When Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson attended Jon Gruden's QB camp in 2012, one of the topics they discussed was going empty.
That is, an offensive look with five pass-catchers going out into routes and no running backs in the backfield. It's a concept that Wilson had success with in college and one that the Seahawks used to destroy defenses in 2015.
"I think we've done a great job of that, really for a while now of being in empty," Wilson said. "Kind of reviewing at the halfway point last year, especially. We were like, 'That's something that we do really well and we want to be in that, it's a good thing for us.' Then obviously when Marshawn [Lynch] and [Thomas] Rawls went down, OK, let's capitalize on that even more and got the playmakers out in the flanks that can make those plays.
Wilson averaged 10.3 passing yards per attempt when the Seahawks were in empty last year. That was the top mark in the NFL. He completed 74.7 percent of his passes, which was fourth. The story added the Seahawks like to use motion or shifts to empty, and showed an example in this story of Fred Jackson in the backfield shifting out wide. Of course this year, that's likely to be Christine Michael or C.J. Prosise, who was drafted to be a third down back. The Seahawks used empty 11-percent of the time last year, fifth most in the league, and the story said it could be a bigger part of the offense this year.
Seahawks news
