–As one of the major subplots of this matchup, the Seahawks will face a Cowboys secondary now coached by former Seattle defensive coordinator Kris Richard. Richard played for Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll at USC and served as an assistant coach under him with Seattle from 2010 to 2017.
When asked about Richard’s influence on Dallas’s defense, Carroll said: “I can see it in the corner play. The corners are playing really well. They’re on the line of scrimmage and they do a nice job. They made a nice move with (Byron Jones) and he’s made a nice, quick transition. He’s doing a good job for them.”
The Seahawks opted to move on from Richard in January as Carroll felt the young coach would benefit from working on a different staff and that making such a move could accelerate his rise to a head coaching position of his own. He interviewed with the Indianapolis Colts for their vacant head coaching position in January before being fired by the Seahawks.
–The Seahawks placed emphasis on improving their run game throughout the offseason, but Carroll admitted his impatience has prevented the team from truly committing to running the football in the first two close games. He mentioned following Monday’s defeat that he asked offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer to dial up some deep pass plays during the third quarter.
“I just got a little bit impatient and we threw the ball a little bit more than we needed to,” Carroll said. “So you look back and that’s with limited opportunities because we weren’t converting.”
After interjecting into the team’s offensive game plan, Seattle wound up going three-and-out on both of their possessions in the quarter, failing to move the football and entering the final 15 minutes with only 80 total yards of offense. Thanks to injuries and roster defections, the Seahawks don’t have the margin of error to be so frustratingly stagnant offensively, and the coaching staff needs to clean up communication heading into this week’s game against the Cowboys.
–When asked what he believed had changed the most for Dallas’s offense since the two teams met last December, Carroll emphasized how the Cowboys have incorporated designed runs for quarterback Dak Prescott into their scheme. In the team’s first two games, he rushed 12 times for 64 yards.
“The quarterback has already run a number of times, so that’s a little bit of a tweak in their offense,” Carroll stated. “He’s good at it, so it’s a new dimension to their team.”
Seattle had some trouble stopping Bears quarterback Mitchell Trubisky when he scrambled on Monday night, so it’s clear that Carroll has taken notice of Prescott’s running ability and how the Cowboys have purposely been mixing in running plays for him to use his athleticism. The Seahawks may deploy a spy in coverage to prevent him from doing damage as a runner, especially with linebacker Bobby Wagner likely to return to action.
BY THE NUMBERS: 28 — Percent of third downs the Seahawks have converted during the first two games of the season, good for 29th overall in the NFL. Only the Buffalo Bills, Cowboys and Arizona Cardinals have been more inefficient moving the chains.
