The Seattle Seahawks struggled to get anything of substance going on the ground last season. Dealing with ineffectiveness and injury at running back, Pete Carroll’s squad ranked 25th on the ground after finishing in the top three the previous season.
This primarily had to do with Marshawn Lynch’s brief retirement and continued injury issues relating to second-year back Thomas Rawls.
Heading into the team’s off-season program, Seattle is now looking to focus on the ground game once again.
“We definitely will,” Carroll said, via ESPN when asked if Seattle will focus more on the ground game in 2017. “We lost 100-something runs last year. And that was basically the story. That was basically the tale of why everything came about as it did. The defense had to do some more stuff. We had to throw the ball more. We had to pass protect more and all of that because the running game got knocked up.”
Adding former Pro Bowler Eddie Lacy to the mix will surely help here. Seattle also has a healthy Rawls returning to the mix as well as second-year backs C.J. Prosise and Alex Collins.
At this point, it wouldn’t be a surprise if Lacy were the starting back in training camp with the talented Rawls looking to unseat him.
In any event, Seattle’s inability to run the ball last year cost the team dearly. Simply put, Russell Wilson is not of the ilk of Aaron Rodgers and Tom Brady. He can’t dominate opposing defenses without some help on the ground. Carroll and Co. seem to fully understand this.