The Seattle Seahawks enter Thursday night's NFC West battle with the San Francisco 49ers averaging the fewest rushing attempts in the NFL through five weeks.
Offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb took the blame for his unit's lack of balance.
"I'll own that," he said Tuesday, via the team's official website. "Got to get the ball to (Kenneth Walker III) more. And I think we had plenty of run game in the plan, didn't have anything to do with not having enough calls for that, just didn't get called. And for us, we leaned on the wrong thing. And I think if we get Ken 10 more touches, 15 more touches, things are going to look different."
In Sunday's 29-20 loss to the New York Giants, Walker carried just five times for 19 yards, while Zach Charbonnet had two totes for 11 yards. In Week 4 in Detroit, Walker saw just four first-half carries before busting out in the second half of the shootout to score three touchdowns.
The seven running back carries in Week 5 tied for the fewest in a game in Seahawks history, per NFL Research.
Seattle enters Week 6 last in the NFL in rush attempts per game (21.0), yet is seventh in the league in yards per carry (5.0) and tied for third with eight rush TDs.
The success when the Seahawks ride Walker or Charbonnet tells Grubb he must lean on the ground game more.
"It's just falling back on the stuff that you know guys can do well and just examining where your offense is at, the DNA," he said. "What are the things that when you go out and at training camp that these guys can execute? Players over plays. How do we get these guys the ball, even if it's in a competition, or it's a one-on-one setting? And so, you just try to find those niches that are available, which they certainly are."
Geno Smith has been excellent through five games, offering an array of tight-window throws to his trio of talented receivers -- DK Metcalf, Tyler Lockett, Jaxon Smith-Njigba. But, as it did Sunday, the offense has struggled at times with consistency when the ground game disappears and it becomes one-dimensional.
"That's 100 percent on me, and my job is to make sure I get all our guys in the best position possible to win the game," Grubb said. "And I didn't do that."
The only team since 1932 to finish last in the NFL in carries per game while averaging 5.0-plus yards per carry in a season was the 2018 Packers (went 6-9-1 and fired Mike McCarthy in December). However, in Week 6 of that season, Green Bay defeated a Kyle Shanahan-led 49ers team in prime time on a game-winning field goal as time expired. On that night, Green Bay had 21 carries for 116 rush yards and a rushing score.
