10 biggest surprise NFL teams thus far on the season
By Andrew Garda
Seattle Seahawks: 0-2
We normally talk about a Super Bowl Hangover for teams who made the championship game and it usually involves a rough overall season. The Seattle Seahawks made the Super Bowl in back-to-back years, so most of us thought they had missed that hangover, but it turns out it was just delayed.
Two losses to start the season is one heck of a surprising hangover too.
The upside is that this weekend they meet the woeful Chicago Bears, or the football equivalent of Russell Wilson’s Reliant Recovery Water’s nanobubbles.
They’re still in a precarious position though and the single biggest culprit is the offensive line.
The line has been an issue for years, but trading center Max Unger for tight end Jimmy Graham might have been the straw that broke the camel’s back into several pieces. Unger was the best player on that line, so removing him has been a real problem.
Graham has been uneven, because he’s being targeted that way but also because they want him to block. My biggest concern with Graham ending up in Seattle was the way solid tight ends just disappear in that offense. We assumed (and I hoped) that given Graham’s talent, he would be the exception to the rule. So far that hasn’t been the case.
Back to the offensive line. Without Unger, the line has no strength up the middle and that’s killing the offense, especially Marshawn Lynch.
Bart Hubbuch of The New York Post tweeted out a staggering number regarding Lynch, by the way. According to Hubbuch, Lynch “leads the NFL with 9 ‘stuffed’ plays for lost yardage, per Stats Inc.”
That’s a huge flip from last season, when he routinely had the most yards after contact of any back in the NFL. The difference is the offensive line, which has allowed him to be hit at or behind the line of scrimmage on every down.
How do you fix this? Well no miracle is walking through the doors of the team facility to fix the offensive line, but they could run more plays with blocking tight ends or get a good fullback. That or stretch the field more with throws from Russell Wilson.
Luckily this is a very good team and if anyone can find a workaround, it’s the Seahawks.
Next: New Orleans Saints: 0-2