For Seahawks, success is the only option

John Schneider's plan to fix the Seahawks started with defense, but up next is the offensive line: Seaside Joe 1976

Who are the most successful teams in the NFL over the past 5 years? This is merely by winning percentage:

Kansas City Chiefs

Buffalo Bills

Baltimore Ravens

Green Bay Packers

San Francisco 49ers

What do they have in common? No, we aren’t going to do that today. It would be too easy to run a brush over these teams and say they all have something in common, but the reality is that any group of five teams have some things in common.

“Oh but they all have great quarterbacks!”

Well, do they? Is Brock Purdy a “great” quarterback? What about half of the time, when Lamar Jackson is not healthy or a great quarterback? I think you could definitely argue that any team will have increased success when they get improved play at the quarterback position. Any franchise would be happy to have Patrick Mahomes, most teams would trade for Josh Allen or Joe Burrow (the Bengals rank 20th in winning percentage since 2019 by the way), but absent the opportunity to have an elite quarterback, what else can teams do to have success?

Wouldn’t it be just as fair to say that those teams have had good-to-great defenses in the past five years, at least most of the time when they were winning games? The Bills have allowed the fewest points in the NFL in the past five seasons, followed by the Ravens with the second-fewest, the 49ers with the fourth-fewest, while the Chiefs rank seventh and the Packers rank eighth in that category.

Mahomes won his third Super Bowl largely thanks to a defense that ranked second in the NFL last season, then had great performances in the wild card, AFC Championship game and Super Bowl.

We know that teams like the Ravens and 49ers lean heavily on their defenses to win games, but it’s not just their quarterbacks who put them over the top: The New Orleans Saints—yes, the Saints—are tied with the Cowboys for the sixth-best record since 2019 at 50-33. Without great quarterback play recently, New Orleans has allowed the sixth-fewest points since 2019. This is a similar story for the Pittsburgh Steelers, a franchise that is 48-34-1 in the past five years and has allowed the fifth-fewest points over that period of time.

Every Super Bowl winning team has to get lucky.

Every Super Bowl winning team has to have competent play and coaching as it pertains to passing the football and scoring points.

But also, every Super Bowl winning team has to be able to lean on their defense at some point.

The team that has allowed the most points in the NFL over the past five years is the Detroit Lions and though they reached the NFC Championship game in 2023, they also got knocked out of the playoffs because of their defense. The Lions had a -19.93 EPA from their defense in the 24-23 wild card win over the Rams (positive EPA is good, negative EPA is bad; -20 EPA is VERY bad) and a -19.87 EPA against the 49ers in the NFC Championship game.

On the contrary, the Chiefs had a +7.2 EPA in their AFC Championship win over the Ravens and a good enough -4.7 EPA in the Super Bowl. If the 49ers had a better defensive performance than -3.42, the Niners would have won the Super Bowl.

So for the Seahawks, the mission statement of the 2024 offseason has clearly been: “We must strive to FIX THE DEFENSE while we have the opportunity to do so and we will worry about the passing game at a later date, if we even need to.”

In the past seven months, the Seahawks have:

• Hired Mike Macdonald as HC/DC

• Hired Aden Durde as DC2

• Hired Leslie Frazier as AHC/DC3

• Re-signed DE Leonard Williams, extended S Julian Love

• Drafted DT Byron Murphy II, LB Tyrice Knight, CB Nehemiah Pritchett, CB D.J. James

• Added LB Jerome Baker, LB Tyrel Dodson, S Rayshawn Jenkins, S K’Von Wallace, DT Johnathan Hankins

Not only do the Seahawks enter 2024 with three expected new starters (Baker, Dodson, Jenkins), and Murphy essentially as a fourth new starter from the end of last season, but Seattle has five other starters who were not with the team in 2022 (Williams, Jarran Reed, Dre’Mont Jones, Devon Witherspoon, Love), in addition to 2022 additions Boye Mafe, Uchenna Nwosu, and Riq Woolen.

This still does not include Derick Hall, Hankins, Mike Morris, Tre Brown, Michael Jackson, Wallace, Coby Bryant, Darrell Taylor, or Cameron Young, for starters.

Is ‘the transition period’ almost over?

In 2021, the Seahawks could not get off the field.

Despite Seattle’s ranking of 11th in points allowed, 10th in points allowed per drive, and 2nd in yards per carry allowed, the 2021 Seahawks defense was also 31st in plays, 30th in time on the field, 24th in yards per drive allowed, 31st in pass attempts and passing yards against, 24th in yards per pass allowed, 25th in takeaways, and 28th in total yards allowed.

The players who are on both the 2021 and the 2024 Seahawks defense:

• Darrell Taylor (543 snaps)

• Jon Rhattigan (0 snaps)

• Tre Brown (255 snaps)

• Marquise Blair (119 snaps)

• Myles Adams (33 snaps)

• Michael Jackson (25 snaps)

There’s no comparison. If you were on that 2021 Seahawks defense, you’re OUT. Taylor’s barely hanging onto a role—maybe he’ll be much better with Macdonald—but with the exception of him and Brown, who was injured for most of that season, nobody who had over 50 snaps on that defense was allowed to continue in his role. The team just brought back Blair for an opportunity despite playing just one defensive snap in the NFL over the past two years.

The next thing you might be wondering is how much Seattle’s defensive personnel changed in 2022 and if the Seahawks showed signs of improvement.

2022-2023 Seahawks defense

Players in the top-7 of defensive snaps in 2022 who remain with the team:

• CB Riq Woolen, 1,134 snaps

• CB Michael Jackson, 1,082 snaps

• EDGE Uchenna Nwosu, 904 snaps

• DB Coby Bryant, 756 snaps

Another player added that season was OLB Boye Mafe (424 snaps), essentially giving us six notable players from that defense who will probably be a part of the 2024 defense when you include Taylor; there’s also Tre Brown, but he only played 21 snaps in 2022.

That season, the first of two with defensive coordinator Clint Hurtt, the Seahawks ranked 25th in points allowed, 26th in total yards allowed, and 24th in points and 22nd in yards allowed per drive. Though the Seahawks saw improvement in turnovers (9th), yards per pass attempt (15th), and passing yards (13th), the defense was still 25th in plays and time of possession, 30th in rushing yards allowed, 26th in yards per carry allowed, 27th in third down defense and 24th in red zone defense.

The Seahawks had actually been 14th in third down defense and fourth in red zone defense in 2021, a campaign that got Ken Norton fired.

It should come as no surprise that the 2023 Seahawks defense was the worst of both worlds:

• Points: 25th in total points allowed, 29th in points per drive allowed, 30th in rushing touchdowns allowed

• Yards: 30th in total yards allowed, 29th in yards per drive, 31st in rushing yards, 21st in passing yards, 27th in yards per carry, 22nd in yards per pass

• Plays: 30th in plays, 32nd in time of possession, 32nd in first downs allowed

• Conversion Rate: 30th on third downs, 23rd in the red zone

And the Seahawks were 22nd in takeaways.

I said earlier that -20 EPA was terrible and Seattle’s defense had six games last season with an EPA of -17.00 or worse, including -24.14 in the thursday night loss to Dallas that the Seahawks desperately needed for their playoff hopes.

Did the Seahawks fix their defense?

Probably. To some degree.

In a way, the last seven years of Seahawks defense reminds me of the seven movies in the Resident Evil franchise: None of the editions are particularly “good” but for some reason I’ve seen every second of both franchises and I can’t imagine a world where the next one is any worse than the most recent one. If only the Seahawks could stop the…

When I think of the last ‘defensive guru’ to be hired as a head coach to fix a team’s defense, I think DeMeco Ryans with the Texans last year. Houston’s defense pre-Ryans was still not as bad as Seattle’s, but the Texans improved from 30th in yards, 27th in points, and 32nd in rushing yards allowed to 11th, 14th, and 6th. And I don’t see the Texans defense as being “too talented to fail” or anything: The only Pro Bowler last season was Will Anderson, probably just due to the name recognition that comes with being a top-3 pick.

Could the Seahawks not get comparable value from Byron Murphy II as a rookie? Could Devon Witherspoon not be as good or better than Texans cornerback Derek Stingley, Jr.?

I don’t want to assign 100% of the credit to Ryans because that wouldn’t be fair. As I’ve been saying all offseason, some improvement will be due to Seattle merely because of regression to the mean. I’m fine with that too: Between the coaching changes, personnel changes, scheduling/weather/injury differences, better luck, and regression, I’d be surprised if the Seahawks do not climb out of the defensive basement.

That’s one of several huge steps needed to get Seattle back to being a respectable and feared playoff team, something that they haven’t been for almost a decade.

What’s next? Not quarterback

It’s the offensive line. That has to come next and I would expect the next year to feel similar to how the Seahawks addressed the defense in the last 18 months, but for the offensive line.

Aside from Abe Lucas having what’s starting to more and more like a “miraculous” recovery needed to cure his knee ailments, Seattle’s biggest offensive priority and hope has to center around the development of Charles Cross because if the Seahawks can at least say that they have a left tackle for the next 10 years, they have checked off the most difficult element to find for a complete offensive line.

You can argue about how center is actually more important because he has to make all the checks and calls for the offensive line, you can say that right tackle is just as important as left tackle these days, you can say that actually the interior is going to be more vital for protecting the quarterback than the tackles against the edges because interior pressure is devastating…

You can’t argue against the fact that even a barely above-average left tackle costs $15 million+ per season (13 left tackles make between $15-$26m per), which is slightly more than right tackles (10 right tackles in this range), while centers and guards actually change teams quite frequently and cost much less. Aside from outlier Penei Sewell, who could very well move to left tackle when Taylor Decker is done, six of the seven tackles making more than $20 million per season play on the left side.

If you want the Seahawks to find an upgrade at center, I guarantee you that they could sign one next year if that’s what they really wanted to do. Hell, they’re scoping out a good center in free agency as we speak! Many of the top guards in the NFL are no longer with the team that drafted them, including Damien Lewis.

So if the Seahawks can get out of 2024 with the knowledge that Charles Cross is their top priority to extend long-term, that’s a major win for the offensive line going into the 2025 offseason. Aside from Lucas and guard Christian Haynes, I don’t know that we can put our hopes into the development of any other Seattle offensive linemen into long-term answers. This is not a criticism of any of them, it’s just waiting to see what happens in the regular season with experience against better defensive tackles and edge rushers than they’ve ever faced in their entire careers to this point.

Which means that yes, even Christian Haynes has a LOT to prove.

If I was running the franchise, I would take advantage of any opportunity to add a quarterback who could be a long-term replacement and upgrade to Geno Smith, which is why the Seahawks traded for Sam Howell. But knowing just how rare those chances are—and how lucky you have to get for the move to actually work anyway—I’d be thinking less about that position and more about setting up the quarterback for success by improving protection by the offensive line.

Even if the Seahawks find themselves with a significant need at receiver next offseason, the next evolution of rebuilding the roster has to be focused on improvement by the offensive line.

It’s time to win meaningful games again

Very few franchises have done as good of a job of being terrible as the Seahawks have done for the majority of Seattle’s existence, but especially in the past 30 years: Since 1995, the Seahawks have only had four seasons with double-digit losses.

Can you name those seasons without looking it up?

Since 2003, the Seahawks have made the playoffs 15 times and missed the playoffs only six times. Seattle has made three Super Bowl appearances since 2005 and posted 18 winning seasons since hiring Mike Holmgren in 1999. That’s 18 winning seasons and only seven losing seasons, four of which still had seven wins.

Any talk of the Seahawks potentially “needing” to have one really bad year so that they can draft an elite player like a Myles Garrett, Nick Bosa, or Aidan Hutchinson, I think that completely overlooks the fact that Seattle actually isn’t the type of franchise that tends to “collapse” every now and then. Aside from the infamous 1992 season and a really unfortunate transition between Holmgren and Jim Mora in 2008-2009, this isn’t that kinda franchise.

Besides, did the Chiefs need to collapse to get Mahomes or Chris Jones or Travis Kelce? No. The Chiefs were a good team the year before they traded up for Mahomes, and they nabbed Jones and Kelce on day two of the draft.

The Ravens don’t collapse either. They have only had one top-10 pick in the last 20 years, which they used to pick left tackle Ronnie Stanley in 2016, similar to Seattle’s decision to choose Cross in 2022. Baltimore grabbed Kyle Hamilton at pick 14, right next to where the Seahawks got Murphy in this year’s draft.

If you know what sort of system you are going to run for at least the next 3-4 years, if you have keen awareness of your own identity, then great players will fall into your lap in the draft! Because they’ll be great FOR YOU. This is how the Seahawks had so much success with their later picks in the beginning of Pete Carroll’s tenure and it would seem as though Seattle’s employed a similar strategy focusing on “identity” in their last few drafts too.

For the Seahawks, being a crappy team is just unacceptable and even if Macdonald was given assurances that he’s allowed to have some growing pains in his first run as a head coach, the franchise is always going to expect to make the playoffs. Being allowed a “mulligan”—like how Pete was practically allowed two of them to start his tenure and that was 7-9—won’t change the fact that Mike took a job with a team that expects to win and that’s not the way he wants to start.

If it was acceptable to have one 4-13 season at the start of your head coaching career, then Mike should have gone to Arizona.

Losing is completely, 100%…no…5000%…unacceptable. If it happens, okay fine we’re probably going to accept it and give Mike the opportunity to learn from what went wrong and come back better the next year and Seattle’s plan to fix the defense and offensive line is not an overnight plan. It’s a multi-year plan. But just keep in mind that of the last five 10-loss seasons in Seahawks history, three of the coaches were gone after that year, and Pete was gone two years later despite going 9-8 both seasons.

The Seahawks aren’t the Lions or the Bengals or the Jaguars or the Jets, “Hey, it’s okay, be terrible for awhile! It’s good for us probably.” No, this isn’t that kind of franchise. With so many resources poured into the defense in the last year, and the offensive line on deck for the front office focus, I don’t expect losing to be an immediate problem for Mike Macdonald.

I expect him to find a way because that’s typically what Seahawks head coaches tend to do. Those that don’t—and there aren’t many of them—weren’t Seahawks head coaches for very long.

By the way—this is probably why only 2.5% of you answered the “Seahawks will go 7-10 or worse” poll in last week’s expectations fan survey. I tried really hard to separate the survey in a way that would hopefully get a few more people to answer the lower-optimistic survey (please don’t go in there now to answer the poll unless you legitimately think the Seahawks will win less than 8 games and haven’t already participated in another poll) by upping the ante to 7-10, which I mean, is basically the same as 8-9. I couldn’t make the survey any more enticing, going to 8-9 is just too many wins to say that you’re not expecting a decent season from the Seahawks.

It could just mean that fans recognize that the Seahawks will at least be as good as they were for most of their existence—I get that and I do not expect the Seahawks to go 7-10 either—but I also know how to fix this and get more people to answer the other survey…I can just post it after one Seahawks loss.

The results for this survey though are coming soon this week, make sure to subscribe not to miss the results!