Tag: clint hurtt

Cody Barton sees puzzle pieces fitting together for Seahawks defense

Seattle Seahawks linebacker Cody Barton now sees the pieces of the puzzle fitting together for the new-look defense under DC Clint Hurtt.

The Seattle Seahawks wrapped up their mock game over the weekend and all eyes are now looking ahead to the first game of the preseason. Inching closer to the real deal, linebacker Cody Barton was asked about the changes he’s seen in the defense under new defensive coordinator, Clint Hurtt.

“I would say the difference is, and I can speak just for the defensive side, obviously, feel wise, there’s an energy about this team,” Barton told reporters after Sunday’s walkthrough. “I’m sure you guys have heard it already. The energy throughout the team, and especially on defense, is just different. Guys are excited, guys are hungry, and we just want to compete, and go out there and just prove ourselves.”

Barton is now entering his fourth season in the league, originally selected by the Seahawks in the 2019 NFL draft out of Utah. He is also embracing a much larger role on the field, having grown from mostly special teams to a starting spot with the linebackers. He sees the overall changes in the team as well.

“If you look at the game, imagine it’s like a puzzle, all the pieces have to fit together,” Barton explained. “The D-line has to work with the linebackers, the linebackers have to work with the DBs, so it’s all going to work together. I wouldn’t say there’s just one focal point, I would say it’s just a whole defensive thing.”

The Seahawks return to the practice field on Tuesday to begin to prepare to face the Steelers on Saturday, Aug. 13.

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Seahawks DC Clint Hurtt setting high expectations for defensive line

In his first year as defensive coordinator, Clint Hurtt is setting high expectations for the Seattle Seahawks defensive line.

The Seattle Seahawks have a new defensive coordinator this season in Clint Hurtt, and with that, comes a new look to the squad. Having served as the defensive line coach in Seattle since 2017, Hurtt has high expectations for the big guys up front.

“If the front isn’t playing at a high level, you’re not going to have a chance to be successful, so it starts there,” Hurtt told reporters after Saturday’s practice. “With the interior guys that we have on the D–line, between Al (Woods), (Bryan) Mone, Poona (Ford), Shelby (Harris), and Quinton (Jefferson), there are no excuses. They should be playing at a high level, that’s the expectation, that’s the standard, and they’ve done that, and have practiced really well.“

It’s no secret the Seahawks have struggled defensively at times over the last few seasons, something Hurtt hopes he can rectify in 2022. All in all, he feels confident heading into the year with his interior players . . . and the edge defenders as well.

“Obviously, the guys that we have on the edge in Uchenna (Nwosu), DT (Darrell Taylor), (Boye) Mafe, and Alton (Robinson), those guys have to play at a high level,” Hurtt continued. “They have had a nice start to camp, so it’s been good.”

The Seahawks return to the practice field on Monday to kick off the second week of training camp.

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Seahawks coaches Pete Carroll, Clint Hurtt discuss principles of their new defense

Watch Carroll and Hurtt break it down.

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The Seattle Seahawks set the standard on defense in the NFL for much of the last decade. Times necessitate change, though and it was past time for this front office to recognize that their tried-and-true cover 3 schemes weren’t working the way that they used to.

Heading into the 2022 season, Seattle will be utilizing a new defensive scheme for the first time in the Pete Carroll era, headed up by new defensive coordinator Clint Hurtt and associate head coach Sean Desai. More than anything, this new scheme will allow the Seahawks to be more multiple and more aggressive. Watch Carroll and Hurtt break it down.

You can see more by watching the full episode of the Sound of the Seahawks on the team’s official Youtube channel.

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Seahawks’ young safeties getting reps in offseason with veterans out

With veterans Jamal Adams and Quandre Diggs out with injuries, the Seattle Seahawks’ young safeties are getting more reps this offseason.

The Seattle Seahawks have been without a number of veterans during OTAs as they recover from injuries. With safeties Jamal Adams and Quandre Diggs still sidelined, defensive coordinator Clint Hurtt gets to get a closer look at some of the other players in the position. For him, he sees the positive in the young guys getting the chance to get some reps.

“They’re getting valuable reps that obviously if Jamal and Q were here, they probably don’t see,” Hurtt told reporters after Tuesday’s practice. “So now you have an opportunity to develop young talent behind them and create some depth. I always look at things not from a negative standpoint, but from a positive and what we can do that’s going to help us be better forward.”

The younger defensive players will get more opportunities to step up into leadership roles as well, able to find their voices with the established players still absent.

“Because Q (Diggs) is such a dominant, great player, dominant personality, when he speaks, everybody’s going to listen naturally,” Hurtt said. “But with him not being here, guys like Ryan, guys like Josh, guys like Ugo, it forces those guys to have to speak, get out of your comfort zone. You don’t have (No.) six back there. You don’t have (No.) 33 back there to be the quarterback right now so you got to go ahead and handle it. It kind of speaks to the development part I was talking about.

“It’s a great opportunity for them to expand their game.”

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Clint Hurtt determined to put Jamal Adams in best position to excel

One of these is strong safety Jamal Adams

With the Seahawks in the midst of a retooling of sorts, they will not be expected to compete in 2022 and eyes will be on the team’s long-term future.

This means that key pieces will be constantly monitored. One of these is strong safety Jamal Adams, who is signed through 2025 and set to make quite a bit of money over the next four seasons.

The Seahawks traded two first-round picks and a third-round pick among other things for Adams in 2020 in the hopes that he would be the missing piece to the puzzle of a championship contender, but the trade has not paid off in spades. In fact, it has been criticized as one of the worst trades in recent memory by numerous pundits across the NFL.

However, Adams’ contract means that he will likely be in Seattle for a while, and Seattle must get the most out of the veteran safety and his abilities.

Defensive coordinator Clint Hurtt is determined to do just that. He has publicly emphasized that Adams must get healthy and learn his new scheme as well as he can so his strengths can be maximized.

“Right now the most important thing is, one,  him continuing to get healthy like he’s been doing,” Hurtt said on Mike Salk’s Seattle Sports podcast. “And then, obviously, ​​there’s the carryover in the scheme. There is some carryover for certain things in it, but there’s a lot of new learning as well.”

“I’ve been speaking with him, he’s been speaking with coach (Sean) Desai and coach (Karl) Scott as well, continuing to learn his stuff and get him up to speed and also in putting him in positions to be successful to be the best version of himself.”

“He got a lot better,” Hurtt continued. ​​”We hear all the little talk and stuff like that about these things he has to get better at. Jamal is a guy that’s a workaholic, he pays attention to the details. He got a lot better playing quarter coverage safety last year with those things and now it’s continuing to accentuate what he does great.”

Adams will need to work to rectify the weaknesses in his game, particularly in coverage, but Hurtt will also need to take advantage of the opportunities Adams gives him with his strengths.

“And what is that? He’s great as an underneath defender, he’s an outstanding run fit defender and tackler, and aggressor,” Hurtt said. “Obviously, we already know what he is as a blitzer. That comes very natural to him. But it’s just continuing to detail out his coverage responsibilities and whatnot, and he’s putting all his work in on that right now along with getting healthy.”

Adams will hopefully prove to be an asset in Hurtt’s system and live up to his sizable contract. This will certainly be something to keep an eye on moving forward.

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Shelby Harris gushes over new Seahawks defense: ‘You guys will love it’

Seahawks fans who are looking for a silver lining should probably focus their attention on defense.

Seahawks fans who are looking for a silver lining in what’s been a dark and difficult offseason should probably focus their attention on defense. At the moment, their roster doesn’t have a sure-thing at quarterback, left tackle or right tackle. That situation will likely change over the next few weeks but for now the most promising things about this squad are on the other side of the ball.

The loss of Bobby Wagner at middle linebacker is hard to stomach. However, Cody Barton looked more-than-ready to take over and start at a respectable level late in 2021. More importantly, this defense is undergoing a change in philosophy under new defensive coordinator Clint Hurtt. Coach Pete Carroll has admitted that his team has been a little bit arrogant over the years on defense and realized a change was needed.

A defensive line guy by nature, Hurtt will be bringing a more aggressive approach – at least compared with that of former defensive coordinator Ken Norton Jr., whose scheme had become too passive and predictable.

One guy who’s a big fan of the new D is also one of the new faces that came over in the Russell Wilson trade. Shelby Harris is perhaps the NFL’s most underrated defensive lineman and our favorite part of the deal. Harris spoke with members of Seattle’s media for the first time yesterday and he gushed at length about both Hurtt and his defense.

Harris says that Hurtt came highly-recommended by former teammate Teddy Bridgewater:

“I’m just excited to work with coach Hurtt. I’ve heard so much about him, I remember that Teddy Bridgewater was the first person to text me, he was like, ‘You’re going to love coach Hurtt, he is the man.'”

Here’s how he described the defense.

” I’m a big believer in this scheme. It creates a lot of turnovers, creates a lot of havoc, and is very easy to scheme and confuse quarterbacks. I just think that it fits me very well, obviously. I’ve always believed in 3-4’s—I just think that 3-4’s are better run stoppers and in the division that we play in, with the Rams, Cardinals, and 49ers, the Rams and 49ers are run-heavy teams and this kind of neutralizes that a little bit. This defense, you guys will love it, you guys will see that it is a mixture of rush and coverage working together. You are going to get a lot of zones out of it, but once everybody gets it, it’s going to be hard to stop.”

Exciting.

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Seahawks CB Sidney Jones discusses broad strokes of new defensive scheme

We’ll have to wait until September to actually see it in action, but at least we now have some vague idea of what to expect this coming season.

The Seahawks will be changing things up on defense this year under new coordinator Clint Hurtt and associate head coach Sean Desai. We’ll have to wait until September to actually see it in action, but at least we now have some vague idea of what to expect this coming season.

Seattle cornerback Sidney Jones recently re-signed with the team on a one-year deal. He spoke with the media today and shared some broad strokes about the defensive scheme as related to him by the coaches. Jones says it will feature “tight-match, cover 3 type stuff” along with a lot of man-coverage.

Jones played his college ball at Washington and then was picked by the Eagles in the second round of the 2017 NFL draft. He had issues with injuries and coverage in Philadelphia and only lasted three years there before leaving for Jacksonville. Right before the 2021 season started the Jaguars traded him to the Seahawks.

Jones went on to start 11 games, allowing just two touchdowns and an 84.3 passer rating in coverage.

Where Jones fits in with Seattle’s new-look secondary remains to be seen. The team has re-signed Quandre Diggs and brought back former nickel corner Justin Coleman, but they also allowed D.J. Reed to leave for the Jets.

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Pete Carroll admits Seahawks have been ‘a little bit arrogant’ on defense

The same could be said for the Seahawks defense over the last several years.

“Peace has cost you your strength. Victory has defeated you.”

So Tom Hardy’s Bane informed Patrick Bateman’s Batman in 2012’s ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ not long before breaking his back. The same could be said for the Seahawks defense over the last several years.

From 2012-2015 Seattle had the top defensive unit in the sport – ranking No. 1 in points allowed all four years and also top-five in DVOA. That proud group began to come apart beginning with the playoff loss to Carolina and it’s been a long fall since, but now the Seahawks officially have a below-average defense in all the ways that matter.

Head coach Pete Carroll offered up a telling quote yesterday at the 2022 NFL Combine that illustrates what’s happened, admitting that his team has been a bit arrogant over the years with the way they play defense.

This is exactly right and it’s very encouraging that Carroll is willing to admit it and change course.

For a long time, Seattle’s heavy cover 3 scheme was the envy of the entire league, but even with the most talented defensive personnel in football any scheme that becomes stale can be taken advantage of. It’s been several years since the Seahawks were elite in the talent department here, so it’s all the more important to embrace a necessary change. Losses to teams starting Kirk Cousins, Colt McCoy, Ben Roethlisberger and Taylor Heinicke at QB this past season is all the evidence you should need.

New defensive coordinator Clint Hurtt and associate head coach Sean Desai will be tasked with coming up with a gameplan every week that’s more aggressive and variable than the ones we’d come to expect from Ken Norton Jr. and Kris Richard before him.

To his credit, Norton started making some significant changes just after the Week 5 loss to the Rams – namely less zone, more varied looks (including two high safeties), and more disguising coverages. He didn’t go far enough though, which was part of the reason Seattle wound up ranked No. 21 in DVOA last year.

Carroll’s admission that his defense needed to change should be exciting for every fan who wants to see this team finally get back to performing at an elite level on this side of the ball.

If only Pete would have a similar revelation on offense and embrace a more analytics-friendly-let-Russell-Wilson-loose kind of attack then the Seahawks would really be cooking with gas.

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Seahawks should expect more 3-4 fronts under new DC Clint Hurtt

Hurtt also seems to prefer the 3-4 system up front.

One of the reasons why the Seahawks haven’t been back to the Super Bowl since the 2014 season is a defensive scheme that has gone to pot. Early in his tenure as Seattle’s head coach, Pete Carroll enjoyed exceptional success running a heavy 4-3 system with almost exclusive single-high formations – mostly cover 3 but also some cover 1 thrown in.

It worked at first, but over the years as the team’s defensive talent began to bleed out and opponents started catching on, the scheme became less and less effective until finally it bottomed out under former defensive coordinator Kris Richard. Over the last four years with Ken Norton Jr. there were some changes – including bear fronts and more two-high looks, but too often he relied on the same stale concepts and was too slow to adjust – particularly early in the 2021 season. To his credit, Norton began mixing things up a lot more in October, but the damage had already been done and the Seahawks couldn’t climb out and make the playoffs.

Good news: under newly promoted defensive coordinator Clint Hurtt the Seahawks are expected to accelerate their shift away from cover 3 and continue adjusting as needed. Fans should expect to see more two safety formations, more disguises and more varied looks. Hurtt also seems to prefer the 3-4 system up front. Here’s what he said about it in a recent interview with ESPN 710 Seattle.

“You know, when you’re in a 4-3 structure, sometimes it’s really hard to disguise coverages the way you would like to. I’m not saying you can’t, but you’re gonna give the good quarterbacks tells. So get into that system, of being in a 3-4 structure, and the ability to hide coverage, pressures, and things of that nature was really impactful.” 

Changing things up schematically will help get this Seahawks defense back to a respectable level. Hurtt will need some new personnel as well, though – beginning with an impactful 3-4 edge rusher. Two of the top options about to hit free agency include Chandler Jones and Von Miller.

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How the Seahawks defense has evolved under Pete Carroll’s different coordinators

To see how we got here, let’s examine how the defense has evolved over time under different coordinators.

The Seattle Seahawks named Clint Hurtt their new defensive coordinator a few days ago, making him the fifth different individual to serve in that position during Pete Carroll’s time as the team’s head coach.

Hurtt has his work cut out for him, for certain. A high standard has been set for this defense over the years under Carroll and meeting it won’t be easy. While Hurtt has some exceptional individual pieces, overall this unit can’t be expected to compete at the same level as the all-time great defenses that were the norm for the first half of the last decade.

To see how we got here, let’s examine how the defense has evolved over time under different coordinators.