The Wild Card Playoff loss to the Dallas Cowboys ended the Seattle Seahawks’ season. It was a year filled with ups and downs and twists and turns, so it is easy to lose sight of the big picture based on what happened recently. I am going to look at a few numbers that I think describe the Seahawks’ year and maybe are surprising too. Let’s see what’s going on.
Special Teams
81.5% and 94.1%
Those are Sebastian Janikowski’s kicking numbers, field goals on the left and extra points on the right. Janikowski was the 23rd most accurate field-goal kicker in the NFL in 2018. He only missed five kicks all year, but they were big.
Side note: He was actually more accurate than the kickers that faced Seattle, who hit 78 percent of their field goals. He hit 94 percent of his XPs, but that was only good for 24th best in the league.
48.2
Michael Dickson has a cannon for a leg. He averaged more than 48 yards per punt for the entire year.
Dickson also managed to get 28 punts downed inside the 20-yard line, while only having five slip through for touchbacks.
1
Seattle allowed one return touchdown this year. The team had a pretty solid coverage unit that played well all year.
Offense
1,069
Russell Wilson played 1,069 snaps this year for Seattle’s offense—100 percent of the offensive plays.
Wilson never came off the field in 2018, not even for a play. Wilson is the centerpiece of the offense, and this is a testament to his durability and the change to a run-first offense. The next four players with the most snaps are offensive linemen.
4.9
Seattle’s top three running backs averaged at least 4.9 yards per touch. Chris Carson, Mike Davis and Rashaad Penny touched the ball 507 times during the season for 2,536 receiving and rushing yards. These guys made plays whenever they had the ball.
The playoff game against the Cowboys was an anomaly and the Seahawks should not expect to be shut down much in 2019.
428
The Seahawks scored 428 points in 2018. That is good for the second most points ever scored by the Seahawks in a single season.
This offense might have centered around the run, but it still scores points. This might put a rest to the notion that this was a somewhat slow and plodding team this year. I will admit, 35 of Seattle’s 50 touchdowns were through the air, but many came off of play action, which stems from an effective run game.
Defense
26
Bobby Wagner and the defense forced 26 turnovers en route to their 10-6 season. These consisted of 12 interceptions and 14 fumble recoveries. Seattle ranked firstt in the NFL in fumble recoveries and 18th in interceptions, showing a knack for knocking the football out of the opponent’s hands. Eleven different defensive players recorded a fumble recovery this year.
The leader in forced turnovers for the Seahawks is Bradley McDougald; he picked off three passes, forced three turnovers and recovered on fumble.
9
Seattle’s defense only allowed nine rushing touchdowns through 16 games. This was a group that was widely considered the weak spot in the defense for much of the year. They might have given up yards, but they stiffened up close to the end zone. The defensive line would do a good job getting penetration and taking up blocks near the goal line, letting the linebackers roam free and make plays.
This shows a lot of promise for the next year, because the defense is filled with young, hungry players.
112
The Seahawks pulled down quarterbacks and running backs behind the line of scrimmage 112 times. Frank Clark and Jarran Reed led the team with 45.5 of those. Almost half of Seattle’s tackles for loss and sacks came from these playmakers right here. Reed had two more TFLs and Clark had 2.5 more sacks than the other did, which makes sense because Reed is a tackle and Clark is an end. They were Seattle’s pass rush for most of the year and the Seahawks should pay Clark, because he is worth it.
