a 17-24 deficit. Richard simply took too long to make the necessary adjustments.

Richard is still new to coaching overall. He moved up through the ranks to his current job with almost-unprecedented speed. He is clearly very smart, and there is hope that he will figure this out at some point.

For now though, this is frustrating to watch.