Do you remember how bad the 2017 Seahawks running game was, at least apart from Russell Wilson? You may recall that last year, Wilson became the rare quarterback to lead his team in rushing, but the situation was even more dire than that. A year ago in this space, guest writer Miles Wray noted that the 2017 Seahawks became the first team since in a 16-game season to fail to produce a 250-yard rusher. Here’s a look at all players who recorded a rushing attempt for Seattle in 2017:
| No. | Player | Age | Pos | G | GS | Att | Yds |
TD | Lng | Y/A | Y/G | A/G |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 | Russell Wilson* | 29 | QB | 16 | 16 | 95 | 586 | 3 | 31 | 6.2 | 36.6 | 5.9 |
| 39 | Mike Davis | 24 | rb | 6 | 6 | 68 | 240 | 0 | 33 | 3.5 | 40.0 | 11.3 |
| 32 | Chris Carson | 23 | rb | 4 | 3 | 49 | 208 | 0 | 30 | 4.2 | 52.0 | 12.3 |
| 21 | J.D. McKissic | 24 | rb | 13 | 1 | 46 | 187 | 1 | 30 | 4.1 | 14.4 | 3.5 |
| 27 | Eddie Lacy | 27 | rb | 9 | 3 | 69 | 179 | 0 | 19 | 2.6 | 19.9 | 7.7 |
| 34 | Thomas Rawls | 24 | rb | 12 | 3 | 58 | 157 | 0 | 23 | 2.7 | 13.1 | 4.8 |
| 16 | Tyler Lockett | 25 | WR | 16 | 8 | 10 | 58 | 0 | 22 | 5.8 | 3.6 | 0.6 |
| 22 | C.J. Prosise | 23 | qb | 5 | 0 | 11 | 23 | 0 | 8 | 2.1 | 4.6 | 2.2 |
| 6 | Austin Davis | 28 | qb | 3 | 0 | 1 | -1 | 0 | -1 | -1.0 | -0.3 | 0.3 |
| 89 | Doug Baldwin* | 29 | WR | 16 | 16 | 2 | -8 | 0 | -3 | -4.0 | -0.5 | 0.1 |
| Team Total | 26.1 | 16 | 409 | 1629 | 4 | 33 | 4.0 | 101.8 | 25.6 |
Davis led all running backs with just 24 yards, but the group was no better: Seattle running backs finished with an anemic 845 yards on 274 carries, producing an unfathomably low 3.08 YPC average. But this season? It was a very, very different story in Seattle. Take a look at the 2018 Seahawks rushing attack:
| No. | Player | Age | Pos | G | GS | Att | Yds |
TD | Lng | Y/A | Y/G | A/G |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 32 | Chris Carson | 24 | RB | 14 | 14 | 247 | 1151 | 9 | 61 | 4.7 | 82.2 | 17.6 |
| 27 | Mike Davis | 25 | rb | 15 | 2 | 112 | 514 | 4 | 37 | 4.6 | 34.3 | 7.5 |
| 20 | Rashaad Penny | 22 | rb | 14 | 0 | 85 | 419 | 2 | 38 | 4.9 | 29.9 | 6.1 |
| 3 | Russell Wilson* | 30 | QB | 16 | 16 | 67 | 376 | 0 | 40 | 5.6 | 23.5 | 4.2 |
| 16 | Tyler Lockett | 26 | WR | 16 | 14 | 13 | 69 | 0 | 18 | 5.3 | 4.3 | 0.8 |
| 84 | Ed Dickson | 31 | te | 10 | 1 | 1 | 9 | 0 | 9 | 9.0 | 0.9 | 0.1 |
| 4 | Michael Dickson*+ | 22 | P | 16 | 0 | 1 | 9 | 0 | 9 | 9.0 | 0.6 | 0.1 |
| 21 | J.D. McKissic | 25 | rb | 5 | 0 | 3 | 8 | 0 | 6 | 2.7 | 1.6 | 0.6 |
| 83 | David Moore | 23 | wr | 16 | 7 | 1 | 5 | 0 | 5 | 5.0 | 0.3 | 0.1 |
| 38 | Tre Madden | 25 | fb | 14 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 0 | 2 | 1.0 | 0.2 | 0.2 |
| 22 | C.J. Prosise | 24 | rb | 5 | 0 | 1 | -3 | 0 | -3 | -3.0 | -0.6 | 0.2 |
| Team Total | 25.9 | 16 | 534 | 2560 | 15 | 61 | 4.8 | 160.0 | 33.4 |
Settle running backs rushed 451 times for 2,092 yards this past season, averaging 4.64 yards per carry. One year after being the only team whose running backs failed to top 1,000 rushing yards, the Seahawks were the only team this season whose running backs exceeded 2,000 rushing yards.
It was a remarkable turn of events, as new OC Brian Schottenheimer and OL coach Mike Solari were able to get much more going on the ground than Darrell Bevell and Tom Cable, respectively. The offensive line didn’t have that much turnover: Tackles Duane Brown and Germain Ifedi were there both seasons, as was center Justin Britt. Guards Luke Joeckel and Oday Aboushi were replaced by J.R. Sweezy and D.J. Fluker, and the Seahawks offensive line did have much better health in ’18 (including a full season out of Brown, acquired midway through ’17).
How remarkable was Seattle’s improvement? The graph below shows the amount of rushing yards by running backs for each team in both 2017 and 2018. The 2017 data is plotted on the X-Axis, and the 2018 numbers are on the Y-Axis. Seattle, of course, is therefore far to the left (bad in ’17) and high up (great in ’18) on the chart. They are a significant outlier:
Let’s also take note of the Jacksonville Jaguars, who went from 2nd in rushing yards by RBs in ’17 to 31st in rushing yards by RBs in ’18. Leonard Fournette, T.J. Yeldon, and Carlos Hyde couldn’t come close to matching the production from Fournette, Yeldon, and Chris Ivory in ’17; Jacksonville running backs rushed 466 times for 1,929 yards (4.14) two seasons ago and just 329 times for 1,141 yards (3.47) this past season.
On a broader level, the correlation coefficient between rushing yards by running backs in ’17 and ’18 was -0.01, indicating absolutely no relationship. Much of that was driven by the Seahawks and Jaguars; remove them, and the correlation coefficient was +0.42. The Saints, Patriots, and Ravens were top-8 both seasons, and the Broncos, Cowboys, and Rams were top-12 both seasons; on the other side, the Bucs and Cardinals were in the bottom 5 both years.