The Seahawks were able to narrowly escape the 49ers in Week 10 despite major issues in protecting the football. Against San Francisco, Seattle fumbled five times – including three for losses – and quarterback Russell Wilson threw an interception.
Well into the second half of the regular season, ball security remains a major point of emphasis for Seahawks’ offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer.
“We continue to address it, do some ball security circuits and things like that,” Schottenheimer said Thursday. “The thing we talk about with our guys – the fundamentals, we’ll continue to drill that – there’s also a philosophy.”
Schottenheimer explained there is a fine line, however, between protecting the ball and playing to win. He used running back Chris Carson as a prime example.
“We don’t want them to lose their competitiveness – that’s the way Chris runs, he runs competitive – but they’ve got to understand that there’s nothing more important than the ball,” Schottenheimer said. “We talked a little bit about that this week, our guys get it. They’re aware that we need to do it better, they can do it better, and we expect that we’ll start that this week.”
But to keep a playoff berth a realistic goal, the Seahawks will need to do more than just “start that this week” – they’ll need to prove it won’t be a major issue going forward in the homestretch of the season.
