3 observations about Seahawks receiver DK Metcalf in Week 10

Observation 3: The Seahawks need DK to have a breakout game

I am going to get back into something I was saying in the opening slide of this article. That is, Seattle needs Metcalf to have a breakout game and not just with yards but also multiple touchdowns. The offensive design works well but it needs all facets of the scheme to be working at the same time. Seattle proved it can’t just try to force the run against the Buccaneers. But if a team isn’t afraid that Geno Smith will take some chances on throwing deep to Metcalf, in particular, then a defense is going to play guys closer to the line.

Metcalf is big enough and fast enough to be able to create space between he and a receiver. Tyler Lockett seems to do this quite a bit and while Lockett is quick, he isn’t big and strong like Metcalf. Of course, Metcalf also doesn’t have Lockett’s hands and tends to drop a few more passes a year than Lockett. Maybe Metcalf would do more with his targets if he caught more of them. For instance, Lockett has caught 76.1 percent of his targets this season while Metcalf is at 62.3 percent.

But while the Seahawks don’t need to be airing it out to Metcalf six times a game, doing it a few times a game with success should be part of the offensive design. Metcalf has the one game of over 100 yards receiving this team when he had 149 versus the Lions. But the Lions defense was so awful then that Lockett also almost had 100 yards receiving (he had 91) and running back Rashaad Penny ran for 151 yards. Metcalf has five (!) games this year with fewer than 40 yards receiving and that simply needs to change.

A good running game should help a team throw deep passes more as teams would have more one-on-one coverage on the backend of the secondary. But a team throwing the ball successfully deep also helps the run game. Metcalf needs to be more available to help Geno Smith throw deep and that is only going to help the offense overall.