Inside Improvement: Seahawks DT/LB preview

How Seattle's overhaul in the middle of their defense has stacked the deck in Mike Macdonald's favor this season

For a coach as committed to stopping the run as Pete Carroll, you would not have expected the Seattle Seahawks to let the depth chart at defensive tackle and linebacker get as bad as it became in 2022. Carroll attempted to atone for that roster’s deficiencies by bringing back Bobby Wagner and trading for Leonard Williams, but it was much too late and far too little:

The Seahawks ranked 31st against the run in 2023.

Now let’s compare Seattle’s 2022 depth chart to the one that John Schneider has assembled for 2025:

• 2022 DL: Al Woods, Poona Ford, Shelby Harris, Quinton Jefferson, Myles Adams, Bryan Mone

• 2025 DL: Leonard Williams, Byron Murphy II, Jarran Reed, Johnathan Hankins, Rylie Mills, Mike Morris, etc.

• 2022 LB: Jordyn Brooks, Cody Barton

• 2025 LB: Ernest Jones IV, Tyrice Knight, etc.

No disrespect to when those players were at their peak, but Woods was 35-years-old in 2022 and would only play six more games in his career after that; Harris is a good player but should only be a team’s fourth-best defensive end; Jefferson has bonuced around with three different teams in the past two years and is currently a free agent; Ford is on his fourth team in the past four years (he’s with the Rams now) and is also a good player, but was also probably too high in the pecking order.

Imagine Poona Ford if he was on Seattle’s defensive line now, spelling Williams, Murphy, and Reed. Wouldn’t that make more sense?

In the past two years, the Seahawks have brought back Reed, traded/re-signed Williams, and drafted Murphy. A defensive line that totally annihilates the top-three options in 2022.

Moving to the reinforcements behind them, Seattle also brought back Wagner but despite leading the NFL with 183 tackles in 2023, wasn’t the right fit for a regime looking to start over when Carroll was fired and Macdonald was hired. The Seahawks also let Brooks leave in free agency and after a brief flirtation with disaster at the position, managed to replace Jerome Baker and Tyrel Dodson by trading for Ernest Jones last season. At the same time, Macdonald promoted Tyrice Knight to full-time starter.

Was it just “convenient timing” that Seattle’s rushing yards allowed improved from third-worst in the first eight games of the season to seventh-best in the final nine games?

It’s unusual to lump defensive linemen with linebackers, but truthfully we just need to move these previews forward and skip to the end of it before training camp is over. Plus, it does make sense: Offensive linemen don’t just block defensive linemen for running plays…

They have to also get to the second level. Defensive linemen and linebackers work in tandem (and also with the secondary sometimes) to stop the run.

Carroll cares deeply about stopping the run but he lost the plot. Mike Macdonald and Schneider have the Seahawks back to actually stopping the run.

Excitement/Worry Levels

Leonard Williams: 9/10 Cam Heyward incoming?

For most defensive players I would not bring up Heyward’s name as a comparison, but most players aren’t Leonard Williams. Football is quite heavily based on things that can’t be taught (athletic traits and mental toughness) and Williams was a top-10 pick in 2015 for those reasons.

He was probably misclassified as a “defensive end” which makes people think that the player is going to have 12+ sacks every year if he’s good, so Williams has often been cited as a disappointing pick for the Jets. In reality, the Jets are such a bad organization that they couldn’t see what was right in front of them: Leonard Williams was the best first round player New York had drafted since Darrelle Revis in 2007.

But when it came time to pay him, the Jets instead traded him to the Giants for a third and a fifth, a deal that netted them safety Ashtyn Davis and corner Michael Carter. This is why the Jets pick in the top-10 every year.

In his first full season with the Giants, Williams posted career-highs in sacks (11.5), TFL (14), and QB hits (30) for a defense that improved from 30th to 9th in points allowed.

That year, votes instead elected CHASE YOUNG to the NFC’s Pro Bowl roster instead of Williams. Young had worse stats across the board, some by a mile, including about half as many pressures.

Williams, whose versatility has allowed him to play from every spot on the defensive line during his career, has always been willing to forego individual pass rushing statistics if that’s what is best for the team. In the 1.5 seasons prior to being traded to Seattle, Williams had 4 sacks in 20 games.

But put in a position to rush the passer, Williams has against stepped to the forefront of the position even as he hits his 30s:

• Williams has 15 sacks in 26 career games with the Seahawks

• He also has 39 QB hits, including 28 last season

• Williams was credited with 30 pressures last year and 45 total since coming to Seattle

It can be tricky, especially now, to separate players based on whether they’re a defensive tackle or a 5-tech or an outside linebacker, but the only 300+ lb player (I’m aware of) with more pressures last season was Chris Jones. His impact was so significant that Heyward’s is the first name that comes to mind as a comparison for what Williams could accomplish in the second half of his career.

Heyward is also a former first round pick (and their combine numbers are basically identical) and nobody really paid attention to him over the first six years of his career. Then at 28, Heyward made his first All-Pro team. In the past eight seasons, Heyward transformed his career from “Hall of Very Good” to basically being a shoo-in for the Hall of Fame.

“Shoo-in? You sure about that?”

I bet there isn’t a four-time first-team All-Pro not in the Hall of Fame. This may be an overreaction, but PFN ranked Heyward as the second-best player in the NFL right now. At age 36!

Williams has every right to say that he was better in his 20s than Heyward was in his 20s. Now can he be as good as Heyward in his 30s?

Signed through 2026, Williams could sign an extension with the Seahawks are soon as next offseason because he’s been agreeing to 3-year deals and consistently getting better every time. His $21.5 million AAV now looks like “too much of a discount” compared to when he signed it, but it will depend on him repeating his 2024 season. Given the coaching staff and the surrounding talent, and that the jerseys don’t say “JETS” on them, I see no reason why he can’t.

Film clip of the day: Every defensive formation explained in 12 minutes

Byron Murphy II: 7.95/10 waiting…

As I just said, you can’t be too sure of what a player is based on one year of playing in the NFL. Murphy’s rookie season was hard to notice unless you were intently paying attention to every snap because he didn’t make a lot of the impact plays that fans tend to notice:

• 0 sacks after he had a 0.5 sack in Week 2

• 2 TFL, but none after Week 7

• 0 QB hits aside from that 0.5 sack

• 2 pressures from Week 3-18

Fair or not fair? It doesn’t really matter what’s fair. We just won’t notice a defensive lineman unless he’s making plays behind or at the line of scrimmage. Murphy’s second season will not be defined by Seattle’s defensive performance as a whole, but by how his individual contributions mattered.

We might end up having to go deep into the weeds about setting up his teammates for success by two-gapping and taking on double-teams, but it sure would make our jobs easier if he just started blowing guards and centers up every week.

Jarran Reed: 8/10 underrated

I can’t think of the 2016 draft without remembering that Rob Staton compared Sheldon Rankins to Aaron Donald. Nine seasons later, Reed (who went 37 picks after Rankins) has three times as many season with double-digit QB hits (6) as Rankins does. I’m just surprised that Rankins is still in the NFL.

The 2016 draft class had Reed, Rankins, Chris Jones, DeForest Buckner, Javon Hargrave, Kenny Clark, Maliek Collins, and David Onyemata, so the defensive tackle/5-tech position was stacked that year. Jones is on a Hall of Fame level, and Buckner would be a level below that, but Reed is as good as anybody else from that group, if not better.

Reed’s amassed 38.5 career sacks, which is more than Clark (35), and Rankins has 30.5, which is only two more than Seattle’s fifth round pick that year, Quinton Jefferson.

Playing in Macdonald’s system for the first time in 2024, Reed had 15 QB hits and 24 tackle assisted, both of which are the second-highest totals of his career.

Reed has also been a significant presence for the locker room and quote machine:

Ernest Jones IV: 7.06/10 hoping I was wrong about him

I never felt Jones was that good for the L.A. Rams and I don’t feel bad about that. I still don’t think he was good for the Rams.

Jones was better when he got to Seattle and he was on a 160-tackle pace during the 10 games he played for the Seahawks. 160 tackles would have ranked third in the NFL behind Zaire Franklin and Budda Baker, but both of those players had much worse missed tackles rates than Jones.

• Franklin 12.2% missed tackles

• Baker 9.9% missed tackles

• Jones 6% missed tackles

The $9.5 million AAV contract he signed in March is the perfect level of investment for Seattle: It says “We like you, but we can live without you.”

Jones’ deal is just the 18th-highest AAV among all off-ball linebackers in the league. And his $5.28 million cap hit in 2025 doesn’t rank inside the top-25.

Tyrice Knight: 5/10 honestly just need to get to know him better

We all need to get to know Seattle’s 2024 fourth round pick better, including Macdonald. Knight had 65 tackles in the last eight games, which is a pace of 138, but he also had four QB hits and two pass deflections. There may be some value there against the pass too.

Linebackers can take extraordinary leaps from year 1 to 2, so that’s the hope and all we can do is fans is sit back and wait.

DL Depth (Mike Morris, Johnathan Hankins, Rylie Mills, J.R. Singleton, Quinton Bohanna, Brandon Pili, Bubba Tomas, Anthony Campbell): 2/9 injured

Hankins wasn’t practicing at the time of me writing this, while Mills is expected to be out for several more months. There’s not much positive to say about the depth here, but most of these players haven’t had much time to gain experience, if any. The Seahawks may yet add more help to the defensive line between now and Week 1.

LB Depth (Drake Thomas, Josh Ross, D’Eryk Jackson, Patrick O’Connell): 8/10 worried

Seattle’s LB depth is considered one of the greatest weaknesses on the team. Will Jackson take a larger-than-expected role by default? The Seahawks may also need to address linebacker on the waiver wire after final cuts.

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