Ryan Grubb’s pants are on fire.

A few weeks ago, according to ESPN’s Brady Henderson, the infamous meeting between John Schneider, Mike Macdonald and Ryan Grubb at Dino’s Pub in Renton in February likely included Grubb’s suggestion that he could lead a more balanced offense in the NFL.

Before getting the job, Grubb had to convince Macdonald that he could transition to a balanced offense after coordinating some of college football’s most pass-heavy offenses at Washington and Fresno State while working for head coach Kalen DeBoer.

That never happened, and the Seattle Seahawks are on the outside looking in for the 2024 playoffs due to the NFL’s most lopsided offense.

Entering Week 18, Seattle is averaging 22.4 rush attempts per game.

Check out this list of winners:

The Seahawks, second to last in the league, ran the ball 16 times against the Green Bay Packers and 15 times against the Minnesota Vikings before finally mustering 25 attempts against the Chicago Bears. In the two losses, five of those carries didn’t even come from running backs.

But is it really that wrong? No, it’s actually much worse.

Some of these teams that rank last in rush offense also have played the fewest games in the league. Put the Jets, Carolina Panthers and Jacksonville Jaguars in this camp.

However, Seattle is right in the middle of the NFL at 61.1 plays per game, ranking 19th.

After that, the Seahawks are the fourth-best team with 3.3 sacks per game, which means that plays that are technically neither run nor pass in the statistics are called passing plays.

Let’s take part of this calculation as a percentage of the total offense.

Rushing games:

SEATTLE
35.7% of all crimes

JETS (the other worst team)
35% of the total crime

LOS ANGELES RAMS (unlikely division winner)
42.7% of all crimes

ARIZONA CARDINALS
43.2% of all crimes

SAN FRANCISCO 49ERS
44.1% of all crimes

In neutral game scripts, Seattle is one of the most pass-heavy teams in the league.

I don’t know, man.

What really intrigued me this year was that even DK Metcalf was pursuing this concept. The DK-crazy Metcalf, currently nowhere near his peak performance and dealing with a few injuries, suggested his team should run the ball more:

I can’t remember a recipient ever saying that. Coach Macdonald can talk about running the ball all he wants, but when the players threw themselves into the fray, it felt like a death knell to the team’s belief in the offensive coordinator’s ability to coordinate the offense.

Complaints have become whispers and rumors have become beliefs that the Seahawks could part ways with Grubb in the coming days. We don’t have any significant reports, but I’m one of those who went from summer optimist to lazy disappointment. As with rookies, it’s hard to predict what specific NFL nuances will be difficult for someone to learn, but I didn’t foresee Grubb’s steadfast refusal to attempt a consistent running game outside of a drive against the Chicago Bears.

It was fun to dream about what success could look like for the University of Washington in Seattle. Instead, it was an uninspired disaster most of the time and left big questions on offense that remain unanswered before the offseason.