The Seahawks fired Tom Cable this week. Cable had been the offensive line coach in Seattle since 2011. But after six seasons of a devolving Seattle line, Cable had to be fired. Here are two reasons why.
Tom Cable of the Seahawks has been a highly respective offensive line coach. In Seattle, he had more control over the drafting of players for the unit he coached than did any other position coach over their own. He was the run game coordinator. Basically, along with Darrell Bevell, Cable was the co-offensive coordinator.
Tom Cable is now expected to be the new offensive line coach with the Oakland/Las Vegas Raiders.
But when the Seahawks fired both Cable and Bevell this past Tuesday, it may have portended a scheme change in Seattle. Since Marshawn Lynch left two years ago, Seattle has become a pass-heavy offense, and this is away from what coach Pete Carroll ideally wants to do. In 2014, for instance, Seattle led the league in rushing at 172.6 yards per game. In 2017, Seattle averaged 101.8 a game, good for 23rd in the NFL. Of course, quarterback Russell Wilson accounted for 36.6 yards rushing a game by himself.
Also, in 2015, Seattle was third in the NFL with 31.2 rushing attempts per game. In 2017, Seattle averaged 25.6 attempts per game, 20th in the league.
Carroll saw a need for change and he made the needed moves offensively. My feeling is that this is why Carroll hired Brian Schottenheimer as offensive coordinator because he likes to run. And he will use a different blocking scheme than Cable used.
And that is one of the two big reasons Cable is no longer with the Seahawks.
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.
Reason 2: Cable had a big say in who Seattle drafted along the line and he failed to develop those players
Sure, the Seahawks failed to spend much money in 2016 on the offensive line. But they did spend more in draft capital over the last seven seasons than any other team. And at the end of the 2017 season, Seattle was starting all first-round and second-round linemen. (I realize Duane Brown and Luke Joeckel weren’t drafted by Seattle, but that doesn’t really help Cable’s argument.)
But Seattle did have all those draft picks on linemen. While it’s true that John Schneider and Pete Carroll are firmly in charge of who gets chosen at nearly every position group in Seattle, this is less so along the line. Cable was able to give more input than any other assistant coach on their respective units.
And it didn’t work out. The Seahawks didn’t give a second contract to any other lineman other than Justin Britt. And that wasn’t because Seattle didn’t really want to pay their own players; It was because very few of the 16 lineman chosen since 2010 were worth re-signing. Possibly Russell Okung, but he may have been better after he left Seattle than when he was with the team.
It seems awfully strange that hardly any players developed into solid pros under Cable. Even accidentally, one would think a couple of the linemen would be good. Even Britt only worked out after moving positions a couple of times. He was a guard to begin with. No one really expected him to become a good center, which he has.
Whether that is just Britt working hard or Cable’s coaching is up for debate. Because no one else in the last seven years has been as good as Britt has become.
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Moving forward Seattle might have an issue, though. Because of Cable’s devotion to the zone blocking scheme, all of Seattle’s linemen only really know how to play that way. Let’s hope whoever becomes the next offensive line coach in Seattle is a better teacher than Cable was because the Seahawks future success relies on it.