Pete Carroll insisted through the offseason the Seattle Sea

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RENTON , Wash. (AP) —to their roots of being based around a solid run game.They’ll need to be that way at least in the short term, with wide receiver Doug Baldwin likely out the next couple of games because of an MCL injury in his right knee suffered in the season-opening loss to Denver.Carroll was evasive about an exact timeline on Baldwin and vague about the specifics of the injury. He said it would be “maybe a couple of weeks” for Baldwin, but would only say it would be difficult for Baldwin to be able to play next Monday against Chicago. As for the injury itself, Carroll said “he does have MCL issues,” but provided no other details.No matter how long Baldwin is out, it’s bad news for Seattle’s offense, which showed flashes in the opener against Denver but had too much inconsistency, especially on third downs.“He’ll be able to get back from this. He’ll come back from it. It just depends. We’ve got to see it through,” Carroll said. “It’s really early in the year and we have to take care of him and look after him first and foremost and then we’ll only do what he is capable of doing.”Baldwin was injured in the first quarter of Sunday’s 27-24 loss to Denver. He was rolled up on from behind and left the game, only to return for a brief stint in the second quarter. Baldwin changed out of his uniform into sweats and watched the second half from the Seattle sideline. He played just 11 of 55 offensive snaps.To add depth at wide receiver, Seattle moved Keenan Reynolds from the practice squad to the active roster and released safety Shalom Luani, who was acquired in a trade with Oakland at the end of training camp.While the absence of Baldwin will put more attention on veteran Brandon Marshall and Tyler Lockett, the biggest boost to Seattle’s offense would be getting its run game going. Seattle had 16 total rushing attempts against the Broncos, 14 of those by running backs. Chris Carson and Rashaad Penny each had seven carries, although Carson was far more productive and appears to have earned the nod as the primary ball carrier.Carson finished with 51 yards on his seven carries , along with three receptions. Carroll said Penny is still regaining his form after missing the final couple weeks of the preseason following hand surgery.“Chris was really good and really aggressive with the plays that he had,” Carroll said. “Rashaad looked a little rusty to me and I visited with him about it. He had only one really good week of practice coming back and it wasn’t enough. He needs more work. He wasn’t as responsive as he was before he had to sit out a little while.”The reasons for Seattle’s lack of a run game were plenty, including penalties and down-and-distance situations. But the biggest culprit was Seattle’s inability to extend drives. Seattle was just 2 of 12 on third downs and had no conversions in the first half, when it ran a mere 24 offensive plays.Seattle’s first third-down conversion didn’t come until midway through the third quarter, when Russell Wilson hit Marshall on a 20-yard touchdown on third-and-7. Carroll was most irritated about Seattle missing on several third downs of five yards or less.“Every one of them should have been conversions. That changes the complexion of everything about the game,” Carroll said.NOTES: Carroll said there were no other injuries of significance coming out of the game. … Rookie LB Shaquem Griffin had a rough debut with a few mistakes, Carroll said. Griffin had two tackles and saw Austin Calitro take some of his playing time. “He had some problems on some stuff,” Carroll said. “He got fooled on a couple of things, but he played hard, played tough.” The Seattle Seahawks had late-season runs to get to the top of DVOA in 2012, 2014, and 2015. That probably will not happen in 2018, but the Seahawks are certainly looking like a team on the rise.Seattle is now 10th in DVOA after ranking 11th last week and they are ninth in weighted DVOA. Following Week 12, the Seahawks were 11th overall, 11th on offense , 11th on defense, and 11th on special teams (no typo), and are currently 10th, 10th, 16th, and 9th. The concern there is the defense of course, even after a 43-16 win over the San Francisco 49ers, because the Niners are bad and Nick Mullens/Dante Pettis/Jeff Wilson looked kinda good at various times.Seattle’s next objective: Kirk Cousins, Dalvin Cook, Stefon Diggs, and Adam Thielen. That’ll be much harder to defend, but thankfully Russell Wilson has the offense on the move up.The Seahawks now rank fifth in passing DVOA and 10th in rushing DVOA. They’ve faced the 14th-most difficult schedule of defenses by DVOA, compared to say, the New Orleans Saints, who’ve seen the 30th-ranked schedule — though Wilson has comparable numbers to Drew Brees in many respects. Just saying.The number one ranked passing team is the Kansas City Chiefs , who Seattle hosts in two weeks, and the number one ranked rushing team is the LA Rams, who they’ve already faced twice.Overall, the Seahawks have faced the 10th-hardest schedule by DVOA while the Chicago Bears, a team they could face in the wild card round, has seen the easiest slate of teams this season so far. The Rams could go 15-1 as they face the easiest remaining schedule, while Seattle ranks 22nd in that same category. If the Seahawks have anything going for them maybe (I’m reaching here) it’s that they’re at least balanced with how average they are on defense: 16th against the pass and 15th against the run. They’d probably like to trade up to be better against the pass, especially if they manage to get to the point where they’re facing Brees or Jared Goff in the playoffs, but this is where they stand now without Earl Thomas. The Seahawks struggle against number one receivers, ranking 26th in DVOA against in that category.Individually, Russell Wilson is now 8th in DYAR and 6th in DVOA. Chris Carson is 20th in DYAR, 20th in DVOA, and 13th in success rate. Rashaad Penny’s DVOA of 8.3% is the same as Kareem Hunt’s but on significantly fewer attempts. Tyler Lockett is 1st in DVOA among all WRs with a huge lead over number two Michael Thomas. Jaron Brown is 1st in DVOA for WRs with fewer than 50 targets. Overall, it’s been another nice second half run for Seattle with four games left to go. The next will be a difficult matchup against the Vikings but a big win at home could give them a much bigger push than their blowout win over San Francisco.

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