The Seahawks plan to hire Shane Waldron as their new offensive coordinator. This move, first reported by ESPN on Tuesday night, answers one of the many important offseason questions about how the team will improve on a disappointing 2020 season. At the same time, Pete Carroll’s choice also leaves us with many relevant questions.
Here’s what we know about the 41-year-old Waldron, whose hire should be made official soon:
- He followed Sean McVay to Los Angeles from Washington, where he was the tight ends coach in 2016, and assumed the same position when McVay took over as the head coach of the Rams in 2017. For the last three years, he has held the title of Rams passing game coordinator. Waldron also worked for the Patriots as an operations intern/assistant (2002-04), quality control coach (2008) and tight ends coach (2009).
- Waldron has no regular-season experience calling plays at the NFL level, though he did get some run calling preseason plays in 2019.
- The Rams ranked 11th in Expected Points Added per dropback in the regular season from 2018-20, according to Ben Baldwin’s RBSDM.com. (For what it’s worth, the Seahawks ranked sixth in that same span.) L.A. ranked fifth, 16th and 20th in passing DVOA over the last three seasons.
- If we are to assume Waldron was Los Angeles’ primary play designer, then it’s noteworthy that the Rams were routinely one of the best teams at generating yards after the catch. L.A. ranked fifth in yards after the catch per completion in 2020 (5.2), fourth in 2019 (5.3) and sixth in 2018 (5.3). Seattle, meanwhile, never ranked higher than 26th in the recently fired Brian Schottenheimer’s three seasons as offensive coordinator.
There’s a lot we don’t know about Waldron and his potential to improve the Seahawks. In his first year as passing game coordinator, the Rams went to the Super Bowl and Jared Goff played well, but the amount of credit Waldron deserves is unclear. Goff had a QB coach that year, Zac Taylor, who became the Bengals head coach in 2019. The next season, Goff was not as good. In 2020, Goff was bad. Because Goff was also bad as a rookie in 2016 and has played his best ball under a head coach known for being an offensive genius, it’s hard to glean much in terms of Waldron’s impact simply by looking at Goff’s performance.
Advertisement
Seattle’s offense struggled in the second half of the season when teams prioritized taking away deep throws. Believe it or not, the Seahawks actually adjusted to this with their play calls and concepts — they just weren’t very good at executing those changes. It’s tough to tell whether Waldron can help fix this either.
Goff’s 7.8 air yards per pass attempt ranked 28th in three seasons with Waldron, according to RBSDM.com. Wilson’s 9.1 ranked third. The Seahawks were letting it fly while the Rams were throwing it shorter and letting their receivers do the heavy lifting. Goff averaged 2.84 seconds to throw from 2018-20 which ranked 13th in the league, according to SportRadar, while Wilson had the third-highest time elapse from snap to release at 2.94 seconds. Goff was sacked 78 times in those three seasons while Wilson was sacked 146 times, second only to Houston’s Deshaun Watson.
Regardless of the passing game coordinator, play caller or even the offensive line, no one has more control over sack rate and time-to-throw averages than the quarterback. Wilson is credited with being responsible for 28 sacks in the last three seasons, per TruMedia, while Goff is listed as responsible for just six. But Goff’s numbers aren’t totally instructive here since Wilson has just proven to be a quarterback who holds the ball longer and therefore takes more sacks. Goff is not. A new coordinator likely won’t change how long Wilson holds the ball, at least not by much.
As for the shorter passing game, it’s hard to know whether McVay designed the offense that way out of preference or necessity (or both?). Goff is better at throwing short and Wilson is better at throwing deep, so the fact that their numbers reflect that may not say that much about the coaches and their beliefs. The offensive staffs in both Seattle and Los Angeles may have simply been playing to their QB’s strength.
Advertisement
There is a chance the Seahawks have a much better offense in 2021 (and beyond) that adjusts accordingly when defenses plan to stifle what they do best, uses a heavy dose of play action to get Wilson out in space and emphasizes a quicker passing attack that — and this is critical — Wilson feels comfortable operating. Ideally, this offense will have the run-pass balance Carroll wants while still maximizing Wilson’s greatest attribute: throwing the ball long. For now, there’s not much information to ensure any of that will be true. At least not yet.
But because Waldron has spent so much time under some of the best offensive minds in the business — he also worked with Green Bay head coach Matt Lafleur in 2017 — in a scheme that excelled in so many of the areas the Seahawks currently lack, there are reasons for optimism. Even if he wasn’t directly involved, Waldron was there in the meeting rooms and on the sidelines (or in the skybox) with guys who ran the football and used play action with great success even when the defense knew it was coming, made life easier for the quarterback and schemed players open. If Waldron brings those elements to Seattle with him from L.A. the hire has a chance to have a significant, positive impact in 2021.
An even bigger question may be whether this is the only move Carroll plans to make. Remember, he lost his run-game coordinator, his son Brennan, who took the Arizona Wildcats OC job. Then there’s the matter of what to do with Seattle’s current passing game coordinator Dave Canales. Will he still hold that title? Simply plugging in Waldron doesn’t feel like the ultimate solution to Seattle’s issues, not when Schottenheimer was fired over “philosophical differences.” Are Waldron and Carroll coming in on the same page philosophically? If that changes over time, then what? Being a passing game coordinator doesn’t mean Waldron only knows about throwing the ball, and anyone from the McVay tree should in theory know how to marry the run and passing game successfully.
Still, it can’t be ignored that one of Carroll’s main takeaways from the 2020 season was to run the ball more, then he spent weeks looking for new OCs and hired a passing coach. Carroll said earlier this month that the people inside the organization who hold him accountable are GM John Schneider and Carroll’s two sons on staff, one of whom is now gone. Does that mean if there’s another philosophical clash it’ll be receivers coach Nate Carroll’s job to right the ship? How’s that going to work?
Lastly, there is Wilson. The public won’t how Wilson truly feels about the hire because as the face of the franchise he is wise enough to say the right things whenever he’s in front of a hot mic. The good news is it sounds like Wilson was involved in the hiring process, as he requested. That’s a major box checked off. Ultimately, Wilson just wants to win, and he’s likely to work well with any coordinator who helps him achieve that goal, but kicking off his 10th season with someone who has never called plays immediately creates an intriguing dynamic. Marrying Wilson’s preferred way of playing offense with Carroll’s preferred run-pass balance is hard enough as is. Doing it your rookie year as an OC makes the degree of difficulty for Waldron’s job through the roof.
Advertisement
When Schottenheimer was fired, I questioned whether it actually mattered who the new offensive coordinator is, citing Carroll’s track record of cutting ties with play callers who weren’t aligned with his vision. With Carroll, areas for improvement may not be as important as areas he’d like to emphasize. And there’s a strong argument that what Carroll prefers to emphasize isn’t best suited to maximize his current roster. How Waldron deals with that will determine Seattle’s future.
(Photo of Waldron: Nick Cammett / Diamond Images via Getty Images)
