Pete Carroll could see what was about to happen with his team’s running game on Sunday, but the Seahawks’ coach did not foresee what was about to unfold for his run defense.
The Seahawks ran for a season-high 162 yards against the Dallas Cowboys, including the highest total of 
Carroll and his offensive coaching staff went into last week intent on improving a running game that had been averaging 77.7 yards per game and 3.8 per carry. Carroll not only saw that improvement during the week, he showed it to his players on Saturday night during a team meeting.
“It’s kind of a step up we made in focus,” Carroll said Monday when asked if the marked improvement was Lynch, the line or a combination.
That began with Tom Cable, the assistant head coach and offensive line coach.
“Tom really made a point to offense last week that there were some things we needed to do, and we could do, if we were ready to make it happen,” Carroll said. “What he presented to the players about really getting back to basics and really believing in the scheme and the footwork things that we talk about came to life.
“It came to life during the week – Wednesday’s, Thursday’s and Friday’s practice, it showed up. I showed clips demonstrating what he’d been talking about was coming to the front. And it carried over to the game, which is really a big deal.”
The better blocking and continued hard-running style of Lynch are things that could propel the Seahawks as they move into the second half of their season with Sunday’s game against the Baltimore Ravens at CenturyLink Field.
“We made a conscious effort to do something, they saw it happen and they saw the result of it,” Carroll said. “So we’re hoping to build on that.”
What Carroll didn’t see was the trouble his defense would have containing Murray, who had run for 253 yards against the St. Louis Rams two weeks ago and then averaged 9.3 yards on eight carries against the Philadelphia Eagles a week later.
“They did a nice job,” Carroll said. “They ran the ball around us. They’ve tossed the ball a lot and tried to put the ball on the edge to stay out of really the heart of our defense. They did a nice job with that.
“They hadn’t done much (of that), and we didn’t adjust quickly enough to it to make our plays.”
The Seahawks also missed too many tackles.
“We were in position, but we didn’t tackle,” Carroll said. “This guy was tough to grab and get down.”
And once he got going, there was too much room for him to run. Murray broke runs of 32, 22, 14 and 12 yards, and the longest run the Seahawks had allowed in their first seven games was a 21-yarder.
“He’s playing great football,” Carroll said of Murray. “We could sense his speed – he’s an under 4.4 (second for 40 yards) guy; he’s (227) pounds and he runs with a really good attitude. He made us miss a few times.
“He had probably five or six plays where he made something happen special. He was a force.”
