Or perhaps more accurately, this is a look at what Metcalf does to opposing defenses that no other receiving threat on the Seattle roster does. We’ll get to what that actually does for the Seahawks offense on Friday.
In recent seasons several teams have traded high level wide receivers in exchange for multiple draft picks to the tune of varying results. The Kansas City Chiefs sent Tyreek Hill to the Miami Dolphins and then turned around to win back to back Super Bowls. The Tennessee Titans traded A.J. Brown to the Philadelphia Eagles and proceeded to trot out the 27th- and 28th-ranked scoring offenses over the next two seasons.
The amount of draft capital teams obtained in these trades has led a portion of the fanbase of the Seattle Seahawks to call for the Hawks to trade 26-year old DK Metcalf, arguing that he’s not a true number one receiver and can’t take over a game the way a true top flight receiver does.
Regardless of what side of the fence one falls on, turning to the tape, what becomes readily visible is that Metcalf impacts defenses, even when he isn’t on the field. Or perhaps better stated, Metcalf impacts in such a way that it is most felt when he’s not in the game.
With Metcalf missing just the second game of his career against the Buffalo Bills in Week 8, Geno Smith and the rest of the Seahawks offense found yardage and point tough to come by. Turning to the tape to evaluate what happened, it doesn’t take long to recognize one of the biggest issues.
Specifically, the Bills defense was consistently condensed, with all eleven defenders within ten yards of the line of scrimmage. This limited the amount of space in the underneath and intermediate levels, as well as kept running lanes clogged for Kenneth Walker and Zach Charbonnet. Simply put, without Metcalf in the game, Buffalo simply had zero fear of Geno Smith throwing deep.
Here are a couple of examples of what it looked like for most of the first three quarters, until the Bills held such a commanding lead that they softened up defensively in order to allow Seattle to move the ball and run the clock.
In this second picture, the deep safety is a whopping 12 yards off the line of scrimmage, while the outside corners are playing just off the line of scrimmage, presumably because there is zero fear of getting beat deep by any of the Seattle receiving threats.
To contrast that with examples from other games, here are a few chosen at random, starting with Week 2 against the New England Patriots, who consistently played their deep safety 15 yards off the line of scrimmage and provided some cushion to the Seahawks receivers.
The Miami Dolphins in Week 3 similarly had their deep safety plenty deep.
Week 4 saw a trip east to take on the Detroit Lions.
In Week 5 the New York Giants often played their safeties just 10 yards off the line of scrimmage, but had their defensive backs give cushion, knowing that Dexter Lawrence could wreck the interior of the Seattle offensive line before deep shots would develop.
But they also sprinkled in some deep deep safety alignments.
In Week 6 it was the San Francisco 49ers who were content to let their defensive line get home while their safeties played back. The biggest play of the game for the Seahawks against the Niners was the 37 yard completion on a play where the 49ers did not respect the deep threat and did not have their safeties deep. Otherwise, though, the Niners often had their safeties deep to protect against the deep ball.
Similar story for the Atlanta Falcons in Week 7.
And after reviewing all of those, that’s what makes what the Bills did so jarring. Buffalo didn’t just challenge the Seahawks to beat them deep by playing the safeties shallow and pressing outside receivers on early downs. They did it in third down situations where all that was needed was to allow an underneath completion and then make a tackle short of the sticks, such as on this 3rd & 8.
That’s how little the Bills feared getting beat deep against the Seahawks, on third down and eight yards to go they had one defender more than six yards off the line of scrimmage. One.
So, for those calling for the Seahawks to trade Metcalf, the question obviously becomes what the plan is to threaten opponents in such a way that those opponents actually fear getting beat deep. Seattle doesn’t have another speedy deep threat to counter this in its arsenal of receivers. They don’t have a David Moore or Paul Richardson, who are far from Pro Bowlers or All-Pros, but who could randomly haul in a 40 or 50 yard pass down the sideline at any given time.
And in the absence of that threat, the Seahawks offense becomes extremely limited when Metcalf isn’t on the field, just like everyone saw against Buffalo in Week 8.