Tag: protect the football

Maurice Jones-Drew ranks Chris Carson as only 15th-best starting back

NFL.com’s Maurice Jones-Drew ranks Seattle Seahawk Chris Carson as only 15th-best starting running back in the NFL due to his fumbles.

The Seattle Seahawks are hoping for big things this season from running back Chris Carson. Sidelined at the end of last year with a hip injury, Carson is expected to be able to return to form in 2020.

But Carson’s health issues aren’t what is keeping him in the middle of the pack of NFL.com’s Maurice Jones-Drew’s top running backs heading into the season . . . it’s concerns whether or not he can protect the football.

“Carson, who finished in the top five in rushing yards last season, has been highly productive the last two seasons, but I have one major problem with his game,” Jones-Drew writes. “He simply coughs up the ball too much. Carson had seven fumbles last year alone. That is a killer for any offense.”

Carson’s ball-security skills were certainly called into question last season, but hopefully entering his fourth year in the league he is able to prove he’s well worth the risk.

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Seahawks addressing mounting ball security concerns

After logging five fumbles and an interception against the 49ers, the Seattle Seahawks need to re-focus on protecting the football.

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.

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