Seahawks coach Mike Macdonald had a blunt assessment of the team’s recent troubles: Seattle needs to run the ball more.
“I mean, everybody knows that,” Macdonald said.
The Seahawks have lost two straight after a 3-0 start. They’ll host the San Francisco 49ers on Thursday night in an NFC West matchup at Seattle’s Lumen Field.
Sure, the Seahawks have been able to lean on veteran quarterback Geno Smith, who has thrown for an NFL-best 1,466 yards through five games.
But at the same time, Seattle has the fewest rushing attempts in the league, averaging just 21 per game. In Sunday’s 29-20 loss to the New York Giants, Kenneth Walker III had just five carries. As a team, the Seahawks ran for just 102 yards — with Smith rushing for the bulk of them.
“Obviously, it’s always important to be balanced and to take advantage of all the weaknesses in the defense. Our running game has got to be the defining factor for our offense. I think as we go along throughout the season, the pass (and) run numbers tend to balance up. But, we definitely want to run the ball,” Smith said.
Walker, who rushed for 1,050 yards in 2022, has 37 carries this season for 202 yards and four touchdowns. He’s averaging 5.5 yards per carry. But he missed time this season with an oblique injury.
“Got to get the ball to (Walker) more,” offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb said, reflecting on the loss to the Giants. “I think we had plenty of run game in the plan, didn’t have anything to do with not having enough calls for that, just didn’t get called. And for us, we leaned on the wrong thing. And I think if we get Ken 10 more touches, 15 more touches, things are going to look different.”
Before the Seahawks fell to the Giants, they played a Monday night game against the Detroit Lions ( a 42-29 loss ), meaning that Thursday’s game against the Niners will be Seattle’s third in 11 days.
Seattle has a five-game losing streak in the series with San Francisco that includes a playoff game. It is the longest losing streak for the Seahawks in the history of the series with the Niners.
San Francisco, coming off a 24-23 loss to the Cardinals, is dealing with its own issues in the run game — in the red zone — while the team awaits the return of Christian McCaffrey.
“The circumstance is what it is. We’re 2-3 going into a Thursday night game against a divisional rival, primetime, with the stakes of being No. 1 the division,” 49ers linebacker Fred Warner said. “If I have to give some sort of grandiose speech to get you ready for this moment, we probably don’t have the right guys.”
Missing McCaffrey
McCaffrey’s return can’t come soon enough for the 49ers, who are struggling to score in the red zone without their star running back.
McCaffrey, the reigning AP NFL Offensive Player of the Year, remains sidelined with calf and Achilles tendinitis heading into Thursday night’s game.
There’s rampant speculation about when McCaffrey — who has yet to play this season — will be back.
“You can do so much with Christian out of the backfield, line him up as a receiver and stuff like that,” quarterback Brock Purdy said. “Defenses have to account and have a play for that. So, I mean, it is a little different. But regardless, man, I think we have the players and the talent to still make it happen.”
At the end of last season, the Niners were the top-ranked team for red zone touchdowns, scoring 67.2% of the time. This season they’ve dropped to 30th at 40.9%. Last year McCaffrey had 18 of the team’s 45 red zone touchdowns.
Familiar face
The Niners lost kicker Jake Moody to a second-quarter ankle injury against Arizona, which sent the team scrambling for a replacement.
“They’re almost independent contractors, so we’ll get them in as fast as possible and get the best guy we can,” coach Kyle Shanahan said, noting that Moody had a high ankle sprain that will take a while to heal.
The search didn’t take long. San Francisco signed Matthew Wright on Tuesday. The well-traveled kicker was signed to the 49ers practice squad in the preseason last year because Moody was dealing with an injury. But Moody was ready for the opener and Wright was released after less than a week.
In the midst of returning to the Niners, Wright was dealing with a scary situation back home in Tampa as Hurricane Milton was poised to make landfall.
“I was packing up my house,” he said about getting the call. “We’re good. My wife went away. It’s all good.”
No Nwoso
The Seahawks will be without outside linebacker Uchenna Nwosu because of a thigh injury he sustained in the loss to the Giants.
It’s been a rough season for Nwosu, who missed the first four games of the regular season with a sprained knee suffered in the preseason finale against Cleveland on Aug. 24.
He played 20 snaps against the Giants before he was injured again.
If he is placed on injured reserve, Nwoso will have to sit at least four games, starting Thursday. He’d be eligible to return on Nov. 17 at San Francisco.
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