DK Metcalf dealing with double coverage this season

RENTON — They are covering him with cornerbacks. With safeties. With cornerbacks and safeties at the same time.

There are more clouds around DK Metcalf than Seattle in winter. Cloud coverage, that is, with a safety covering the Seahawks’ leading wide receiver deep and a cornerback on him short.

All that double coverage — and quarterback Geno Smith often not throwing into it — are why Metcalf has had four or fewer receptions eight times in 13 games this season. That includes in each of the last three games. His only NFL season with more games having four or fewer catches was his rookie year, 2019.

Last weekend against the Cardinals in Arizona, Smith targeted Metcalf just six times in 30 pass attempts.

Metcalf’s receptions have gone from a career-high 90 in 2022 to 66 last season to 54 through his 11 games played this season. His 54 receptions are tied for 34th in the NFL. His 90 targets in 11 games is tied with Pittsburgh’s George Pickens (who has played one more game) for 23rd in the league.

What does he set out to do when he’s not getting the ball into all that attention?

Well, win. The Seahawks are 3-0 while he’s been limited to four catches in each of the last three weeks.

And knock down the dudes that are guarding him.

“Trying to block my ass off,” Metcalf said Wednesday, three days before his 27th birthday.

“And trying to get pancakes on defensive backs.”

At Arizona, Metcalf wasn’t getting a pass thrown his way again late in the first quarter with the Seahawks driving inside the Cardinals 30-yard line. Smith appeared to change the first-down play at the line of scrimmage before the snap. He handed the ball to Zach Charbonnet for a run off left tackle. Metcalf ran from the receiver left in a bunch formation into the hash marks to block Arizona safety Budda Baker. The Cardinals, former University of Washington and ex-Bellevue High School star ran away from Metcalf. He chased Charbonnet down the sideline, after the back’s cut outside.

Metcalf chased Baker, from the 19-yard line left hash mark along the left sideline 10 yards downfield. When he reached Baker trying to tackle Charbonnet inside the 10, Metcalf lowered his shoulder and gave Baker a double-forearm shiver. The two-time All-Pro safety went skidding into the turf as Charbonnet lowered into him for a gain of 22 yards, to the 5. Three runs by Charbonnet later, the Seahawks scored a touchdown to take a 17-7 lead.

Wednesday, Metcalf was modest assessing his block of Baker.

Did he go chef mode on him?

“I know it looked like I pancaked him, but Zach helped me,” Metcalf said. “He kind of threw his shoulder in there along with my blocking.”

The Seahawks beat the Cardinals 30-18. They stayed atop the NFC West with four games remaining in the regular season. The next game is Sunday night at Lumen Field against the Green Bay Packers (9-4).

Arizona was another game of Metcalf getting cloud coverage, double-teamed, of again getting just four catches. One of them came with a leap after the reception over standing Cardinals defensive back Starling Thomas.

It was another example of the 6-foot-4, 235-pound Metcalf’s freakish athleticism — and why opponents double-team him.

“I just look at it as a sign of respect that I’ve gained from other defensive coordinators,” he said, “and just continue to do my job with it as blocking or being a decoy. The ball is going to find me one play or another. But if it doesn’t, at least we get the ‘dub.’

“And that’s all that matters in this league is winning and to continue to win. And if you continue to win, you stay relevant.

“So, no, I’m just honing on just continuing to do my job. If the stats don’t say so, then so be it. At least we get to win.”

Rather than force the ball into all that attention, Smith is honoring his reads. He’s throwing to teammates open away from all the coverage on Metcalf.

The primary beneficiary: Jaxon Smith-Njigba. He’s sixth in the NFL with 911 receiving yards and ninth with 75 receptions. The first-round pick from 2023 has the sixth-most touchdown catches in the league, with five.

This doesn’t surprise Mike Macdonald. The Seahawks’ rookie head coach was the defensive coordinator at the University of Michigan in 2021. His Wolverines beat Smith-Njigba and Ohio State at the end of that season.

“Everyone said we played him great,” Macdonald said Wednesday, “and I think he went for like 150.”

This Seahawks season, opponents devoting multiple defenders down the field to cover Metcalf and all the zone coverage with two safeties deep means Seattle also sees fewer foes nearer the line of scrimmage to immediately stop the run. The Seahawks mostly haven’t taken advantage of that this season. They are just 27th in the league at 95.4 yards rushing per game. That’s been because of an ineffective offensive line.

But they were the opposite of that last weekend at Arizona. With line coach Scott Huff mixing pulling and gap-blocking with zone-blocking, the O-line had it best game in years. Charbonnet, filling in for injured lead back Kenneth Walker, romped for a career-high 133 yards and two touchdowns. The Seahawks rushed for 176 yards, their most since week 18 of the 2022 season.

“Having the receivers that we have, the O-line, the running backs,” Smith-Njigba said after Seattle’s second win over the Cardinals in three weeks, “I mean, we feel no one can stop us but ourselves.”

DK Metcalf’s future

Metcalf’s contract ends after the 2025 season. The Seahawks typically extend the deals of their foundational players just before or early in training camp entering the final seasons of their contracts. So the decision point on Metcalf is next summer.

Receiving statistics suggest the team that traded up to draft him in the second round in 2019 out of Ole Miss with him coming off a broken neck, the team that signed him to a $72 million, three-year contract in training camp before his career year of 2022, should not pay him the wide-receiver market rate to retain Metcalf. That is, approximately a $100 million contract for three years.

Yet no NFL team he could shop with potentially in free agency appreciates DK Metcalf’s effect on defenses more than the Seahawks. No other team knows how he opens opportunities elsewhere on the field for teammates. No other team knows exactly how good and dedicated a blocker the son of Terrence Metcalf, an offensive lineman who played 84 games for the Chicago Bears from 2002-08, is.

“My dad played offensive line, so I watched him growing up and admired the blocking aspect of the game,” Metcalf said. “And a lot of (receivers) don’t take blocking seriously.

“And I try to do it just to try to set myself apart from other receivers in the league.”

No coach in the league appreciates him more than Macdonald.

All that adds up to the Seahawks likely re-signing Metcalf next summer, at big bucks that his recent numbers perhaps don’t back up.

“Man, just the competitor. The relentless competitor,” Macdonald said. “Just love seeing him out there, man. Feel good when he’s out there doing his thing.

“But I know that if teams want to play like high-low, double on him, then it’s a little bit tougher to get him the ball. So, we’ve got to keep finding creative ways to make sure he comes alive.”

That’s up to first-year offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb, and to Smith, to do.

“But, when that doesn’t happen,” Macdonald said, “then I think we’ll definitely feel the full DK experience.”