Seahawks own top-ranked Special Teams unit
Some of Mike Macdonald's early staff decisions did pay off
Jay Harbaugh’s been through it.
There is no question that nepotism is an advantage in coaching with no equal. Seattle’s staff includes both a Harbaugh and a Kubiak in two of the biggest roles under Mike Macdonald and previously Pete Carroll hired two of his sons with the Seahawks, both of whom currently have important roles on the Raiders.
It is also true that coaches who benefit from nepotism have to answer for advantages that they never asked for.
“Name” coaches could be underqualified and rapidly promoted for jobs they don’t deserve, but they can also be extremely good at their jobs and coveted around the league like Sean McVay and Kyle Shanahan. The biggest name in special teams is “Harbaugh”, as John Harbaugh made the rare transition from special teams coordinator under Andy Reid to the Super Bowl-winning head coach of the Baltimore Ravens.
13 years after his uncle John hired him to a minor role on the Ravens staff in 2012, an advantage he probably did ask for, Jay Harbaugh might just be the best special teams coordinator in the NFL.
The Seahawks have the highest EPA (Expected Points Added) on Special Teams in the league (+43.6) according to a chart posted by Sam Hoppen on Twitter. There are not many people even attempting to quantify the value of special teams, so even the most ardent deniers of analytics (sometimes including myself) have to admit that something is better than nothing when it comes to ranking those 32 units around the league.
Larry Izzo’s special teams unit in Washington is a respectable 8th (+14.1). It’s not first, but it is respectable. But it’s not first.
BONUS: How keeping Kenneth Walker fresh is giving Seahawks a HUGE advantage in the NFC playoff race
This is the image from Hoppen. I hope you can read it or click on it to expand it, but special teams is on the right and Green=Good. The Seahawks also rank third in passing offense and first in run defense:
2024’s main problem
Harbaugh’s Seahawks career started from a disadvantageous position because fans liked Izzo (those who even knew of him) and didn’t like the Harbaugh family. Or at best, were skeptical of Jay Harbaugh’s qualifications as a coach who had only been given jobs by family members, including nine years working for his dad Jim at the University of Michigan.
That skepticism turned to vitriol when returners Dee Williams and Laviska Shenault combined to fumble the ball FIVE times. Yes, FIVE times.
That was crazy but it was also hard to imagine why that was Harbaugh’s fault. I even highlighted some of Harbaugh’s creativeness to give Seattle an advantage in spite of having the worst kick returners in football. It wasn’t that Harbaugh could do no wrong — he had to earn his right to stay just as any other coach — but his livelihood had to be more valuable than being fired because an undrafted free agent and a cheap free agent didn’t secure the football.
Aside from the fumbles, Seattle’s special teams unit was maybe “average”? Not a strength or a weakness. So it would be fair to call it a weakness overall because of the fumbles.
Fair enough, but the Seahawks were also in the process of overhauling 60-90% of the team after ousting Carroll for Mike Macdonald and John Schneider’s vision. Seattle had parted with a lot of key special teamers from the past, including Nick Bellore, and Harbaugh had to teach a whole new set of ideas to ingrain into the returning/new players.
Oh by the way in the midst of all of this, the NFL CHANGED THE KICKOFF RULES ENTIRELY!
If anything, a young special teams coordinator who had basically dedicated his entire career to the third phase of football (as few aspiring coaches do) might give the Seahawks an edge over most other franchises given the rapidly evolving nature of special teams….then and still to this day.
A lot of coaches still don’t really know how to address the kickoff — both kicking off and returning — and here’s some perspective on that:
2023 average touchback rate: 73%
2024 average touchback rate: 64.3%
2025 average touchback rate: 17.6%!
I am not an NFL historian, but is this not one of the craziest overnight changes that the league has ever seen?
Some will success, many will fail, but for the time being it appears that Seattle’s decision to replace Izzo with Harbaugh will be one of Macdonald’s best in terms of building the staff. This is not about whether Izzo “didn’t deserve” to be fired, but that maybe the Seahawks saw the same opportunity to upgrade that the Rams did when they traded Jared Goff for Matthew Stafford*.
*To use a QB swap analogy that shouldn’t offend any Seahawks fans
2025’s main advantages
So where could this league-leading EPA come from?
Jason Myers: 28-of-33 on FG, 38-of-38 on XP
Seattle’s kicker leads the NFL in makes (28), attempts (33), and the most extra points converted (38) without a miss. In fact, no other kicker has attempted over 30 extra points without at least one miss.
Furthermore, Myers may not have the leg to beat the Rams from 61 but he is tied for the most 50+ yard attempts (10) and has made 7 of those, including two from 57 yards. Is Myers worthy of being the highest-paid kicker in the NFL? There’s a limit to his ceiling, but Seattle would be taking a risk finding out how low the floor can get if they make a change.
Michael Dickson: 49.8 average, 41.5 net average, 37.8% inside the 20
You can’t really say that any of Dickson’s numbers stand out and I don’t watch every other punter, so honestly I don’t know how much better or worse than him. We saw that punt nailed by Rams’ Ethan Evans. Have I seen one of those from Dickson lately? No. It also doesn’t mean that Evans is better than Dickson, it’s just one punt.
Punting is also so situationally-based given the quality of your team and the Seahawks have a really high quality team — he had ZERO punts against the Cardinals. Dickson’s numbers might be a lot better on a bad team, which defeats the purpose of rating punters.
Overall, I bet we agree that Dickson is doing a fine job. His Y/P is up recently (51.5 over the last 7 games, 43.5 net average) and the one time Seattle allowed a punt return touchdown against the Titans, maybe the refs could have thrown a flag but I don’t really worry about that side of the game. In any case, it’s just one blemish.
Return game: Surviving injuries
Tory Horton still has the longest punt return in the NFL this season (95 yards) and he has been out for a month. In his place, Rashid Shaheed has averaged 12.9 yards per return, which isn’t far off of Horton’s pace at 14.9…which included a 95-yard return.
Remarkably, three different players have two punt return touchdowns (Chimere Dike, who is the guy who returned one vs. Seattle, Marcus Jones, and Parker Washington) and Horton could do it if he comes back.
Dareke Young averaged 32.3 yards per return, which as of today stands as the second-best mark in the NFL behind Ray Davis of the Bills, who has a kickoff return touchdown. Young is expected to return this week.
Kickoffs: 23.6 yards average
The Seahawks are allowing 23.6 yards per kick return, the fourth-best mark in the NFL this season. That’s on 60 returns, which is the second-most in the league because Seattle is scoring so many points. So Harbaugh’s coverage units have to work twice as often as some other teams.
However, the Seahawks are allowing 15.5 yards per punt return, which is the WORST mark in the league. There’s a 90-yard return in there but still, it’s not quite ideal.
Luckily, Seattle doesn’t punt often.
And I don’t know who you credit for this, but teams are making just 77.8% of their field goals against the Seahawks, which is the fourth-worst percentage league-wide. Only 2 teams have had fewer made field goals against them than Seattle’s 14.
We’ve seen more teams blocking field goals and punts this season. The Seahawks have improved in that area too compared to the blunder at the end of the Giants game last season.
This week, the Seahawks face a Falcons special teams unit that has already had to release kickers Younghoe Koo AND John Parker Romo this season.
They’re on veteran Zane Gonzalez now. Per that chart earlier, the Falcons rank 29th on special teams this season. Atlanta’s special teams coordinator is Marquice Williams, a coach who Raheem Morris retained from the previous regime when he was hired in 2024.
Sometimes that’s the right decision. Sometimes you have to strike on an available coach before someone else can.
BONUS: How keeping Kenneth Walker fresh is giving Seahawks a HUGE advantage in the NFC playoff race
Seaside Joe 2467
I am just as guilty of a poor opinion of JH up until something happened this preseason. I wonder to what extent poor special teams is due to an organization downplaying that aspect of the game and making 99% of personnel decisions based on offensive and defensive needs. I feel a lot of people were not high on Brady Russell making the team this year because of how little he showed as a TE and was clearly not a threat to Ouzts as a FB. Yet Mm was always complementing him and it appears he was a solid member of the team. I remember going to the Lumen fan fest intra-squad game and saw Brady Russell playing long snapper. He volunteered for the job and was looking good. The Seahawks clearly have players on the 53 who will see 90% of their snaps this year on special teams. We now see it paying off.
The Pittsburgh game in which the Steelers’ kick returner didn’t know the ball was still live in the end zone only to have Ty Okada pounce on it and be inbounds was the revelation that special teams was being coached at a very high level. They actually drilled for such a scenario and it paid off presciently. It was a big time play that affected the victorious outcome of the game for us. MM has spoken very highly of Jay Harbaugh’s coaching and creativity.
All of us in the peanut gallery only see and judge what’s happening on TV, which is a tiny fraction of the whole picture. During the pre-season there were so many fans calling for his firing. We don’t know anything on how he coaches, communicates, his interpersonal dynamics with his players, and all that goes into it all. Well, the results are showing up pretty darn good. Got a NFC special teams player of the month to boot. He may be a nepo baby but he comes from good football coaching stock and pedigree. He’s young and will probably be coaching at a head coaching level like his uncle down the road.