Grading the 2020 Seattle Seahawks up and down season

Coaching

I know, everyone is ready to jump ship because the Seahawks haven’t made a Super Bowl run since 2014. But, let’s give Coach Carroll the benefit of the doubt. In this irregular 2020 season, the Seahawks were the only team to finish the season with 0 positive COVID cases. That is a direct result of the leadership and discipline that Coach Carroll has instilled into this team. Now, the Wild Card loss was ugly and I agree with most in that the Seahawks got outplayed and outcoached.

But, this was only the second time the Seahawks were a “one-and-done” in the playoffs under Pete Carroll. It was also their first home playoff loss under Pete Carroll. There are certain organizations that dream of making the playoffs. Pete Carroll has been a pillar of consistency in the NFL and has led this Seattle team to multiple playoff appearances.

While the loss hurts now, when you reflect upon this season, you can see that Coach Carroll did a fantastic job of filling in the holes for this team. He fixed the defense halfway through the season which is a near-impossible task. While he failed to adapt to the defensive schemes against his offense, he will take that into the offseason and build upon it.

In the first half of the season, everyone was quick to praise Schotty for finally allowing Russ to cook. In the first half of the season, the offense was extremely efficient. Two key things contributed to that. The Seahawks were completing a high percentage of explosive plays down the field and the running backs were involved in the aerial attack. Something Coach Carroll touched upon in his final presser was the lack of adaptability the Seahawks displayed in the second half.

Now, some of that falls on Russell Wilson for decision making. There were plays where he could have checked it down rather than holding onto it and taking a sack. But, what makes Wilson so great is his playmaking ability. Another part of that is the play calling itself. If Schotty were to call a play where Wilson had to get the ball out quickly, who knows what would have happened in that Wild Card game.

Secondly, later in the season, Seattle was scheming to keep the game close. In the games against Washington and San Francisco, they schemed it differently and that led to different play calling for the offense. But, against the Rams in the Wild Card round where they faced them for the third time, the Seahawks failed to adjust. But, I am confident they will fix that next season since Schottenheimer has now been fired.

It didn’t appear as if Ken Norton Jr. was going to make it through the season as the Seahawks defensive coordinator. With the defense putting up historically bad numbers, many thought Norton would be fired. In fact, with former defensive coordinator, Dan Quinn, on the market, most were advocating for the firing of Norton and re-hiring of Quinn. But, the Seahawks didn’t do that and I am sure they do not regret that decision. Remember, the NFL regular season is a marathon, not a race. Ken Norton Jr. did an excellent job of putting his guys in a successful position.

One great example of this would be Jamal Adams. Using Adams as a blitzer as well as a spy against certain teams worked tremendously. The more aggressive play-calling as the season went on led to more sacks, which led to some fumbles in crucial moments of the game. If Norton were to get fired after Week 7, I would have not complained. But, the Seahawks gave him a chance to fix things and he just did that. It is an extremely difficult challenge to fix a defense in the middle of the season.

The turnaround of this defense was one of the more impressive storylines in the league and earned Norton another year at the defensive coordinator position for the Seahawks. The one element Seattle must work on heading into next season is to have this defensive line be aggressive from the start. But, Kenny deserves a lot of credit for the job he did in the 2020 season.

Ken Norton, Jr., will likely be back but Schottenheimer, somewhat surprisingly, has already been fired.

All stats provided by ESPN.com and pro-football-reference.com.