THE CHEAP SEATS with STEVE CAMERON: Norton takes the fall for Carroll's defense

No surprise No. 1 …

Pete Carroll will be back coaching the Seahawks in 2022, working with GM John Schneider.

Seriously, where would team owner Jody Allen find a coach guaranteed to be better than Carroll, a serial winner who basically only stumbled to that 7-10 record this season because Russell Wilson got hurt?

She couldn’t, and thus it will be business as usual at the top of the Seahawks food chain.

However, that leads us, almost predictably, to …

No surprise No. 2 …

Defensive coordinator Ken Norton Jr. is getting the boot, along with defensive passing game coordinator Andre Curtis.

I’ll give you some statistics in a sec, but if you’ve watched the Hawks over the past couple of years, you know that the defense has had a hell of a time getting off the field.

In both 2020 and 2021, the Seahawks were awful on that side of the ball early in the year, then rallied to become respectable down the stretch.

BUT THE numbers …

Oh, man, the numbers.

Seattle surrendered 379.1 yards per game this year, which ranked a dismal 28th in the NFL.

That was a regression from 2020, when the Hawks were nearly as poor and landed 22nd in yards allowed.

The Seahawks were especially awful against the pass this season, coughing up 265.4 yards per game — a far-from-handsome 31st in the league (which you likely know has only 32 teams).

None of this will surprise you, not with the chaos at cornerback early in the season.

Since the corners couldn’t be trusted, the Seahawks had to sit deep in a “Cover 2” and allow an endless succession of short passes that piled up all those yards — and time of possession.

No surprise No. 3 …

Seattle had the ball on offense for less time than any team in the NFL.

Actually, this “bend-but-don’t-break” philosophy eventually kept the Hawks competitive, particularly once D.J. Reed became the right cornerback (after switching from the other side).

Seattle wound up yielding 21.5 points per game, a respectable 11th in the league — but to get there, the defense had to stay on the field nearly forever.

NO ONE has been crowned the new defensive coordinator — which really is a caretaker job, since Carroll has been the brains of the defense since his arrival in 2010.

According to a story in the Seattle Times, Norton’s replacement could come from inside (assistant head coach/defensive line coach Clint Hurtt) or outside (Broncos defensive coordinator Ed Donatell is considered on the shortlist of candidates).

Whoever gets the job, however, will have to work with Carroll to figure out how to make the Seahawks more aggressive.

Sitting back defensively because you’re worried about getting burned by a big play has never been Carroll’s style.

Pete’s brand of football is based on possessing the football — clinging to it on offense and taking it away on defense.

The Seahawks of the past two or three years have not played like that, offering up a soft pass rush (until the second half of this past season) and very little “press coverage” by the corners.

Carroll and his new defensive coordinator will have to find ways to dictate games if they want takeaways — which essentially would be a return to classic Seahawks football.

They will need new schemes, and …

Perhaps a few new athletes to run them.

Email: scameron@cdapress.com

Steve Cameron’s “Cheap Seats” columns appear in The Press on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. He also writes Zags Tracker, a commentary on Gonzaga basketball which is published weekly during the season.

Steve suggests you take his opinions in the spirit of a Jimmy Buffett song: “Breathe In, Breathe Out, Move On.”