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Looking at Brian Schottenheimer’s tendencies with pre-snap tells Welcome back to the fun house that is the NFL regular season Cheap Shaquill Griffin Jersey , and as we all get set to watch the Seattle Seahawks take on the Denver Broncos this afternoon, one of the areas of focus for the Seahawks will be the run game under new offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer. For those who follow me on Twitter, you are aware that during the summer I charted every single offensive play of the teams for which Schottenheimer has served as offensive coordinator that are available on NFL Gamepass. In charting the more than 4,000 offensive plays that Schottenheimer called for the New York Jets and then St. Louis but now Los Angeles Rams I found a few interesting pre-snap tells that I will be watching for against the Broncos. These tells range from formational keys which give away the team’s intentions regarding run or pass, as well as motion indicators which tip the hand of the play direction. The most basic of these tells I have already shared on Twitter, and so I won’t spend too much time here discussing them beyond simply including the tweets I’ve authored on the subject. Running out of shotgunThe first and most basic tell is that when a Schottenheimer offense is running out of shotgun, how the quarterback and running back are aligned in the backfield relative to one another typically allows for the anticipation of a running play. Specifically, what fans will want to watch here is whether the running back is lined up deeper than the quarterback or not. So, that was the Jets tipping that they would be running in 2011, and here are some examples of the Rams lining up using the same tell in alignment. This was something I watched for in the preseason with the Hawks running game, and it held true to form. In short, when the offense lines up in shotgun, one of the keys is to look at the depth of the running back in relation to Russell Wilson. If they are level, odds are overwhelmingly in favor of a pass play coming, while if the RB is noticeably deeper it is extremely likely that a run is coming. Now, before anyone gets all up in a huff, yes that tendency can be used to set up play action Bobby Wagner Jersey , and we saw exactly that during the preseason. However, in both New York and St. Louis, such an alignment was a better than ninety percent indicator regarding whether a run or pass play was coming. MotionWhen the Seahawks made changes to their offensive coaching staff at the end of the 2017 season, one of the reasons for making the change was to incorporate more motion into the run game. To that end, Seattle went out and completely revamped the tight end position, with both Jimmy Graham and Luke Willson moving on to the NFC North and Nick Vannett and Will Dissly taking on the lead tight end roles in Schottenheimer’s offensive system. Schottenheimer’s offense uses several different types of motion by backs, tight ends and receivers, and within his system each of these types of motion are likely to indicate a different item to be aware of. Today the only thing I am going to touch on in regards to motion is specifically motion by tight ends, fullbacks and h-backs, leaving running back and receiver motion for another day. The first thing to keep in mind about motion while watching the matchup against the Broncos is that tight end or fullback motion overwhelmingly indicates that a run play is coming. Obviously, the team will also use tight end motion on play action, but it remains to be seen what kind of run-pass balance the team builds. In any case, if his play calling tendencies hold true to his tendencies in New York and St. Louis, tight end or fullback motion will be a big indicator not just of the fact that a run play is coming, but the direction of the play as well. In particular, the running play will typically go to the side of the field where the tight end ends his motion. Here is just one example. This play is actually a great example of both the tendencies discussed in this article. While the offense is in 11 personnel (1 running back and 1 tight end) and lined up with four receiving targets split out wide, the alignment of Rashaad Penny in relation to Wilson still gives away that the defense should key on a run. Then http://www.seahawkscheapshops.com/cheap-authentic-tre-flowers-jersey , once Dissly motions, that effectively eliminates half of the field for the defense to defend in terms of the run, as the tight end motion is such a strong indicator of play directionalityObviously it is important to keep in mind that these are tendencies, not absolutes. So, yes, there certainly will be times when either the running back alignment in the shotgun or the tight end motion is not indicative of a play call, but the tendency is sufficiently strong that the overwhelming majority of the time it will be correct. Now we just have to watch and see. The Seattle Seahawks finished 9th in offensive DVOA this season, its highest ranking since the memorable 2015 second-half surge put them all the way to the top spot. Unfortunately, when matched up against the #9 defense by DVOA last Saturday, they could not break down the Dallas Cowboys until it was too late. Or rather, they did break down the Cowboys defense through the air, they just waited too long to realize that was working better than the stagnant rushing attack.Whatever the case, that loss was a familiar sight for the Seahawks offense in 2018. Even though DVOA takes into account strength of opponent, if you look at the end-of-season rankings, Seattle was just 2-4 against teams that boasted top-10 defenses, and six of their bottom eight performances in terms of Expected Points Added (EPA) were against those teams.L at Denver Broncos (5th) - 24 pointsL at Chicago Bears (1st) - 17 pointsW at Dallas Cowboys (9th) - 24 pointsL vs. Los Angeles Chargers (8th) - 17 pointsW vs. Minnesota Vikings (4th) - 21 points (but only 14 points on offense)L at Dallas Cowboys (9th) - 22 pointsNow you may be thinking that averaging 20.8 pts per game against quality defenses isn’t that bad, but I argue it’s deceiving. Seattle’s EPA was -7.72 versus the Broncos. 14 of their 24 points came off of turnovers that only required them to go a combined 56 yards for their touchdowns. Overall Cheap Rashaad Penny Jersey , 8 of their 15 drives ended in a three-and-out or a turnover. Against the Bears, their final touchdown to make it 24-17 dropped Chicago’s win probability to 99.8%. They went three-and-out on 5 of 12 drives and didn’t eclipse 200 yards of total offense until the aforementioned consolation TD. Seattle’s EPA was a season-worst -11.46, with the pick-six certainly not helping matters. And yes, in both Denver and Chicago there were six sacks taken by Russell Wilson.They fared well against the Cowboys in the first matchup, particularly on third-down conversions (7/16), but even in that game they went three-and-out on half of their 12 possessions (subtracting the kneeldown at the end of the game). We’d probably be looking at that game a tad differently if not for three turnovers by the Cowboys, two of which were deep in Seattle territory. Nevertheless, the 17-point second quarter is their singular best 15 minutes of football against a top-10 defense all season.The Chargers game had its share of blown opportunities with a missed field goal, bad passes (and a pick-6) by Russell Wilson, questionable officiating, but they were stuck on 10 points until after the two-minute warning, by which point the win probability for the Chargers was at 98.8% on Nick Vannett’s TD that cut it to 25-17. Even on the game’s final snap, Los Angeles’ WP had dropped to 84.4%.Against the Vikings, the defense did the work. Yes, the rushing attack gashed Minnesota for 214 yards, but Seattle was held to 6 points until Chris Carson’s score with 2:53 to go. The Seahawks defense got a fumble return touchdown to make it 21 points on an evening when Seattle’s offense had a -0.04 EPA.Then we come to the Cowboys rematch. The EPA was a positive 3.19, but another six three-and-outs on 12 drives combined with a 2/13 third-down conversion rate is not optimal offense. For some reason the win probability chart went haywire and is showing 77.7% WP for Dallas after they recovered the uh... “onside kick.” It does list Dallas at 99.8% a couple of plays prior to JD McKissic’s touchdown Cheap Tyler Lockett Jersey , which is good enough for me to say this game was effectively out of reach once it got to 24-14, much like the Bears game at 24-10.If you subtract what was close to garbage time against Chicago and Dallas — the low rate of onside kick success in 2018-19 only strengthens my argument — the Seahawks only averaged 16.5 points on offense against these teams in meaningful action. Also glaring? They were only 23/80 on third-down conversions in these six games. And these were at various points of the season, with and without Doug Baldwin, with and without a stronger commitment to the running game, with DJ Fluker/without DJ Fluker, etc.Unsurprisingly, their best offensive performances came against very bad defenses like the Kansas City Chiefs, San Francisco 49ers (home), Carolina Panthers, Detroit Lions, Oakland Raiders, and the very overrated Rams defense twice over. That’s a good thing that this offense is conclusively strong enough to be efficient against the bottom of the barrel. Truly elite offenses have to be able to be more successful against stronger defenses than what we saw from the 2018 Seahawks, and that’s on Pete Carroll and Brian Schottenheimer to figure out entering 2019.