3 keys for success for Seahawks versus Russell Wilson and the Broncos

After a tumultuous offseason for the Seahawks, the season finally gets underway on Monday. Here are three ways Seattle can beat Russell Wilson and the Broncos.

Week 1 is here! Real Seahawks football in 2022, finally. The weird thing is the team is starting against former quarterback Russell Wilson.

How 12s react to Wilson running on the field will be fun to watch. Plus, even if you aren’t at the game you could tweet your reaction to seeing Wilson is another team’s jersey. Being a fan is a communal thing, of course.

But how can the Seahawks beat the Broncos and possibly kick off a surprisingly successful 2022 season? Here are three ways.

The Seahawks need to do these three things to beat Russell Wilson and the Broncos

Get constant pressure on Russell Wilson

The same thing I am writing here could be repeated every week, of course, but in Week 1 getting pressure early on Wilson and continuing that throughout the entire game is very important for several reasons.

The first reason is the most obvious. Seattle’s interior rush defense along the defensive line should be good enough to stop most teams from simply picking up chunk yards on the ground and keeping control of the clock. The issue last year with teams staying on the field against the Seahawks was giving up first downs on third downs when opposing quarterbacks simply had to toss the ball in the middle of the field for an easy conversion. The run defense was good.

So, this should mean that Wilson throws the ball more and heck, he probably wants to prove how good he is doing so in Week1 anyway. So if Seattle can get early pressure, Wilson could be forced into an early turnover and Seattle needs to prove to itself early that it can win the game.

The second is that while there is quite a bit of potential with the Seahawks pass rush, there are also so many young guys for Seattle that maybe they aren’t even sure what they are capable of. If Seattle can build its confidence by getting early hits on Wilson, they will learn to trust themselves and create havoc throughout the entire game.

12s know that Wilson holds on to the ball too long many times so if the game is close in the fourth quarter and he has taken a bit of a beating, he could force a pass that ends up in the hands of a Seattle player and Seattle could seal the victory.

Seahawks should give the ball to Rashaad Penny…a lot

The Seahawks might actually have a very favorable matchup in Week 1 as Seattle’s offensive line, though starting two rookies, is potentially very good. Plus, the Broncos pass rush wasn’t very good last season and neither was their run defense. Oh sure, Denver ranked 18th in sacks last year and 13th in yards allowed per carry, but those raw numbers don’t tell the whole story.

Also, it should be noted that Denver didn’t really make its defensive line any better this offseason. Bradley Chubb had zero sacks last year and veteran Randy Gregory seems to get hurt a lot and is currently trying to come back from shoulder surgery.

Last year, the Seahawks offense (yes, this was even with Russell Wilson playing in 14 of 17 games) struggled to stay on the field. This helped lead to the defense being on the field far too much which caused the defense to tire by the second half many times. In 2022, Seattle might score fewer points but they also need to increase their time of possession by at least 4 minutes.

This means running the ball more because Seattle has an excellent running back group. This is led by Rashaad Penny who showed that the more he gets the ball during a game, the better he gets. Penny led the league in yards per carry in 2021. But it was in the second halves of games where he made a tired defense pay. For instance, when Penny ran for 190 yards against the Cardinals in Week 18 last year, many of them were in the second half.

Seattle needs to give the ball to Penny often and stick with it no matter how the game seems to be going. This will help Seattle’s defense and Geno Smith and could easily help Seattle earn a win in Week 1.

Seahawks need to use its tight ends more than in 2021

For whatever reason – maybe he would rather hit the deep pass than try to simply continue drives – Russell Wilson appears to have missed open tight end over the middle of the field a lot the last two years. It wasn’t that the Seahawks lacked talent at the position. Will Dissly was a good receiver, though oft-injured, in his first two seasons but underused in the past two.

Gerald Everett was a Seahawk for one year (2021) and was brought in because he could catch and run but he was only targeted one more time last season (63 times) than he was in 2020 when he was with the Rams. With Los Angeles, Everett was basically the second option at tight end and with Seattle he was first. Still, Russell Wilson didn’t throw to him enough (also, Everett caught 76.2 percent of his targets in 2021 so it wasn’t like he was dropping every pass).

Now with Geno Smith at quarterback, the Seattle offense might look a lot more like offensive coordinator Shane Waldron wants and less like what Russell Wilson wanted. This might be good or it might be without Wilson’s talent the offense stumbles.

Either way, Smith should help the tight ends be more productive and that should help extend drives. And we shouldn’t rule out new Seahawk Noah Fant being extra-motivated for the game. He was part of the deal that sent Wilson to the Broncos this offseason. If Wilson wants to show 12s what they will be missing in the future, Fant might want to show Denver what they gave up.