Rescuing Sisyphus: how the Panthers can finally defeat the Seahawks

[PhillyB]

Once upon a time the Greek pantheon of gods had a major problem. Zeus, Hades, and Ares found themselves constantly stymied by the antics of King Sisyphus of Corinth, who caused death to die (rendering Ares, the god of war, bored) and tricked Hades into chaining himself up, among other rank offenses. Zeus, annoyed at Sisyphus's constant trickery, captured him and punished him by sentencing him to an eternity of pushing a heavy boulder up a steep hill. He enchanted the boulder so it would slip from Sisyphus's grasp every time it neared the crest of the hill, plunging back down to the bottom. Thus the term sisyphean entered the English vernacular: an adjective to describe an incredibly frustrating task where success seems impossible.

Sisyphus, thy name is Carolina.

Carolina, thy boulder is the Seattle Seahawks. Forget Apollo and Artemis; the legion of boom and Russell Wilson's magic fourth-quarter prayerballs have provided all the enchantment that boulder needs, and then some. Like Sisyphus, every time the boulder rolls up to the fourth quarter it leaps out of the hands of its carrier and tumbles hopelessly to the bottom. Seahawks games are sisyphean tasks.

...right?

Not so, said a wise Spartan warrior named Kratos, who famously broke all the rules by simply killing Zeus. Of course, no one is going to assassinate Richard Sherman, but maybe nobody needs to. Other teams have done several different things to send the Seahawks stumbling to an uncharacteristic 2-3 start, but here's the common theme: they're playing lots of three and four-receiver sets, and Seattle hasn't figured out how to stop it.

When you have a guy like Richard Sherman on the field, one of the best ways to negate his effectiveness is to toss a bunch of receivers on the field and marginalize him by just taking your matchups against linebackers, nickel backs, or dime backs if that personnel grouping rolls out. Often this will force safeties to commit in the box against tight ends or hesitate in the face of multiple deep routes.

The Packers rolled into week two with this exact plan. It worked so well they even managed to pick on Richard Sherman himself despite designing the play around negating his presence. Check out this formation halfway through the first quarter:

 

 

The Packers go out wide. 3WR, 1TE, and a running back. Seattle is in the nickel, with 5 defensive backs on the field. the free safety drops down into the box, possibly trying to disguise coverage a la Kurt Coleman last week. This leaves the strong safety hovering over the right quarter and facing three receivers. Let's take a look at the play call:

 

 

Everyone goes deep. At the top of your screen James Jones runs a deep post. The running back goes into motion before the snap and leaks into the flat as an outlet. The tight end has a zone option, the slot receiver is running a fade, and the bottom receiver (Cobb) is running a deep comeback. Here comes the snap:

 

 

Because the routes are all deep and coming straight at him, the strong safety is committed to the quarter occupied by three receivers on his side of the field. The free safety drops in to cover that running back in the flat, and the odd man out is Richard Sherman, who's left on an island. Jones has him by a step, so ideally this is where the strong safety would roll over to help out over the top, but as his directional arrow indicates he's still frozen. The tight end is open in a soft zone, Cobb is open on the comeback if the deep linebacker isn't fast enough, and the slot receiver has come off his fade to squat down in the zone vacated by a corner still streaking deep.

Easy decision.

 

 

The safety can't make it over in time and Jones catches the touchdown between two out-of-position defenders. This play was designed to take Sherman out of the play, but it worked so well that Rodgers was able to throw to his side of the field anyway.

Every team with decent quarterback play has been able to do exactly this. The Lions frequently ran these types of sets, though Stafford had a terrible day and was unable to capitalize. The Andy Dalton threw for 331 yards against the so-called Legion of Boom. In fact he was arguably the most effective of anyone who's faced them in several years, carving them up for a 70% completion rate, 2 TDs, and 0 INTs. Here's a formation they ran all day long:

 

 

3WR, 1TE, and the running back in motion, exactly like the Packers ran in the previous play. Here's the route combos:

 

 

Once again, the safeties can't give everyone coverage over the top. Someone's going to be left on an island. Usually it's Sherman, since he's as capable as anyone in the league at handling his man. Watch what happens:

 

 

The X-receiver cuts inside on the post as the safety drops in to cover the tight end cutting out towards the sideline. The outside corner is playing the deep fly and doesn't expect the X to cut in, but when he does it's wide open because the safety - occupied with those deep routes at the bottom of the screen - couldn't roll cover that direction until after the ball was out. The result was a 44-yard strike that led to a touchdown on the very next play.

 

Can the Panthers take advantage of this?

I'd say it's a safe bet they can. Last year the offensive line was so shaky that offensive coordinator Mike Shula kept Greg Olsen in to block on a frustratingly high percentage of plays. This year's line is good enough to handle Seattle's pass rush and release Olsen downfield, a juicy prospect given Seattle's sudden inability to adequately play the seam. Now that Jerrico Cotchery is back we can expect to see 3WR 1TE sets all day. Keep in mind the 2015 Panthers also have a deep threat in Ted Ginn Jr. that was absent from both of last year's matchups.

I will refrain from drawing up a play in case Seattle offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell finds it and keys in on defense. He is having an awful year and most Seahawks fans expect him to be gone at any moment.

A final though regarding the Panthers defense: inverting Seattle's playoff gameplan from last year against them this year may be successful. Keeping Roman Harper in the box all day will stymie Marshawn Lynch's rushing attempts while also keeping Jimmy Graham in to block for a suddenly mortal-looking offensive line. The Wilson-Graham connection has been anemic all year and the Bengals repeatedly found ways to take advantage, as captured nicely by the Seahawks' fan forum:

 

 

Luke can take advantage of that all day.

On Sunday the Panthers will charge up that hill once more, boulder out front, trying to make it to the top in spite of the stacked odds. If they can find a way to kill Zeus, it'll be a success to the tune of a 5-0 start.

 

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[CRA]

Good write up.  I agree w/ how to attack them as an offense.

Pretty big gap though in the weapons GB and Cincy had to do that vs. us though.

[SIGCHI222]

[Chaos]

If only we had the WRs to exploit this. 

[Ivan The Awesome]

If only we had the WRs to exploit this. 

 

We do we just have to execute. 

[Moorgan]

Was just describing Sisyphus to my buddy the other night. He hadn't heard my rant yet. Any use of this Greek tragedy is pie worthy. :)

 

Great write up as per usual. Also Kratos reminds me of Luke...gonna be soooo good.

[Cary Kollins]

lol the God of War reference

 

 

[Snake]

We definitely should activate more WRs this game.  

[dcarcass]

The sad thing is that the gods in this case are hopped up on Ritalin and other PED's. Kratos may need to bring a team of drug screeners. Great article, I hope we do attempt to spread them out early.

[electro's horse]

 

 

We do we just have to execute. 

2010 John fox is that you?

[d-dave]

I love the mythology references!  I often feel like Sisyphus in my day job =)  Too bad more people don't get it!

Awesome as usual!  Man, I hope that Panthers are able to spread them out and keep Cam clean.  That's the key offensively!

[Khyber53]

Excellent piece, as usual!

[firstdayfan]

Great article.  My only problem is when you said that Seattle's 2-3 start was uncharacteristic.  Last year when we met them in week 7 the Seahawks were 3-3.  They went 9-1 the rest of the way and went to the super bowl.

Taking them lightly because of their record would be a huge mistake.  Hopefully the Panthers aren't looking at it the same way.

[PhillyB]

Good write up.  I agree w/ how to attack them as an offense.

Pretty big gap though in the weapons GB and Cincy had to do that vs. us though.

it's a safe bet sherman will neutralize our number one, but that's fine, our number one will neutralize richard sherman. i expect shula will draw up lots of zone clear-outs with deep patterns all day. 

olsen and whoever's in the slot should have a big day, relatively speaking.