At this point in the season, the only thing that’s worth watching the games for is to see Levis’s development. That’s what made last week’s game against TB so frustrating, not the loss, but Levis having zero chance to do anything. This week looked like it was going to be more of the same until, mercifully, they let Levis cook a bit in the 4th quarter. Surprisingly, Levis’s stat line ended up way better than I would have thought. The 13/17 for 158 yards is not impressive, but the 9.3 yards/attempt, 2 TDs, only 2 sacks taken (felt like more), and rating of 143.8 all stood out as a much better performance than what I would have thought just watching the game.
Obviously, most of his stats came in garbage time, so take them with a grain of salt, but it felt like Kelly and Vrabel finally said “fuck it” and took the training wheels off and let him play, and that’s when he started making plays. I truly think the conservative game plan with a lot of runs, screens, and passes behind or near the line of scrimmage is an attempt to keep him safe because of this Oline, but I really hope that with what we saw at the end of this game, they stop with that nonsense and let him play his game. I think that constantly getting into 3rd and 7 because your super conservative plays get you 4 yards on first and then a loss of 1 on second down is putting Levis in far more dangerous situations than letting him play free and try to make plays down the field.
I’m just happy we got to see something from Levis this week, and hope to see more of that going forward. 6 TDs to 2 Ints for a Rookie’s first 4 games isn’t bad, especially considering the state the rest of the team is in.
They gotta just let the man cook. They can’t blitz every down if he’s stretching the field which keeps him a bit safer. Or if they’re going to go conservative stop only doing screens and behind the line passes those don’t work well when it’s all you do and everyone knows it
Levis is keeping me checked in every week. Hate watching this team just watching for him.
One thing I’m curious of is the operational side of the offense across the board. In the home game vs the falcons that was perfect, but it’s been getting tighter and tighter on these last 3 road games. Seems like the playclock is ticking closer and closer every game he’s been on the road.
I am wondering how much of that (and the resulting delay of game and false start penalties) are on Levis’s communication in the huddle at home vs on the road, and how much of that is the other offensive players around him. Maybe if he had the full group of starters around him. He made some comments immediately after the game about having issues with the speed of everyone getting lined up and needing to improve on his own communication in that aspect.
Generally the defense will give you the underneath stuff when it gets out of hand. He was beating them over the top all game.
As a Seahawks fan that really wanted to draft Levis, watching him get abused by your OL and OC is super painful.
There are no training wheels and haven’t been since he started. We throw screens because teams blitz so much on us. He’s not throwing down field a ton because he doesn’t have the time or no one’s open and he’s not forcing throws
I get that, but I do feel like there can be more plays that utilize Levis getting out of the pocket or moving the pocket to give him more of an opportunity to make a play instead of just quick screens behind the line of scrimmage.