Seahawks fans had been clamoring for Darrell Bevell to lose his job as the team’s offensive coordinator for years. They got their wish this offseason when he was replaced by long-time NFL play-caller Brian Schottenheimer.

Based on Schottenheimer’s vision for the 2018 Seahawks offense, this is starting to look like one of those “Be careful what you wish for situations.”

We’re in 2018 and Schottenheimer is stuck in 1988. Passing is king in today’s NFL, and it’s king for a reason: The stats show that running success has little to do with team success. Teams aren’t passing more because they are “soft” — or whatever old school football fans say about the sport these days. Teams are passing more because teams pay attention to analytics, and the analytics show that more passing leads to more points.

This “run when defenses know it’s coming” approach makes even less sense from the Seahawks’ perspective. Seattle was historically bad at running the football in 2017. They also have one of the five or six best quarterbacks in the league behind center. The offense should be built around Russell Wilson’s skill-set, not some outdated belief that imposing your will with the running game wins games.

The best offensive coordinators in the league understand that running the ball is inefficient. And they’ve figured out how to constantly pick up yardage on early downs without running into a brick wall. Quick three-step passes, bubble screens and traditional screens to a back are far superior options and offer a much greater chance of producing an explosive play. If you have a quarterback who can execute these plays with ease — and Seattle does — then running the ball is of little importance.

The key for the Seahawks offense to improve is not running the ball when the defense knows it’s coming; it’s running the ball as little as possible and putting the ball in its best player’s hands as much as possible. Schottenheimer has it backwards, which shouldn’t come as a surprise if you’re familiar with his work.