5 defensive position battles to watch during Seahawks offseason
Which competitions are open for Seahawks HC Mike Macdonald? Seaside Joe 1893
After watching some more YouTube videos on Mike Macdonald this week, I was inspired to research how much the Baltimore Ravens changed their defensive personnel during his two-year tenure as the team’s defensive coordinator. If the Ravens had to find a significant number of new faces because they had particular skillsets that could give Macdonald the versatility he asks of his players, does it mean the Seattle Seahawks are only beginning the process of turning over the roster?
And how much more competitive will starting and almost-starting defensive position battles get in his first training camp/season as the Seahawks head coach?
First, we have to look at the 2021 Ravens (pre-Macdonald) compared to the 2022 Ravens (Macdonald era):
DB Kyle Hamilton (draft): Though Chuck Clark kept his job at strong safety and Brandon Stephens still played a lot of snaps at free safety and Geno Stone saw an increase of over 200 snaps, Macdonald found 548 snaps for the 14th overall pick in the draft.
S Marcus Williams (free agency): The Saints gave Williams the franchise tag in 2021 and then the Ravens paid him a five-year, $70 million contract in 2022 to jump ship. Williams has been injured a lot the past two seasons, forcing Macdonald to dip into his reserves more than he probably wanted to. Sidenote: I still can’t believe this is the same guy who let Stefon Diggs score in the 2017 playoffs. Who knew at the time he’d become one of the highest-paid safeties in history?
LB Roquan Smith (mid-season trade): Midway through the season, the Ravens traded a second round pick+more for a linebacker who has been a first-team All-Pro in each of the past two years with Baltimore. The move essentially replaced Tyus Bowser, a linebacker who had started 17 games in 2021 but is currently looking for work after a series of injury setbacks.
There are several smaller moves that didn’t have a long-term impact, like adding Jason Pierre-Paul or getting back Marcus Peters from injury, but similar to Seattle’s first offseason with Macdonald there wasn’t as much boat-rocking as you might have imagined.
2022 to 2023:
NT Michael Pierce (free agency): He started his career in Baltimore, spent a year with the Vikings, then returned in 2022 but missed 14 games. Pierce then played a ton of snaps last season (55% of the defense’s total) and this feels similar to Seattle adding Johnathan Hankins in free agency.
It’s also worth noting that with Macdonald, DT Justin Madubuike saw his reps go up and then obviously his value followed, going from a solid rotational player in 2021 to an All-Pro who signed for $25 million per season pre-free agency. Of course, this is the player that Byron Murphy gets compared to the most.
OLB Jadeveon Clowney, OLB Kyle Van Noy (free agency): The Ravens appear comfortable rotating through edge rushers, whether that’s JPP or Clowney and Van Noy, and the Seahawks opted for a defensive tackle in the draft rather than an edge like Dallas Turner or Jared Verse.
DB Room: I don’t have just one player to mention here, but it’s rare to see a defense go through a season without having a single cornerback play in over 50% of the snaps; not just a defense, but the number one defense. CB Marlon Humphrey played 1,053 snaps in 2022, however injuries held him to 541 snaps in 2023. Among cornerbacks, that was the most on the Ravens. Yes, that means Hamilton had to play corner and he did play a lot of snaps, but among guys who have no positional ambiguity and are cornerbacks, Macdonald wasn’t given any consistency with regards to who covered those outside receivers last season and yet he made it work.
In a post for ESPN this week, Jeremy Fowler wrote that the Seahawks had fourth round grades on both fifth round corner Nehemiah Pritchett and sixth round corner D.J. James. No, a fourth round grade is not going to set the front office on fire, but who stands in their way? Fourth and fifth round picks (Tre Brown, Coby Bryant, Riq Woolen), former undrafted free agents (Mike Jackson), street free agents (Artie Burns); Pritchett and James are going to be as involved in camp competitions as a day three pick could be involved.
Fans could then assume that an actual fourth round pick like Tyrice Knight, who Macdonald noted on Seattle Sports last week “sees the game slowly” and attacks the ball like a linebacker should, might also have a chance to win a significant role out of training camp.
What will the Seahawks 2024 training camp competitions potentially look like in Mike Macdonald’s first year as head coach? If Seattle’s path to rebuilding the defense looks anything like Baltimore’s (and as a reminder, the Ravens went from 25th in yards allowed pre-Macdonald to a top-10/top-5 defense since then) then the first changes will be few, but significant (Hamilton, Roquan) and then gradually increase with less-publicized changes, as well as searching for hidden values that are already on the team.
This will be a diagnosis of the Seahawks defensive positions post-draft, pre-OTAs and training camp, and who might have a chance to win a job or is in danger of losing a job in 2024.
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Okay, there’s the boring paragraph that is necessary for Seaside Joe to write due to the financial needs of being alive, now back to the good Seahawks stuff:
Here is a rundown of the Seattle Seahawks defensive position battles…