The Seahawks are trying to switch gears offensively. They’ve fired offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell and offensive line coach Tom Cable. They’ve got Mike Solari coming in to work with the offensive line, and they’ve got Brian Schottenheimer taking over as the new offensive coordinator. But is this going to help Russell Wilson and Seattle’s other key offensive players?
Pete Carroll says his primary goal is to get Seattle’s sputtering running game back on track. He says he wants to get back to pounding opponents like they were a few years back with Marshawn Lynch – add some balance into the attack. Fair enough.
But Schottenheimer has been in the game for years (his father, of course, was a legendary head coach with Cleveland, Kansas City, San Diego and Washington) and hasn’t had a lot of success at the NFL level.
Schottenheimer has been an NFL coordinator for nine previous teams, and those were all under defensive head coaches (Eric Mangini, Rex Ryan, Jeff Fisher) so he was truly in control of those offenses. And none of those offenses really lit it up.
He spent last year as the quarterbacks coach in Indianapolis, where he thought he would be working with Andrew Luck but instead had Jacoby Brissett for the bulk of the season.
Of Schottenheimer’s nine previous offenses (when he was the offensive coordinator), only one ranked in the top 12 in scoring.
| SCHOTTENHEIMER AS OFFENSIVE COORDINATOR (scoring) | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Team | Win | Points | Rnk |
| 2006 | New York Jets | 10-6 | 316 | 18 |
| 2007 | New York Jets | 4-12 | 268 | 25 |
| 2008 | New York Jets | 9-7 | 405 | 9 |
| 2009 | New York Jets | 9-7 | 348 | 17 |
| 2010 | New York Jets | 11-5 | 367 | 13 |
| 2011 | New York Jets | 8-8 | 377 | 13 |
| 2012 | St. Louis Rams | 7-8-1 | 299 | 25 |
| 2013 | St. Louis Rams | 7-9 | 348 | 21 |
| 2014 | St. Louis Rams | 6-10 | 324 | 21 |
The hope is that Schottenheimer will spark Seattle’s running game. And to his credit, the Jets ranked 8th, 1st and 7th in overall rushing production under his watch in the 2008-2010 seasons. But all six of his other offenses ranked below average in rushing.
(On rankings here, I’m using not yards but fantasy production, with 6 points for rushing touchdowns and 1 point for every 10 rushing yards.)
| SCHOTTENHEIMER AS OFFENSIVE COORDINATOR (rushing) | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Team | Att | Yards | Avg | TD | Points | Rnk |
| 2006 | New York Jets | 491 | 1,738 | 3.5 | 15 | 263.8 | 17 |
| 2007 | New York Jets | 446 | 1,701 | 3.8 | 6 | 206.1 | 26 |
| 2008 | New York Jets | 422 | 2,004 | 4.7 | 20 | 320.4 | 8 |
| 2009 | New York Jets | 607 | 2,756 | 4.5 | 21 | 401.6 | 1 |
| 2010 | New York Jets | 534 | 2,374 | 4.4 | 14 | 321.4 | 7 |
| 2011 | New York Jets | 443 | 1,692 | 3.8 | 14 | 253.2 | 18 |
| 2012 | St. Louis Rams | 410 | 1,714 | 4.2 | 5 | 201.4 | 27 |
| 2013 | St. Louis Rams | 426 | 1,752 | 4.1 | 10 | 235.2 | 20 |
| 2014 | St. Louis Rams | 395 | 1,635 | 4.1 | 11 | 229.5 | 21 |
Schottenheimer’s offenses also haven’t tended to put up big passing numbers. In nine years, his teams averaged 210 passing yards per game, with 20 TDs and 17 interceptions per season.
Again using fantasy production (4 points for TDs, 1 for every 20 passing yards), he’s had only one offense that’s ranked in the top 15 in overall passing production.
Schottenheimer, of course, has never worked with a quarterback of Russell Wilson’s ability, but he wasn’t working with nothing. Sam Bradford was his primary quarterback in St. Louis. With the Jets, he was saddled with Mark Sanchez for three years, but he had Chad Pennington and Brett Favre for his other three seasons. Not ideal, but many teams had worse quarterbacking in many of those nine seasons.
With Schottenheimer no doubt re-working Seattle’s offense significantly, I can’t at this point say with much confidence that Wilson will again be a top-5 fantasy quarterback. Maybe he will be, but right now I wouldn’t be eager to go after Wilson in fantasy leagues in 2018.
| SCHOTTENHEIMER AS OFFENSIVE COORDINATOR (passing) | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Team | Pct | Yds | TD | Int | Rate | Points | Rnk |
| 2006 | New York Jets | 64% | 3,352 | 17 | 16 | 82.1 | 235.6 | 19 |
| 2007 | New York Jets | 61% | 3,330 | 15 | 19 | 73.9 | 226.5 | 24 |
| 2008 | New York Jets | 66% | 3,516 | 22 | 23 | 80.2 | 263.8 | 13 |
| 2009 | New York Jets | 53% | 2,596 | 12 | 21 | 62.0 | 177.8 | 31 |
| 2010 | New York Jets | 55% | 3,420 | 20 | 14 | 76.5 | 251.0 | 25 |
| 2011 | New York Jets | 57% | 3,542 | 26 | 18 | 78.4 | 281.1 | 16 |
| 2012 | St. Louis Rams | 60% | 3,783 | 22 | 14 | 82.7 | 277.2 | 18 |
| 2013 | St. Louis Rams | 59% | 3,360 | 22 | 11 | 84.8 | 256.0 | 25 |
| 2014 | St. Louis Rams | 63% | 3,400 | 20 | 16 | 84.9 | 250.0 | 24 |
—Ian Allan