These guys are problems
3 NFC West players who could give the Seahawks big problems
Larry Fitzgerald. Frank Gore. Aaron Donald.
They’re among the names that Seahawks fans wish they could forget, or better yet that we never had to get to know so well because of how consistently dominant they were against Seattle in division rivalry games.
Those three players are retired. These three players are perhaps only getting started:
DE Jared Verse, Rams
Verse is a very simple pass rusher, but also an extremely effective one. He’s basically a pitcher with a 103-mph fastball and nothing else in his arsenal and that’s enough to make him a dangerous weapon on the Rams defense. Verse could have the best bull rush in the NFL and he used it more than any other player in 2024, mostly because he was also perhaps the most effective bull rusher in the NFL despite being a rookie.
This breakdown video by James Foster on YouTube (click here) does an excellent job of highlighting why Verse’s bull rush is so good, not just against bad and mediocre tackles, but he is able to overpower the best tackles in the NFL. He did it consistently against Charles Cross and retired Pro Bowler Terron Armstead recently said on a podcast that Verse is the player he’s most happy he won’t have to face again.
If you’re wondering why Verse was a decisive winner of the Defensive Rookie of the Year award despite only having 4.5 sacks and a missed tackle rate over 20%, the bull rush is why; Verse could be one of the top-5 most disruptive edge rushers in the league this year. He believes he left at least 10-12 sacks on the field last season because of inexperience and Verse could be right about that.
Although it doesn’t seem like Verse will ever have a very di-verse set of moves, he may not need any other weapons. The one thing he does well is also a kryptonite for tackles like Cross. Nobody’s quite sure how Abe Lucas will do this year, or if he’ll even be healthier than he’s been the past two years, but if he’s out or he’s subpar then L.A.’s defensive line (also featuring OLB Byron Young, another pass rusher who heavily favors the bull rush, and DT Braden Fiske, who had 8.5 sacks as a rookie including 2.5 vs. Seattle) could be a bigger problem for the Seahawks than Sean McVay’s offense.
TE Trey McBride, Cardinals
As Verse tries to put himself into the top-5 conversation for his position, McBride is already there. By the end of the season, he could be a popular choice as the best tight end in the NFL.
The year before Tory Horton transferred to Colorado State and had 71 catches for 1,131 yards, the leading receiver on the Rams was McBride in 2021:
Trey McBride had 90 cathces for 1,121 yards as an All-American senior for Colorado State.
Despite his production, McBride fell to pick 55 in the 2022 draft, in the process getting passed over by the Seahawks two times in the second round (Boye Mafe, Kenneth Walker) because Seattle had just traded for Noah Fant. Nothing against Mafe and Walker but could that be one of Pete Carroll’s least favorite sequence of decisions towards the end of his Seahawks career?
It will take a considerable flip in 2025 for either of them to have the same impact as McBride (and we definitely don’t expect it from Fant), who in addition to being generally good against most teams, also had a career-high 133 yards against the Seahawks in Week 12 of last season. (Highlights here if you dare.)
Seattle has problems with James Conner (career-high 150 rushing yards and 204 total yards against Seahawks in Week 18 of 2023) and Budda Baker (career-high 18 tackles in Week 14 against Seahawks last season) too, so it wasn’t easy to pick McBride here.
With Mike Macdonald, Seattle doesn’t necessarily have the same problems defending tight ends as they did when Carroll was the head coach (the Seahawks only gave up 4 touchdowns to tight ends last season and were middle of the pack in yards) but if McBride was only starting to scratch the surface last season, then the Cardinals could have a tight end who is Travis Kelce as a receiver and George Kittle as a blocker.
QB Brock Purdy, 49ers
As much as I don’t want to do this one, I think it’s too easy for Seahawks fans to push against the idea that Purdy is a good quarterback simply because he was the last pick of the draft and he’s on the 49ers. I love bashing Niners as much as the next fan, but this is not Colin Kaepernick 3.0 or Jimmy Garoppolo 2.0 and that’s as evident as it needs to be in the game results:
Garoppolo went 2-5 against the Seahawks with only one win greater than 5 points
Kaepernick went 1-7 against the Seahawks and the win was by 2 points
Purdy is 5-1 against the Seahawks and the wins are by an average of 13.6 points per win
You can’t say that Kaepernick had a worse head coach, or even a worse team around him. Garoppolo had the same head coach/playcaller as Purdy and most of the same team. The 49ers were not even good last season and their third-best offensive performance of the season came against Macdonald’s defense in a 36-24 win on Thursday. Seattle’s win over the 49ers needed a Geno Smith touchdown run with :12 seconds left on the clock.
And Purdy isn’t just “lucky to be here”…he has played some of his best football in those games, including four games with a passer rating of at least 117 and a playoff-best passer rating of 131.5 against Seattle in the 2022 wild card. Although the quality of this film breakdown of Purdy against Seattle on TNF last season is a bit raw and rudimentary, the host still does a good job highlighting the problems that Purdy gave the Seahawks in the red zone in 2024.
I think it best for us to just admit that Brock Purdy is a good quarterback and a problem for Seattle. I’m still happy that the 49ers had to extend him to a five-year, $265 million contract this offseason (he’s a lot less valuable at $53 million per season than he was at $1 million per season) but we have to yet to see if Macdonald truly has the answer for him, Kyle Shanahan, and Christian McCaffrey, if he’s healthy.
(Although backup Isaac Guerendo had 10 carries for 99 yards in a game against the Seahawks.)
Without an answer for the Purdy-Shanahan offense, the Seahawks may not get enough wins to take the NFC West even when the 49ers are off of their game against everyone else.
Seaside Joe 2302
I have the Seahawks at 12-5 this year, splitting games with the Rams and 49ers and winning both against the Cardinals. I didn’t want to play the 49ers game one due to the need for the Seahawks offense to gel with its new system. This would be a tough loss to start the year, but I believe the MM defense will be ready and if we can keep the pressure on Purdy, we can limit his effectiveness. He had some bad games last year when teams applied constant pressure. Verse is a handful, but I know that Cross added significant muscle weight and Lucas looks like a Greek God. - thinner, heavier and stronger. Strength and the ability to anchor is key in defending the bull rush. We’ve had the cardinals number for quite some time, and I don’t think Murray has what it takes to fully take advantage of McBride. Pressure Murray and he quickly bolts the pocket leaving receivers breaking open wondering where the pass is.
The NFL is highly competitive, and the NFC west will be a very competitive division. The good thing for the Seahawks is this is year two of MM’s install, and just like the 2nd half of last season saw a much more effective defense, if we see a repeat of year two in Baltimore, we will see a top 5 defense that should keep us competitive in most games. I’m also bullish on the offense running effectively to the tune of 2200-2500 yards. The key is a healthy Lucas and a healthy K9. WE GOT THIS!
“You can’t say that Kaepernick had a worse head coach, or even a worse team around him.”
I can say that Kaepernick, Jimmy G, and Purdy each played against different Seahawks teams, though. Kaepernick had the rare ability to take over a game. I haven’t seen close to that out of Purdy.
Who is the most problematic player(s) on the Seahawks for these teams?