Uchenna Nwosu, Seattle Seahawks EDGE Group Looking to 'Sharpen the Sword' in OTAs

In the feeling out process learning a new defense, the return of a healthy Uchenna Nwosu has created positive early buzz about the Seahawks edge rushing group.

Oct 30, 2022; Seattle, Washington, USA; Seattle Seahawks linebacker Boye Mafe (53) sacks New York Giants quarterback Daniel Jones (8) during the second quarter at Lumen Field. Seattle Seahawks linebacker Uchenna Nwosu (10) closes in from the right. Mandatory Credit: Joe Nicholson-USA TODAY Sports / Joe Nicholson-USA TODAY Sports

RENTON, Wash. - With the regular season still months away from kicking off, OTAs present a unified moment of hope around the NFL. Before a snap has been taken, optimism springs eternal across the league with players in the best shape of their lives and every team believing they will contend in 2024.

While some of these positive vibes will start to dissipate once the dog days of summer arrive with the opening of training camps and the start of the regular season in early September, the return of key players from injury provides a legitimate reason for hopefulness this time of year. In the case of the Seattle Seahawks, there may not have been a better sight at their first open OTA session on Wednesday than seeing a healthy Uchenna Nwosu flying around the field without any limitations.

Transitioning into a new era under coach Mike Macdonald, few players will be more important to the Seattle's chances of early success than Nwosu, whose absence in the final 11 games last season with a torn pectoral muscle proved to be cataclysmic for a defense that collapsed into a black hole.

Prior to suffering the injury while making a tackle early in the second half of a Week 7 home win over the Cardinals, Nwosu had been a vital anchor for a much-improved Seahawks run defense. After finishing 30th in the league stopping the run in 2022, the team ranked in the top five in yards per carry, yards per game, and explosive runs of 10 or more yards allowed, orchestrating a remarkable turnaround to that point.

Sep 10, 2023; Seattle, Washington, USA; Los Angeles Rams running back Cam Akers (3) stiff arms Seattle Seahawks linebacker Uchenna Nwosu (10) during the second half at Lumen Field. Mandatory Credit: Steven Bisig-USA TODAY Sports / Steven Bisig-USA TODAY Sports

Unfortunately, while other factors helped contribute to the slide, everything unraveled once Nwosu exited the lineup and landed on injured reserve. Over the final 11 games, Seattle surrendered almost 170 rushing yards per game, or roughly twice as many yards per game as they did in the first two months, along with 18 rushing touchdowns and a whopping 51 runs of 10-plus yards, ranking dead last in the NFL in every notable run defense category without No. 10 setting a firm edge.

Though Macdonald didn't specifically reference Nwosu's return on Wednesday, with the position largely unchanged in an offseason full of turnover, there's a great deal of excitement about what a veteran-laden edge group can accomplish for the Seahawks this year.

"It's great to see them out there working and communicating," Macdonald said. "We're working through how we're going to structure the pass rush and who is playing what spot and what shakes down and what makes sense and what hits and all those things. This is a great time of year to sharpen the sword so to speak and build the foundation, platform to the jumping off point when we come back in the fall. And even when that happens, you're going to constantly evolve where you're going to put guys and how you're going to interact and what groups you can put out there. If you're not doing that you get static and offenses get a bead for what you're doing. You got to keep it moving."

With the same cast of characters returning from a year ago, Macdonald and his staff will be tasked at figuring out how to maximize Seattle's talent off the edge in a group that features three players the organization invested second round picks on since the 2020 NFL Draft.

Headlining that trio of former high draft choices, Boye Mafe enjoyed a breakout sophomore season in 2023, leading the Seahawks with nine sacks, including establishing a new team record with a sack in seven consecutive games. Per Pro Football Focus, he finished in the top 25 among edge defenders in pressures (58), batted passes (4), and pass rush productivity on true pass rush sets (11.9), stacking up well against the best rushers in the league.

To take the next step in his development, aside from continuing to sharpen his pass rushing toolbox, Mafe still has room to grow as a run defender. Following a solid rookie season in that department, he missed five tackles against the run a year ago and finished 38th in run defense grade out of 54 qualified edge defenders, taking a bit of a step backward as the rest of the defense crumbled in the closing months last season.

Good news for #Seahawks    fans... Uchenna Nwosu was full participant today and looks 100%. pic.twitter.com/dAE4kEjOJ8

— Corbin K. Smith (@CorbinSmithNFL) May 23, 2024

Away from Mafe, the Seahawks re-signed Darrell Taylor on a new one-year deal in March choked full of pass rushing incentives and Derick Hall will enter his second season hoping to take a massive jump after a quiet rookie campaign.

Since returning from a broken leg that cost him his entire rookie season, Taylor has been a bit of an enigma for Seattle. On one hand, he has produced 21.5 sacks over the past three seasons, including producing six sacks in the final five games in 2022, showcasing dynamic burst as a speed rusher and an ability to punch the ball out with five forced fumbles in his career. In spurts, he's looked the part of an upper echelon pass rusher.

However, inconsistency has been a major problem for Taylor, who has been feast or famine hunting quarterbacks over the past three seasons. While he has posted solid sack numbers, he hasn't been efficient generating pressure, as evidenced by his 6.2 percent win rate last season, which ranked 105th out of 120 qualified defenders. He finished 76th in that metric in 2022, still posting a win rate under nine percent despite nearly hitting double-digit sacks.

Taylor has also approached defending the run as if it was optional much of the time, which led to him losing a starting job each of the past two seasons. Between missed tackles and botched gap assignments, per PFF, he has never finished a season with a run defense grade above 48.0 and posted a career missed tackle rate exceeding 25 percent, making him a liability on early downs.

As for Hall, in a far smaller sample size as a reserve, he struggled to muster much production with limited chances. On 137 pass rushing snaps, he produced 11 pressures and four quarterback hits with no sacks, while he received a dreadful 32.7 run defense grade from PFF. With a chance to earn a more prominent role, he will have to show more bite as a pass rusher and do a better job of shedding blocks to make plays in the run game moving forward, but his numbers at Auburn suggest that potential is in him.

In the grand scheme of things, the Seahawks have questions at all three levels of the defense as they implement Macdonald's scheme, and the stable of edge rushers isn't an exception. For the defense to reach full potential, Mafe still has to put everything together after spurts of elite play, Taylor will have to at least be a marginal run defender to open the door for him to see more snaps as a rusher, and Hall simply has to prove he can be a reliable contributor on a consistent basis.

As Macdonald stated, figuring out how to best utilize those players in his scheme and where to best deploy them position-wise will be crucial as OTAs unfold and training camp gets underway in a few months. With no notable moves made at the position this spring, the lack of activity suggests he believes that he and his staff can get more out of the group as a whole.

But at the end of the day, regardless of how Mafe, Taylor, and Hall perform in a new defense, no player carries greater importance to the Seahawks goal of competing for an NFC West title and playoff spot than Nwosu. At a time of year where positivity flows out of every NFL facility, whether authentic or superficial, his return to the field provides genuine hope for a defense that Macdonald and his newly assembled staff expect to be substantially better than a year ago.