By Bob Condotta

The Seattle Times

As a percentage of offensive plays, no team in the NFL ran the ball more in 2018 than the Seahawks.

Seattle finished the year with a run-to-pass ratio of 52.44 to 47.56 percent, the only team in the NFL to run the ball more often than it passed it in a season in which the average team attempted seven more passes a game than it did runs.

Along the way, no team may also have engendered more controversy among its fan base with the way it, well, ran its offense than the Seahawks, especially after a wild card playoff loss to Dallas that left many observers scratching their heads that Seattle stuck as long as it did with a running game that was largely rendered ineffective by a Cowboys defense that appeared to be selling out to stop it (Seattle had just 73 yards on 24 rushes, 28 yards coming on one play).

Seattle coach Pete Carroll later said that knowing how the game turned out, he’d have done things a little differently (though he also largely defended the gameplan and noted that Seattle did adjust to mostly throwing the ball down the stretch).

But in case you think there has been any second-guessing of the team’s overall offensive philosophy this offseason in the wake of that game — and especially after re-signing quarterback Russell Wilson to a contract worth up to $140 million that makes him the highest-paid player in NFL history — offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer made clear Tuesday the Seahawks are sticking with got them to Dallas in the first place last year.

In his first media availability of the offseason on Tuesday following the Seattle’s eighth OTA (Organized Team Activity), Schottenheimer said the plan remains the same — run the football and then use that threat to set up explosive plays in the passing game.

“We make no apologies for how we play,” Schottenheimer said. “We want to run the football. We want to be physical. We want to take our shots.”

Schottenheimer said running well “is always going to be the objective for us. I think we are the best play (action) pass team in the league, I really do. Russ’s ability to throw the ball deep down the field was evident last year.”

Schottenheimer, recall, was hired as the team’s offensive coordinator a year ago following the firing of Darrell Bevell with reviving the running game considered his most important task in the eyes of Carroll.

By any measure he succeeded as Seattle went from 23rd in the NFL in rushing in 2017, averaging 101.8 yards per game and 4.0 yards per carry, to first in 2018, averaging 160 yards per game and 4.8 per carry as Chris Carson also became the team’s first 1,000-yard rusher since Marshawn Lynch in 2015.

And in the eyes of Carroll, it was no coincidence that the passing game also rebounded. After averaging a career-low 7.2 yards per pass attempt in 2017, Wilson averaged 8.1 in 2018, the third-best of his career (and sixth in the NFL) along with tossing a career-high and team record 35 touchdowns.

Whether a good running game really helps the passing game, though, has become a heavily-debated topic in the football world, with lots of analytic studies making a case that there is not much correlation between the two.

But the Seahawks undoubtedly think there is based on the comments of Carroll and Schottenheimer, and what they also say they saw happen last season.

Asked specifically about the team’s run-pass ratio of last season and whether the team would look to alter it any in 2019, Schottenheimer repeated that “we are never going to apologize for the way we run the football. Each game is different. I think you go into each game and you are like ‘hey, what gives us the best to win?’ We feel like we can beat people however we need to beat them and a lot goes into each game — it’s offense, it’s defense, it’s special teams.”

And in fact, the Seahawks often pointed proudly last season to the Carolina game in November, when the Panthers made a concerted effort to stop Seattle’s running game, holding it to just 75 yards — the third-lowest total of the season — and the Seahawks responded by predominantly throwing in the second half to rally for a win on the final play of the game, finishing with a season-high 322 passing yards.

“We have no question in our minds that we can win however we have to win,” Schottenheimer said.

Meaning, yes, the Seahawks will never be headed off from passing if they feel it’s what they have to do to win.

But what the Seahawks also felt was no coincidence was how their season turned around in 2018 after they committed even more fully to the run following the second game of the season. Seattle started 0-2 in 2018, road losses to Denver and Chicago in which it combined for just 38 runs and 69 passes.

That Seattle fell behind early in each game played a role in those numbers.

But after a 24-17 loss to Chicago in which Wilson threw what was his third interception in two games, Carroll and Schottenheimer met and reiterated to each other that they would lead with the run and see where it would take them.

From week three on — when guard D.J. Fluker also entered the lineup — Seattle rushed at least 28 times in every game (and for at least 113 yards in all but the game against the Panthers) in going 10-4 to earn a playoff spot as Wilson threw just four more interceptions, a big reason Seattle also led the NFL with a plus-15 turnover ratio.

That belief in the run undoubtedly cost Seattle in the playoff loss — the Seahawks appeared to be waiting for it to suddenly turn on the way it had almost every other game last season while also remembering that they felt they had abandoned it too soon in the opening two losses (and Carroll later admitted he also underestimated the impact of injuries to Fluker and J.R. Sweezy that he felt made it harder to run against Dallas).

But as Schottenheimer said Tuesday, that game did nothing to alter Seattle’s belief in the run itself.

In fact, with Doug Baldwin retiring and a receiving corps that could depend heavily on two or three rookies, Seattle could open the 2019 season leaning more than ever on a veteran offensive line that is built for the run, as well as a stable of running backs led by Carson and 2018 first-round pick Rashaad Penny, who has drawn raves for his play and conditioning this spring.

“I think the big thing for us just philosophy-wise, making sure that we kind of who who we are,” Schottenheimer said.

Whether anyone else likes it or not.