Seattle Seahawks Training Camp: Stacked Defensive Line Providing Optimism on Defense

Doubling down on investing in their defensive line, the Seahawks hope a talented, versatile group can emerge as the spine of a much-improved defense.

Seattle Seahawks defensive tackle Leonard Williams participates in a tackling drill during mandatory minicamp. /

Coinciding with steep regression by the defense as a whole over the past five years, the Seattle Seahawks have struggled to rebuild a consistently formidable front line in the aftermath of the "Legion of Boom" years.

But with the arrival of new coach Mike Macdonald, hope spring eternal in the trenches for the Seahawks heading towards the 2024 season thanks to a revamped, versatile defensive line featuring proven star power as well as high-upside youth. After several years of constructing a patchwork front with cheap one-year vets, the franchise has made several significant investments to correct the problem, starting with a massive three-year contract for Dre'Mont Jones in free agency and trading for veteran Leonard Williams last October.

Since then, Seattle has continued to prioritize the defensive line, handing Williams a three-year, $64.5 million extension and selecting talented Texas defensive tackle Byron Murphy II with the 16th overall pick in April's NFL Draft. Pairing those two players with Jones, returning veteran Jarran Reed, and several other intriguing youngsters such as Mike Morris and Cameron Young has created lofty expectations for a deep, versatile front line in Macdonald's scheme.

"We have a lot of guys up front, which I really love. We have a lot of dogs up front on the D-line, outside linebacker," Williams said prior to Seattle's final mandatory minicamp practice. "So that's even harder in a way because we're all being able to play multiple positions. At the same time of learning the defense, we're not just learning one position, we have to learn multiple positions at the same time. It's kind of a lot of a load on us right now, but I think it'll pay off in the long run.”

As Williams indicated, the complexities of Macdonald's defense aren't simply limited to coverages and disguises on the back end. Engineering the Ravens top-ranked scoring defense a year ago, he mastered the art of moving chess pieces all over the line of scrimmage up front, and the Seahawks have assembled a defensive line unit that should allow him to have the same type of success keeping opponents on their heels.

Starting with Williams, who told reporters he has been learning six different positions in Macdonald's defense thus far, Seattle has a plethora of defenders up front who offer positional flexibility. Jones has been working with outside linebackers along with still playing inside, Murphy, Morris, and Myles Adams have the versatility to play everywhere from nose tackle to big 5-tech defensive end, and even massive nose tackle Johnathan Hankins can line up as a 3-tech and perform at a high level.

From Macdonald's perspective, having so many players who can slide up and down the line opens up the playbook, leaving no limitations to how the Seahawks can deploy their defensive front from alignments to personnel groupings.

"It does open things up," Macdonald said after Seattle's first minicamp practice. "When you have guys who can do multiple things, play different gaps in the run game, rush at different levels in the pass game, it opens up more personnel groups, more looks you can generate. Overall, it's good for us."

In part two of our annual training camp preview, will Williams and a deep, talented defensive line be able to live up to the hype for the Seahawks? Here's a deep dive into the position group looking back at last season, exploring what's new for 2024, an interesting stat, and the key question that must be answered.

2023 in Review

Despite dolling out significant money to bolster their defensive line in free agency, the Seahawks received mixed results, starting with a somewhat disappointing first season from Jones. The former Ohio State standout struggled out of the gate and though Pro Football Focus credited him with more than 40 quarterback pressures, he finished with just 4.5 sacks in 17 games, his lowest output since his rookie season with the Broncos in 2019. His overall pressure numbers did improve in the second half, however, as he seemed to be freed up more sliding outside to the edge.

On the flip side, coming off two ho-hum seasons with the Chiefs and Packers, Reed enjoyed a revival season returning for his second stint to the Pacific Northwest. Anchoring the front line, he produced 54 combined tackles, seven sacks, and seven tackles for loss, posting the second-highest totals of his career in the latter two categories. He also added 12 quarterback hits and two swatted passes for good measure, proving to be Seattle's most consistent defender up front.

Arriving from the Giants in October, Williams instantly made a major impact for the Seahawks up front, recording four sacks, nine tackles for loss, and 11 quarterback hits in 10 games, earning himself a lucrative new contract.

What’s New?

Even with Williams, Jones, and Reed all under contract, the Seahawks weren't content with their current defensive line. Filling a major void in the middle, the team signed Hankins to a one-year deal to reunite him with defensive coordinator Aden Durde, who coached the veteran nose tackle with the Cowboys the past two seasons. The former second-round pick out of Ohio State has been logging snaps with Reed and Williams on the first-team defense in OTAs and minicamp and should step right into a major role up front.

But Seattle's biggest splash up front came in April when Murphy, who many expected to be a top-10 pick, fell into general manager John Schneider's lap at No. 16 overall. The All-American defender dominated in his final season at Texas, finishing fifth among defensive tackles in pressures (45), first in pass rush win rate (19.6 percent), and first in Pass Rush Productivity (9.6). An elite athlete at 300 pounds, he ran a blazing 4.87 40-yard dash and posted a 33-inch vertical jump at the combine, and he should be an exciting weapon for Macdonald to feature up front right away.

Interesting Stat

Behind only Boye Mafe, Jones, and Reed, who each had 440 or more pass rushing snaps, Williams finished fourth on Seattle's defense in quarterback pressures (32) while playing just 281 pass rushing snaps in 10 games.

Key Question

Will a group with many of the same faces take the lead bolstering Seattle's shaky run defense?

Scuffling down the stretch and ultimately missing the postseason, the Seahawks inability to slow down opposing run games played a key role in Pete Carroll's eventual dismissal, and the amount of talent up front made those struggles even tougher to digest. Per PFF, only Williams, whose grade also reflects his time with the Giants last season, finished in the top 25 among qualified defensive linemen in run defense grade (68.5). As for the rest of the group, Jones ranked 48th (61.8) and both Reed and Cameron Young finished outside the top 70 with 53.0 and 52.9 grades respectively.

What contributed to these unexpected woes given the talent up front? More than anything, as was a problem for the entire defense last year, lackluster tackling negatively impacted those grades from Seattle defenders. Reed finished tied for eighth out of 146 qualified defensive tackles in missed tackles, while Williams also missed five and Young missed four. The Seahawks ended the season with three defensive tackles in the top 50 in missed tackle percentage as well.

In retrospect, the Seahawks had a ton of other issues that impacted their dreadful run defense, including scheme-related issues that often put them at a disadvantage from a gap perspective. Assuming missed tackle numbers improve, Macdonald and his staff should be able to put Williams, Reed, and the rest of the defensive line in a better position to be productive defending the run. Murphy's presence should also help significantly, as he's stout at the point of attack and finished with an impressive 9.5 percent stop rate as well as an average depth of tackle of 0.7 yards in 2023.

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