Will Seahawks increase sack totals in 2025?

The Seahawks are close to leading the NFL in sacks...and they should

Mike Macdonald’s fresh perspective on defense helped the Seahawks improve in almost every key category on that side of the ball last season. But unless Macdonald can bring up Seattle’s sack totals from good to elite, he won’t be considered the best defensive coordinator in the NFL for much longer.

The Seahawks have finished with 45 sacks in two of the last three seasons and they had 47 in Pete Carroll’s final year on the job. That means that while almost everything else improved, Macdonald’s gameplan only kept sack totals at a status quo.

And the sack totals would have gone down if not for 13 in the last three games (that = 29% of the sacks in 17% of the games), including seven against Caleb Williams and the most-sacked offense in the NFL.

Here’s a twitter link to watch all 7 sacks.

Here are some of the phenomenal improvements that Seattle’s defense had from 2023 to 204:

• 25th in points allowed to 11th

• 30th in yards allowed to 14th

• 29th in points per drive allowed to 5th

• 22nd in net yards per pass allowed to 6th

• 31st in rushing yards allowed to 16th

• 32nd in first downs allowed to 15th

• 22nd in takeaways to 16th

• 30th-most plays on defense to 4th-fewest

• 30th on third down to 10th

• 23rd in red zone defense to 9th

With defensive improvements that are THAT dramatic year over year, it’s hard to believe that a writer would harp on sack totals merely staying the same.

But in point of fact, if the Seahawks had finished first or second in sacks instead of 10th, what would have possibly stopped Macdonald from making the playoffs and potentially posing the biggest threat to the Eagles if they did?

Sacks are not just “the t-shirt muscles” of football, as they have long been considered somewhat of an overrated stat meant to pad the contract of pass rushers. I mean, it’s just one play, right?

But in recent years, sacks have gotten more respect as “the analytics team” of the fandom has gotten more time in the spotlight.

Almost a decade ago, PatsFan.com highlighted the importance of sacks compared to tackles-for-loss by contrasting the difference in net yardage lost:

So far in 2016, the average pass attempt in the NFL yields 7.2 yards. That means that when the coach calls for a pass play, in general, on average, they can expect to gain 7.2 yards on that play, assuming they actually are able to get the pass off before being sacked or forced to scramble.

The average sack in the NFL costs the offense 6.2 yards of field position. On the face of it, then, the average sack is a net of -6.2 yards for the offense, but that’s just one way of looking at it. If we combine the expected gain with the actual loss, a sack really costs a team 13.4 yards of field position.

Contrast this with a tackle for loss in the run game. In 2016, the average rushing attempt in the NFL goes for 4.2 yards. Of the 5537 rushing attempts in the league so far this year, 102 of them have been “stuffs”, or tackles for loss (TFL). Those have totaled 203 yards, for an average of 2.0 yards lost per TFL. So whenever there is a rushing attempt that is stuffed, the offense loses 2 yards. That’s a significant difference from the 6.2 that are lost from a sack. Moreover, on running plays, it means that a TFL costs a team 6.2 yards of field position.

In other words, when the coach calls a passing play he’s expecting an average gain of 7 yards, while a running play is an expected gain of 4. Not only does a sack prevent more gained yardage, it also results in more lost yardage; the difference in lost yardage on a sack is more than twice as great as the loss on a TFL.

Cut to this past April, Nate Tice highlighted that sacks could be at least as devastating to an offense as turnovers:

What is EPA and what does this mean?

I actually have no problem with it if you don’t care what EPA (Expected Points Added) or if you think it’s all bologna. That’s accepted here at Seaside Joe.

But the theory is that we can calculate the “expected points” of a drive based on every single play, i.e. “this 10-yard gain raised the expected points by X and this 8-yard loss on a sack lowered the expected points by Y”. If that means nothing to you, that’s totally OK, however let me just confer for a second with the fans who like EPA…

If a team does not get sacked on a drive, they expect to scored more than DOUBLE the amount of points on the drive (on average, because of course teams never score 1.03 or 2.26 points) than if they get sacked at least once.

Let’s not forget that teams are more likely to pass the ball on 3rd-and-10 than they are on 2nd-and-3, etc., so of course many sacks come on third down and literally kill a drive.

Sacks are often saying, “Nice try, but you’re just about done here.”

Now calculate that into the difference between being 10th in sacks and 1st…

Seahawks become NFL leader in sacks

Two years ago, the Eagles led the NFL with 70 sacks which was a full 15 more than second-place Kansas City. The Super Bowl in 2022?

Of course, it was Chiefs 38-Eagles 35.

Seattle had a respectable 45 sacks, but that’s still 25 fewer sacks than the NFL’s leading defense, so 1.5 sacks per game.

Move to 2023 and the Ravens (under DC Mike Macdonald) led the NFL with 60 sacks, followed by the Chiefs at 57. The Seahawks had 47 sacks but fell from 10th to 11th in the rankings.

Baltimore went 13-4, earned the number one seed, and reached the conference championship game where they lost to the Chiefs 17-10. How much better could Seattle have been as a team if they had gained 0.75 more sacks per game?

Now move to 2024 and Macdonald is hired with an expectation in mind to help the Seahawks improve across the board, including sacks. He is 95% successful — maybe 98% — but sack totals not only stayed the same: They had to be saved by Leonard Williams going off at the end of the season, at times when the playoffs felt out of reach.

The Broncos led the NFL with 63 sacks (nine more than second place Baltimore) and though Denver wasn’t a true Super Bowl contender last season, they finished first in points per drive allowed, third in points allowed, 2nd in both YPC and YPA allowed, and made the playoffs with the unlikeliest playoff quarterback.

And the Broncos do not have Von Miller anymore: They managed this with Nik Bonitto, Jonathan Cooper, Zach Allen, John Franklin-Myers, Jonah Ellis, and Dondrea Tillman.

Credit to defensive coordinator Vance Joseph (who as head coach of the Broncos from 2017-2018 hired Klint Kubiak as an offensive consultant) for the job he did in Denver last season, and also because he set the bar for Macdonald as far as sacks and pressures in 2025.

Good is good and great is better, but ELITE is what we are expecting from Mike Macdonald’s defense. If not in 2025, then 2026.

Do the Seahawks have the right pieces?

As noted, the Seahawks ranked in a three-way tie for 8th in sacks last season:

• 45 sacks (tied with Packers, Giants)

• QB Knockdown% 12% (3rd)

• 160 pressures (7th)

• Pressure rate 24.8% (8th)

Obviously if the Seahawks can turn more knockdowns, hurries, and pressures into sacks, then they will have more sacks. I am not an expert on this, but it sure seems like it’s better to be close to getting sacks than to be nowhere near them which is what it felt like during the last half of Carroll’s Seattle career.

The Seahawks had a knockdown rate of 8.5% in 2023, so that’s a significant improvement by improving to 12% under Macdonald.

Personnel changes and retention

The Seahawks return Williams, Boye Mafe, and Derick Hall and those three players combined for 25 sacks in 2024.

Uchenna Nwosu only has 3 sacks in the last two seasons (12 games) but had 9.5 of them in 2022. If Nwosu can play in more than 12 games this year, it could be assumed that he will finish with at least 4 sacks which would at least replace the production that Seattle got from Dre’Mont Jones. I’m not saying that Nwosu couldn’t get double-digit sacks, but let’s be realistic here…it’s already a win if Nwosu doesn’t miss half of the season.

Demarcus Lawrence also missed most of 2024, but he had three sacks in the four games that he appeared in with the Cowboys. In the previous two seasons, Lawrence had 10 sacks in 34 games; fans will hope that Lawrence is Macdonald’s version of Kyle Van Noy in Seattle.

• Van Noy had 33.5 sacks in his first 9 seasons

• Van Noy had 9 sacks for Macdonald in 2023

• Van Noy had 12.5 sacks in Macdonald’s system in 2024

That’s 23 sacks in two years of playing in a Macdonald system for a player who used to average 3.5 sacks per season.

In addition, Jarran Reed had 4.5 sacks last season and 7 in his previous season. Just 4-5 sacks from Reed would be a help towards this goal of leading the league in sacks.

Now you’re probably asking, “What about the defensive lineman who the Seahawks drafted in the middle of the first round?”

If Byron Murphy becomes the type of defensive tackle who regularly gets 8 sacks per season, then awesome. Murphy had 0.5 sacks as a rookie and only 5 pressures, so is he close to being that type of impact pass rusher in 2025? I don’t know about that. Hopefully he is, but Murphy’s impact as a run stuffer and a two-gapper could be more of an aid towards other players getting sacks than he himself being the one to finish the play.

Other types of sacks

Nick Emmanwori, Devon Witherspoon, Ernest Jones, and Mike Morris could be other players who help the Seahawks rank in the top-5 for sacks. While they might not be regular pass rushers, the 1-4 sacks that they might finish with this season could only help Seattle’s total. Macdonald spoke this week on Emmanwori’s blitzing ability and usage as a pass rusher as a rookie.

It may be a stretch to ask most teams to lead the NFL in sacks this year, but the Seahawks are not far off from it as is and they probably do expect it given the decision to hire Macdonald as the head coach. Not only was he considered the top defensive coordinator in the league, but Baltimore’s specialty was getting to the quarterback and pressuring him in creative ways.

That’s like Marvel greenlighting the next big budget movie in their universe and telling the director, “It’s fine if this doesn’t make a billion dollars”. No, they hired you to make a billion dollars. Most movies don’t make a billion dollars, but this is Marvel.

Most head coaches don’t lead the league in sacks and defense, but this is Mike Macdonald.

The best video on watching film that I’ve ever seen

I shared a MatchQuarters video last week, but this one is better. It’s as close to “must-see” as I’ve ever shared on Seaside Joe before because this is the clearest explanation on how to watch film that I’ve ever seen:

Seaside Joe 2290