At his end of the season press conference on Monday, Seahawks coach Pete Carroll defended offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell’s work in 2016 by saying that Bevell’s critics “don’t know what they’re talking about.”
The Seahawks offense dropped from fourth in the league in both points scored and yards gained to 18th in points and 12th in yards, but any assessment of the work done by the unit has to take into account how poor the offensive line was over the course of the season. Russell Wilson was sacked 42 times and hit 111 times while the team’s running game never found consistent success.
Fixing the problems up front would likely help create a better impression of the work done by Bevell, but Carroll cautioned against expecting the team throwing money at the problem this offseason.
“That’s not how we -- ‘OK, let’s take money and put it here and all of a sudden you’re going to get better,’” Carroll said, via the Seattle Times. “You’ve got to get guys that can play worthy of it, and when they demonstrate that then they get paid. We’ve shown that we understand that and are committed to that mentality. I don’t think you can just buy your way to it. We’re not going to do that. We’re not going to go out and spend a ton of money in free agency on one guy to try to save the day. That’s now how we function at all.”
The Seahawks were very young on the offensive line and left tackle George Fant is a recent convert from basketball, so it’s not hard to see why the team would focus on developing what’s on hand than trying a spending spree. That effort could be complicated if offensive line coach Tom Cable lands the 49ers head coaching job, but, one way or another, the line has to be better for the Seahawks offense to fully take flight.