Through two games there is enough blame to go around for the Seattle Seahawks' offensive struggles.
On Thursday, it was offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer's turn to embrace fault for an offense ranked 27th in yards per game and 22nd in scoring.
"I need to do a better job, I'll be the first to say that,'' Schottenheimer said Thursday, via the Seattle Times. "It's just one of those things where you get a lot of thoughts and advice as a play-caller -- not just from [coach] Pete [Carroll] but from everybody until it's third and 22 and you are backed up on your 1-yard line and you are like 'hey guys what do you like? Hello? Hello?' But again, some of it is me learning Pete a little bit. But again, hey look, I get paid to call the plays -- I need to do a better job. Sometimes it gets you off your game when you are looking at different things. It's not Pete, it's just different things, and it's hard to find a rhythm sometimes. But I need to be better, and I will be.''
Schottenheimer replaced Darrell Bevell this offseason as Russell Wilson's offensive coordinator. The son of Marty Schottenheimer has a dismal track record as a pro OC. During his six seasons with the New York Jets, Schottenheimer had just one season as a top-10 scoring offense and one inside the top 15 in yards per game. During a three-year stint in St. Louis, from 2012-2014, he guided offenses that never cracked the top 20 in either category.
The Seahawks' offense has been a mess to open the season, with Wilson running for his life behind a still-faulty offensive line, the running game nonexistent, and Schottenheimer inexplicably not playing to his QB's strengths (see this thread by Danny Kelly of The Ringer for more details on the obtuse play-calling).
The running game continues to be problematic despite the team's efforts to improve it this offseason. Through two weeks, the Seahawks rank 29th in rush attempts (38 total) and rushing yards per game (69.0), and 27th in yards per rush.
"...If you look at week one, I got away from the running game a little bit too fast," Schottenheimer said. "This week, having only six plays in the third quarter, again that was just one of those deals where not converting third downs [made it hard to get more runs]."
The offensive coordinator believes that knowing the problems are half the battle.
"The cool thing that I said to the guys is this -- we know what the issues are. So when you know what the issues are you can address them, you can fix them, you can emphasize them," he said. "It's time of possession, it's third downs, it's sacks. If I was standing up there or if we as a staff looking at them saying 'we really don't know what the issues are, we are just struggling' -- that's not the case. We know what we need to clean up, we have been emphasizing that. We started last week with the red zone and we did a nice job in the red zone this week, so I think we will find our rhythm again this week. But we know we need to be better -- nobody likes sitting here at 0-2 and we are competing to do that.''
Facing a stout Dallas Cowboys defense, which includes a ravenous defensive front and sticky secondary, will make life difficult again for the Seahawks as Schottenheimer attempts to silence the critics.