Seahawks ran power instead of zone? think again

Despite some belief that the Seattle Seahawks went away from their zone blocking scheme against the Lions, they simply didn’t do so.

One of the interesting story lines to come out of Saturday’s playoff win over the Lions was Seattle’s apparent shift from zone blocking to man blocking. If you read certain beat reporters, you’d be led to believe that the Seahawks completely changed their entire offensive scheme.

It turns out that it simply didn’t happen. Even if it weren’t practically impossible to make such a change and scrap months of work, the Seahawks simply didn’t do so.

If you’re trying to sell that narrative, it loses traction on Seattle’s very first run play. The Seahawks ran inside zone to the left for the three yard gain.

Seattle’s best runs throughout the game were textbook examples of zone blocking in action. Rawls’ 14 yard run on the Seahawks’ second drive is teaching tape on how to execute an inside zone running play.

Some of the confusion likely comes from this next play. The Seahawks pulled Gary Gilliam to the inside, setting up a situation with two lead blockers. That is the defining characteristic of power concepts.

The problem with calling that play Power is that it ignores everything else going on. The rest of Seattle’s linemen are clearly blocking inside zone. There was no way Gilliam was going to be able to successfully complete a reach block there, so he and Ifedi simply switched responsibilities.

It is easy to see how this would be confusing to someone who isn’t well versed in zone blocking. Some might label this play as a Power run. I’d call it inside zone with a wrinkle.

That wasn’t the only wrinkle the Seahawks rolled out last week. On another play they motioned Luke Wilson into the backfield as an H-back. He then proceeded to be the lead blocker like a FB. It’s a fun little adjustment, but the play is still inside zone.

After charting every running play from Saturday’s win, I can definitively say that the Seahawks didn’t alter their scheme. They ran classic zone concepts on 29 of 33 running plays. Of those 4 remaining plays, one was the play above where Gilliam pulled.

So lets call it approximately 3.3 out of 33 run plays that weren’t zone. 10% man/power is what we see from Seattle’s run game almost every week.

Next: CJ Prosise expected back against Falcons

I hate to break it to those who want to push the narrative that Seattle changed their blocking scheme for the playoffs, but they didn’t. The lineman simply played better. That might not be as interesting, but it is exactly what happened.