The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - Seahawks spoil Russell Wilson's Broncos debut with 17-16 upset victory

Episode Date: September 13, 2022

Score one for Pete Carroll, huh? The Broncos went into Seattle as touchdown-favorites against the Seahawks, and left with an 0-1 record on the season. Mike Sando joins Robert Mays to recap and break down the Seahawks upset victory on this episode of The Athletic Football Show. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the Athletic Football Show. Welcome. The Athletic Football Show. I'm Robert Mays. Join to me tonight, the Athletic Zone, Mike Sando. Mike, how you doing? I'm doing well, thank you. What a night.

What a game. Turns out coaching in the NFL. It's a pretty difficult job. Not very easy. Hard to do it your first time around. It is. And the clock's running and all that. Everyone sitting at home thinks it's simple.

But there's a lot of better considerations. It's funny at the end of the game, you know. Like people don't know things. like Brandon McManus is kind of known for lobbying to do the kick harder than other kickers do, or things like that, right? All the dynamics. What's all the things going in to that end of that game that we don't know about be pretty fascinating? It's one of those things. We're going to talk about everything that unfolded on the Monday night game tonight, and we're going to start, obviously, with the late game decision making and everything that happened there in the final couple minutes.

I think a lot of these guys who come into this job as play calling offensive head coaches, we've seen especially early in their. careers that some of the decision making, some of the game management stuff can be hard to get your arms around when you're trying to figure out what the next play call is. So Nathaniel Hackett's sitting there. It's fourth and five. In his mind, it's like, all right, what are we going to call on fourth and five? 40 seconds ticks off from the time that Giovante Williams gets tackled on that fourth and five to the time they ultimately call a time out with 20 seconds left.

And then instead of trotting out the guy that you traded an entire couple years worth of drafts for and gave a $240 million contract to, you bring out your kicker after wasting those 40 seconds to kick the 64-yard field goal in order to try to salvage the game. I think there's some criticism that is a little bit warranted. I thought I had the yard line wrong. I was like, these guys were operating as if they had a 38-yarder lined up, and it was going to be fourth and 12.

So let's just take the 38-yarder and get out of town. I mean, I was like, what are they doing? You're playing for a 64-yard field goal with Russell Wilson, who left Seattle because supposedly the coach didn't let him cook enough. And all he's doing all game for the most part, they had a couple downfield. There's a lot of dump-offs behind a line of scrimmage. It's third and eight.

What do we do? Let's sort of yard pest line of scrimpid and hope the back breaks a tackle. You know, it was just like unbelievable to me. I want to dig into that. I want to dig a little bit further into just some of the issues that the Broncos had operating on offense today. The decision-making at the end was not their only issue. Play clock consistently.

ticking down all the way through the game. They took two delay of game penalties inside the Seahawks 40 at one point in the third quarter on the same drive. One of them was on a second and six, second on goal from the six yard line, brought it back to second and goal from the 11 yard line. That was before I think their second fumble inside the five. They had a false start inside the three on another drive that ended in a field goal in this game. Just so many mistakes in the operation of the offense and things looking clean and not putting yourself in bad spots. So the end of the game was definitely the most egregious, but this was a consistent problem for them throughout. And it was. And I think, you know, as you look at the rest of that division,

you can sure tell that Mahomes and Reed have been together for a bunch of years and they come out and just hit it running, right? And then you can tell, obviously, Herbert now's been with those guys in the Chargers for a while. And they come out and hit it a little bit. This was really disappointing from a Denver standpoint, but you just sort of have to tell yourself probably, hey, first-time head coach. Russell Wilson, let's face it, it was a tough spot. I mean, the schedule makers give them this game. That's facing that down right away in a tough environment against a team that knows you so well. First time in the new offense. By the way, Seacks are running a different defense. I mean, there was a lot of things other than the game that these guys were thinking about. And then you don't really play in the preseason.

They weren't a team that did that. And I think, you know, you just have to, hope over the course of time that that stuff sort of works itself out and this was just a tough night out and they'll get better. Were you surprised at the reception that he got? Were you not surprised at all that the booze rained down as soon as he came out of the field? Oh, I wasn't surprised at all. And I think some of that, I don't think it's like a personal hatred of Russell Wilson. That's just the way it is.

This isn't, you know, this isn't retirement and you're coming back five years later and we're having a halftime thing, you know, shoot. In the NBA, you know, the Celtics honored Dr. Jay in his last trip to Boston Guard and gave a piece of the parquet floor after 15 years playing. That's not what we're doing. This is, they're playing a game and it's fresh. I mean, and the bottom line, too, is the Seahawks have not played nice with him. The minute he was traded before he could go to his press conference, they put out from the head coach, the GM and the owner that he wanted out. Yeah, exactly.

I don't think that's how Russell Wilson wanted to play. that he wanted out. Because even though he didn't demand to trade, those few teams that, I don't know, if I were to get traded, these were the places I would want to go. I think he's tried to massage this as much as possible. But I can understand them wanting to make it clear that he wanted to get out of here. We were not kicking him out the door. And they feel like, hey, look, they've been, they've protected him enough from all the stuff over the years where he wanted this or that. And the minute it was over, they were so tired of it, they basically, I mean, even to this last week,

Pete Kerr wasn't going to say what he could have said. He could have said, hey, I hope there's a warm reception and we just beat their butts, you know, or whatever. I hope he has a great season, but not this week. No, he played mind games with him because, you know, I think Russell Wilson wanted to have a nice reception. I think it matters to him. I think he cares about it, but didn't surprise me at all. I would have been shocked if there was a big thing. And remember, the CX, in telling people that he wanted out, I think that the fans can read between the lines here.

They knew that he didn't want to be in Seattle anymore. He thought Seattle was holding him back. What did Pete say this week when asked about the crowd? I think he said he wanted it to be a loud crowd. It wasn't up to him how they responded. Yeah, yeah. You know, I'll defer to the 12s on this one. I'm sure they'll make the right decision wink, wink, wink, you know.

And I was funny because a lot of the reporters in Denver were like, oh, come on. What are they going to do to honor him? And it's so funny in these fan things, like, like the people. people who've been around Seattle this whole time are at a much different place in the synthesis of all of this. And the people in Denver are like going, hey, what's this? Why is it so prickly? Russell Wilson, he's great. Don't you see him? I mean, he's a great guy. Seattle's kind of tired of it. Seattle's tired of it. And I think that showed in the Seahawks handling of it, as I wrote in my column today. Since Russell Wilson left, all these guys that were there before have come back. Michael

Bennett, Mike Robinson, Richard Sherman, Doug Baldwin. They're all hanging out with the team. I thought that was an interesting psychological component. They were all saying nice things. But everyone knows in Seattle, those were the guys who were whispering about how Russ was getting too much credit over the years. That's why all those stories were coming out from Seth Wickersham and Greg Bishop and all those guys who write those big long-form stories. That was the history that all the Seattle people knew. And so they were at a different spot than Denver where it's like, hey, this is great. He's here, a great guy. It's fresh.

It's not fresh in Seattle, and that showed in the fan reaction. You alluded to this a little bit. I want to talk about what the Broncos offense looked like, because that was such a mystery coming into this game. What would the structure of the Broncos offense be with this Russell Wilson, Nathaniel Hackett, marriage? And it's not necessarily what I expected it to look like. Looking at some of the numbers, like you said, a couple throws down the field, he was five

of 11 on throws of 10 plus air yards in this game. The big plays that they got, a couple past interference. calls. Tariq Wollin's a rookie corner. He is a very big rookie corner. He's very athletic, but I think they really tested him. And some of the decision making, the one he got where he had to respond to KJ Hamler, I think it was cover three and they pulled the number one receiver out.

So he had to retreat back and kind of respond. And then down the field with Corwin Sutton, he kind of just, you know, one of those things we flail a little bit. That's going to happen. He's a late round rookie corner playing in his first game. That stuff happens. And then the Jerry Judy play. out of the slot, ball was a little bit underthrown, and it happened to turn into a 67-yard touchdown.

It was really funny watching that play. Nate and I had such an extended conversation when we talked about our quarterbacks and new places show about the differences between the way that the Packers pushed the ball down the field out of empty and the way that the Seahawks pushed the ball down the field out of empty last year. Russell was one of the worst quarterbacks in the league out of empty formations last season because pretty much everything they did was deep down the field outside the numbers low percentage throws. That slot fade to Judy saw a million of those in man-covered situations with the Packers of Devante Adams last year. So that was a fun little moment. But outside of that, there was not a lot of down-the-field passing from the Seahawks. I thought this

number was so interesting. In this game, excuse me, for Denver. It's hard for Russell Wilson. This is going to be tough for me. So Russ in this game, 38.4% of his passes traveled at least five plus yards. That was 29th among the 32 quarterbacks this weekend. He was 60% over the last five years, which was eighth among 47 qualified quarterbacks. A lot of throws behind a lot of scrimmage, 12 targets for Javante Williams, which is kind of a weird offense. And I don't know where it goes from here, but this isn't necessarily what I expected. No, they're coming out in the I formation. They're doing very basic West Coast concepts, you know, the quick game, double flat type stuff, you know, the boot.

They're throwing the tight ends. It was very conservative early. It wasn't like they came out and said, hey, Russ, let's show these guys what they've been missing. Because it was almost as if, here's what, this is one of the things that I was kind of being told or hearing with. I talked to people around the league about how this could go. And so Russell Wilson was always kind of, or feeding that narrative. And Pete, his supporters were that Pete was.

holding them back. But they didn't, Seattle didn't run the Shane Waldron offense till the night. They ran the Russell Wilson offense. And it looked an awful lot like the... I know that that's been a common refrain. What do you mean when you say that? Russell Wilson has a specific style of playing that is sort of unique to him. And I think that was more prominent when he was in Seattle and it looked a little bit like that at times tonight where he's you know, he's really at his best when he's going to get out of the pocket and try to throw the ball down the field, try to make something happen. He doesn't usually take a lot of those underneath things. Now he did a better job taking some of those today, but I thought it

was instantly obvious watching, watching Geno Smith, that he was taking the short stuff over the middle of the field, taken to what the defense was giving him. That was never Russ Russell Wilson's MO. He was always looking for the big play. And so he did do, the remedy for that for the Broncos today was a bunch of just dump-offs and screens. But it wasn't by any means like, hey, look, we're going to roll out a high-powered offense here and throw the ball down the field. It didn't seem like that way to me at all. And when he did, shoot, he was overthrown or the tight end made a great catch diving on one. It wasn't like it was the precision passing that you saw either.

Every throw down the left sideline was kind of a mixed bag. He had the pass interference and then he had the one shot to Judy that, again, was a little bit underthrown. He had the throw that Dig should have intercepted that was supposed to be a shot on the left sideline that he totally misplaced inside. So when they did let him kind of open it up, it didn't look very good. I mean, their offense was kind of predicated on easy completions and playing with instructor in a way that he probably doesn't love.

I think he's just an amazing. has been just an amazing big play player and can really make incredible throws, and he's going to make a handful of them per game. But what we haven't seen in Seattle recently when he was there was just consistently moving the chains. And it got to be a frustration point for the staff. There was one game last year when they lost Tennessee in overtime after being way ahead. And Pete Carroll came out and said after the game, we've got to take that checkdown or whatever it was. We've got to take that short pass over the middle. It was there.

They just needed a few yards. And he wasn't as willing to do that. So, look, it's one game. It's early, but they scored 16 points. And look, no doubt fumbling down there, that was a big part of it. Fumbling twice. Fumbling twice. But Seattle had to turn it over on downs down there.

They had plenty of chances. They got their hands on two or three balls. They probably should have two picks in the game. And they didn't either. So they missed them too. But I just didn't see the wow, this is the new offense and look at Russell Wilson, make it go. And I didn't see signs of necessarily trying to do that. It looked to me like the running back was the best player on the team, and they were just going to try to get it to him, either handing off or dumping it.

Yeah, I mean, they had the one huge completion of Judy. They had the one-per-play action throwed back on that first drive. They had to make the one-handed catch on. Other than that, one chunk played a Sutton, but eight, ten, 15-yard completions. It wasn't this high power passing off on. Some of the numbers look good in the end, but I think some of those are elevated by a couple of the big plays that they had. Even down near the goal line, those two plays where they fumbled on the one, those play calls where you're sitting there in the shotgun,

you're just going to run like a mid-zone inside zone play from the shotgun when you need to get a yard with absolutely no other moving parts or deception involved in that. And then the one time they tried to run that shovel pass, that's when they got the false start. So just overall, some curious decisions in pretty high leverage spots for them from play calling perspective, clock management perspective, and a game management perspective.

And we didn't see Russell Wilson helping the team with his legs, which I think was a big criticism. I think we might be done with that. Every time he tried to take off today, it did not look like he is in a place physically to do much with his legs anymore. So what does that mean for him as a player? It means bad things. We've speculated about that on the show for a couple years. Nate has called Baker Mayfield Russell Wilson without the athleticism.

And if Russell Wilson is going to be Russell Wilson without the athleticism, what does that ultimately mean for him? Because he did not look like he was able to do any damage when he was trying to get out of the pocket today. Yeah, I agree. He wasn't doing any of that. So then is he good enough in the rest of the other areas to elevate and be, you know, to justify not only the payment, but to elevate the team in a division where, by the way, guys can do all those things and they throw the ball better than him. If you're George Payton, you better hope he is. Well, George Payton did. Yeah, I agree. But they, no, I mean, it doesn't mean it's a mistake to get Russell Wilson because you get the, you can't control who you can get. you get the best guy you can get, and he was the best guy they can get. So I don't fault any of that.

But this idea that they're going to have the offense to really keep pace or that, wow, this shakes it up in the F.C. West could be true, but not based off the last year and a half of Russell Wilson playing and certainly not off tonight. Gino Smith, on the other hand, I think looked a lot better than people probably expected. And I, over the last couple weeks, you did the piece that you did about where the executives that you talked to would rank the teams in the NFC. And I believe the Seahawks were 15th maybe in that ranking for you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely in the bottom three, but probably 15th.

And I think some of that comes from, no doubt. I did quarterback tiers, right? I talked to the 50 people in the league. We take all the starting quarterbacks, put them in a tier, one best, five worst. Gino was the last quarterback in that. Nobody insulted him. Everybody thought he's just a really good backup. And that's probably, you know, we're not going to necessarily change that assessment

tonight, but I thought he did a great job of just running the offense. Yeah. Just taking what was there. He didn't really have any bonehead moments or where he really tried to force it. There were a couple of weight in the game. He maybe tried to work it in there. But he didn't have any bad place. The one, he got the PI out throwing all the way back across his body early in the game.

It was an ambitious decision. It was a great throw, but the decision left me wanting. And here's the thing. Like, he can make a great throw. I'm not saying he's a great passer, but he can't, you know, he was drafted where he was for a reason. He can make an occasional great throw. They obviously don't want that. He said some pretty impressive throws in there today.

I agree. I agree. I mean, I thought he, especially in the first half, I mean, he threw the ball exceptionally well and just accurate. You know, that one where. where it was a big third down over the middle of DK and he caught it away from his body. Yeah. That's a heck of a, that's a pinpoint pass. Absolutely.

Interesting too. Yeah. Yeah. I know there were moments. You know, and this is some of what comes with the greatness of Russell Wilson, too. There's been moments over the years and recently where you just know Russell Wilson is doing something and taking that sack and holding it, waiting for the big thing. And you know the staff is sitting up in the box going, what are we doing? right? That was happening more lately. I didn't feel any of those tonight for Gino Smith.

I didn't feel any plays in the whole game where you're like, what's he doing? He's going to wreck the game. Never happened. So that was a very good sign for them. I don't know how many games you're going to win scoring 17 points. There's other aspects of the team we can address as well, but you couldn't ask for more from him and just how he handled it, how poised he was. If they had The game, he wouldn't have lost it. I'm not saying he won it, but he did his part. This is kind of the Seahawks team that I expected this season. I don't think I expected Gino Smith to go 23 of 28 in his first game. So I wanted to look this up. 2.65 seconds average time to throw. Some of that elevated by some running around and throwing in moments. Talked about that play all the way back across his body. He averaged about five air yards per attempt.

So they were getting rid of the ball fairly quick for most of that game. And I think with the way that they're offense is currently structured, that's not a bad idea. I want to talk about the pass protection late in a second. But overall, I think this is the sort of performance, generally, I expected from the Seahawks. When I saw that they were 15th, 16th in those rankings that you did, it was surprising to me just because you look at a team like Chicago or a team like the Giants or a team like Atlanta. They don't have any players. They've torn this thing down so completely. And the Seahawks are very young in some important spots. But the Seahawks re-signed D.K.

MacGab. The Seahawks signed Tyler Lockett. Quondre Diggs had some big moments in this game. I know Jamal Adams got hurt, but they've invested in him. They have a roster that I expected to compete in the sense that they were trying to compete every single week. They were rebuilding on the fly, but they're not tearing it down to the studs. That being said, they have some very young players in some very important positions.

Charles Cross was having a really nice night until he wasn't. And the second sack somewhat on Gino, he did not do him any favors with the drifting back into the pocket. But the first one that Bradley Chub got him on, that's at eight and a half yards. That's just him getting roasted and giving the corner to Bradley Chub and Chubb making a huge play. That's going to happen. He's a rookie left tackle. Every once in a while, you're going to have some bad moments. Same with Rique Woll and on the other side.

So I expect them to be green and inexperienced in some important places and for it to show up a decent amount. but I also expect them to be a functional football team that does a lot of little things well over the course of the season. And that's kind of what we got tonight. I totally agree. I thought the defense was a little disappointing, even though they stopped him down there. To me, Darryl Taylor had a really rough game. And they're running at them too. And I thought, no, look, I'm not a coach, but I was talking to coaches during the game who were watching it.

And they were pounding their heads on 52, Darryl Taylor. And I thought they were running at him. He was out of position. and he's supposed to be one of their, I know he's one of the players they really like. So that was a little bit concerning for them. We saw some depth issues for them as well. I think Jamel Adams, some of the early speculation is it could be a fairly serious knee injury.

We'll see on that. Just terrible luck for him. I think he's a part of their past rush. I think I was excited to see, I hadn't written him off, excited to see what Clint hurt and Sean Desai, who I think are good coaches, could do with him. They ended up in the end hanging on. and there is going to be room for growth. I would have liked to have seen, you're talking about the young guys,

maybe a little help for Charles Cross. You know, there's not a lot of chipping going on there with Bradley Chubb or people late in the game. They just trusted them and got burned a little bit. Yeah, it's going to be a process. I thought he had some really nice moments. They picked up a stunt, him in the backup left guard at one point in the second half. I was like, oh, that's just really nice. And it's going to be up and down.

You know, very few guys, even drafted in the top 10, are going to come in, like Rayshan Slater did and be a borderline all-pro player at that position from day one. I think you're going to see a lot of good and you're going to see some bad. Bradley Chub was also a top five pick, somebody that I think the Broncos are pretty damn excited about when he's healthy. So this stuff is going to happen. And it's not necessarily a surprise to see some mistakes in big moments from guys like Kim and Wallen. But it's not necessarily a surprise for me to see this team be very competitive

and ultimately win a game against a team that everyone thought was going to be better than they are. So what do you think moving forward, thinking about the Broncos, what do you need to see from them over the next couple weeks to make you feel a little bit better about what happened tonight? Well, I would like to see Russell Wilson be the reason they win some games, you know, and just get some confidence going that way that he's still a special player because there's doubts on that, right? I mean, I think we've seen the best of Russell Wilson. I do, I think, because it was great. I mean, if you just look at what is productivity, I think it'll be hard to match. I would like to see some of their weapons on the outside distinguish themselves.

People have talked up their receivers, and I'm not sure why. I mean, I don't know that they've been as consistently good or shown that it may grow into that, but Tim Patrick was really their most consistent guy that they could count on, and he's out. So I'd like to see that chemistry grow. Remember, with Russell Wilson, even if he's not going to run for yards, he still can scramble and make that throw across his body. Like remember the one he threw and the guy got two hands on it in the end zone? He can still make those types of throws,

but you have to be on the same page with kind of the second reaction plays with the receivers. You have to have that rapport. They don't have the game reps on that. So I would like to see some of those things come along and obviously win some games. But right now, Robert, where do you think they're going to be in the AFC West? I think there is a step down considerably from where the Chargers and the Chiefs are. And that's always what I thought.

Whatever order they wanted to finish in, I had them and the Raiders a considerable step down from where the Chiefs and the Chargers are. So if it's third or fourth, I don't think it really matters because it's far away from where the top two teams are going to be. But I do think it matters. I think if you finish fourth in Denver, that's not good enough. Oh, yeah. I think for perception reasons, absolutely. Yeah.

Yeah. And I think that stuff matters in Denver. I think people who aren't in Denver don't understand what Denver is and what the expectations are and how much they've leaned into this, they're going to need to see some results because it's not like they're breaking in a rookie. And it felt like tonight in this game, they were protecting Wilson as much as they were showcasing him. And I think that has to change.

It's going to be hard to make a judgment on this without watching the All-22 and actually seeing what they're doing on a play-to-play basis. But a couple of the catches that Judy had, I was pretty impressed with the juice that he had. That one, the touchdown, obviously, but they ran another play where he ran a little slice route back across into the flat, and they just got him the ball in space, and he really turned it on. And physicality, I think, is always going to be his biggest question, but he showed a lot of pop with just in all the situations they used him in tonight.

So we'll see if they can lean on those two guys. I mean, they use so many different tight ends and different formations. And I think they're throwing stuff against the wall and seeing what sticks on offense, which isn't necessarily surprising. But the final product today with 12 passes to Giovante Williams and just how often they were dumping the ball off and not like. running Russell Wilson pushed the ball was a little bit surprising, even if he wasn't necessarily very good when they were allowing him to do that. Yeah, it is very early, but I think we saw some

elements of a first time head coach tonight, right? You were talking about that in the management of the game. And managing these situations and these egos, look, Pete Carroll in the end couldn't manage Russell Wilson. Think about that. Pete Carroll's been coaching for like 100 years. He's been in the league. He was on Bud Grant staff in Minnesota. He'd been around. He's great at managing people. And he had a hard time in the end doing it and decided to get out of it. How is Nathaniel Hackett going to do if it doesn't always go well or if you're just going to be third in that division forever?

It's interesting. It's early, but it's interesting. Now I was going to get a lot of questions over the next 24 hours about some of those decisions at the end. And you know how you're going to handle all that along with handling all the egos and the personalities in your locker room. You certainly might be able to do it, but these are the challenges that come along with being a first time head coach. Yeah, absolutely.

So it's going to be fun. I mean, I think this is the league, right? We overreact in one game and all of this, and there's going to be a whole bunch more. But the pattern of what happened with Wilson and Seattle at the end when it was really up and down, we want to see that break in Denver. And it didn't in the first night. So that's where we're at. All right.

That's all we got. Really appreciate you guys listening. We also have our mailbag podcast that we did with Mitchell Schwartz that will be in the on Monday into Tuesday. So that should already be available to you guys when you're listening to this. Highly encourage you guys to go check that out. You can also go look at and listen

to our Sunday recap show that Nate Tyson and I did last night, along with the Y and the Clock video series Nate is doing on our YouTube channel that is connected to that Sunday night show. If you guys are not subscribed to the YouTube channel, highly encourage you to do that. We're going to be doing a lot more of this,

reacting to some Monday and Thursday games this year, along with the Sunday night recap, we do and along with the YouTube standalone content that we're doing. Mike, please tell people where they can catch the football GM this week on the Athletic Football Show channel. Absolutely. That'll post on Friday with me and three-time NFL GM, former executive year, Randy Mueller, bringing our perspectives.

Happy to be there, Robert. And we'll see everybody on Friday for that and into Saturday. Guys, please go check that out. In the meantime, we will be back tomorrow with Ali Connolly from the Reed Optional, talking about some of the units we really wanted to learn about from Sunday. We're doing the Dolphins' offense, the Ravens defense, some of the teams we really couldn't dig into on Sunday night. So please come back and check that out.

For now, appreciate you guys listening. We'll talk to you soon. This was the Athletic Football Show.