Seahawks had to let Tom Cable go for two big reasons

Reason 1: Tom Cable’s blocking scheme no longer worked

In 2015, the NFL made some significant changes to run blocking. One was chop blocking, which was completely outlawed for player safety reasons. Chop blocking is when one player blocks a defensive player from the thigh pads down and another offensive player is blocking that same defensive player high. You can imagine the potential for knee injuries.

Unfortunately, chop blocking was a tenant of the kind of zone blocking scheme that Cable uses. And Seattle drafted players to use for that scheme (more on that in just a bit). Cable may be the master of zone blocking, but it no longer works as well in the NFL.

I know what you are saying here. The Kansas City Chiefs led the NFL with a 4.7 yards per average and are essentially a zone blocking team. The difference with the Chiefs, though, is they mix in their zone blocking with man-on-man enough where teams can’t focus and predict. Andy Reid knows when to mix up schemes and is simply a far better offensive coach than Bevell or Cable.

Seattle finished fifth in use of zone blocking in 2017. The Atlanta Falcons were also in the top five. The Falcons, of course, have more talented running backs than does Seattle. But some other teams that finished in the top five were the San Francisco 49ers and Miami Dolphins. The 49ers finished 23rd in the NFL in rushing. The Dolphins were 29th.

The question really is whether Marshawn Lynch was simply good enough to make Cable’s line philosophy decent? No matter, more man-to-man blocking might be good in Seattle.