Matching up with the Seahawks
Everyone has seen the steady climb in success with Atlanta’s offense as they’re finding the balance between the run and the pass game as opposing defenses have recently had a hard time trying to defend the group. Another challenge is up ahead with a unit led by one of the top defensive minds in Mike MacDonald and the playmakers he has on that side of the ball. Let’s take a quick look at what Atlanta’s offense is up against this week.
A big stress this season for Atlanta has been converting on early downs. Right now, the team is second in the NFL in second-down conversion rate (41.9%) behind Baltimore, converting 52 times on 124 attempts. For Seattle, the unit has only allowed 32 conversions on 120 attempts, the ninth fewest allowed in the NFL for a 30% conversion rate.
Seattle has been very good in forcing three-and-out drives for its opponents this season. They’ve notched a 32.9% three-and-out drive rate, the highest percentage in the league, per STATS LLC. What’s interesting is that while Seattle leads the league in forcing three-and-outs, Atlanta’s offense is tied with San Francisco for the league fewest, with a three-and-out percentage landing at 10%.
Continued creativity in the run game will be one of the keys to Atlanta’s success on Sunday against a unit that has generated a 44.8% defensive rush success rate this season, the seventh highest in the NFL, according to Next Gen Stats. Seattle has played with light boxes on 36.2% of runs, the ninth-lowest rate in the NFL this season. They have seen 63 runs against a light box and surrendered 387 yards, 6.1 yards per carry and one touchdown. The Seahawks aren’t doing it a lot but when they do, teams have hit them.
According to Cody Alexander at MatchQuaters, Atlanta has seen Cover 3 at one of the highest rates in the league, at 41.5% of offensive plays, well above the league average of 35.9. This is likely to combat Atlanta’s run game to afford an extra defender in the box. It will be interesting to monitor that to see if Atlanta’s recent improvements in the passing game changes how teams defend the offense. Seattle runs a high percentage of middle-field closed defenses mixing Cover 1 and Cover 3 to account for 60.5% of their defensive snaps.
The Seahawks have allowed the second-most yards after contact per carry in the NFL this season at 3.91, despite generating contact behind the line of scrimmage on 43% of carries, according to…
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