The Seahawks are contenders this year. I don’t know why we aren’t talking about it.
Is it because their head coach Mike McDonald hasn’t quite penetrated the mainstream as a defensive genius yet?
Whatever it is, they aren’t getting the respect they deserve even after demolishing the Commanders in prime time.
But if you look around the league, they have to be in the conversation.
Part of the reason has to be their recent history.
The Hawks have been between eight and 12 wins from 2015 to 2024, always feeling like a good, competent team that’s a notch below the very best teams.
Now, two things are different and should change the way we talk about them.
The first is that Mike McDonald is here and has injected new life schematically and culturally into an organisation that felt stale under Pete Carroll.
The second is the rest of the league.
The preseason favourites all have their problems.
The Chiefs are 5-4, the Ravens are 3-5, the Bills don’t have any playmakers, the Eagles all hate each other like the end of the Legion of Boom Seahawks, and the Vikings quarterback situation is still murky.
After them, the new contenders — the Broncos, Patriots, Colts, and Bucs — are either too new to trust or too injured to believe in.
This is not 2007 or 2013. There’s no dominant team out there. There’s a relatively flat top tier and the Seahawks have to be in it.
Offensively, as we saw in their explosion against the Commanders, they are a heavy team that wants to live in 12, 13, or 21/22 personnel, where the first number is the number of running backs and the second number is the number of tight ends.
In 13 personnel, they have one back and three tight ends, so those looks are particularly heavy and scream RUN to the defence.
But Seattle are zagging, they’re kind of Wedding Crashers-ing it by misrepresenting themselves just for long enough to get what they want.
And what they want are chunks through the air, like Vince Vaughn wanted his first Asian.
They’re succeeding, leading the league in explosive pass rate at 21%, which is the highest since the Greatest Show on Turf.
They’re getting the chunks in part because every snap looks like a run play given those heavy looks.
In essence, even when they don’t fake a handoff, they get the downstream benefits of the fake handoff because of the personnel. That’s how Darnold can rank 13th in play action attempts but second in play action yards.
When you add the fact JSN is always singled up when defences match Seattle’s heavy personnel with base (four defensive backs), the other speed they can get on the field with guys like Tory Horton, and Darnold’s ability to fit the ball through a cracked window, you get the best passing game in the league.
Now they’ve added Rasheed Shaheed, which should supercharge an already supercharged downfield passing attack.
The flaw with the Seattle offence is that they cannot run the ball.
While Ken Walker is a good player, they clearly don’t trust him on every down (much to the chagrin of me, one of his fantasy owners) and Zach Charbonnet is not explosive.
But it’s not all a running back problem, they have guys that hold up rather than guys who can pave the way for running backs like a Quinn Meinzerz or Quentin Nelson.
That makes them adequate in pass protection but deplorable in the run game, especially when your most explosive back is also your least decisive.
The Hawks, therefore, are 23rd in rush success rate and 26th in EPA/rush.
But again, that doesn’t matter necessarily because the passing game is so explosive, and defences are sold on the run largely because of personnel.
They don’t need an explosive rushing attack to get the play action benefits of having an explosive rushing attack.
If defences adapt and lighten boxes against heavy Seattle personnel looks, they should have more rushing success because Walker is so explosive.
Theoretically, this team has pick your poison potential.
Defensively, this team is also a problem.
Head coach and defensive playcaller Mike McDonald wants to live in cover-2 and play Nickel, which means they always have lighter bodies on the field.
That means they always have speed on the field but have enough ass kickers up front, as well as Ernest Jones (though he’s now injured) and Nick Emmanwori behind them that they’ve been virtually impossible to run against and are still effective against the pass.
They also pick the right times to chase splash plays.
Seattle is 29th in the NFL in blitz rate, sending pressure 15.4% of the time. But they are second in the league in hurries and third in hurry rate getting pressure 10.5% of the time.
Defensively, they’re basically a funhouse mirror version of their offence.
But the scheme stuff isn’t interesting with Seattle. It’s the attitude.
The entire defence feels like it eats hearts for breakfast.
They are constantly gang-tackling and every time an opposition quarterback passes the ball, it feels dangerous.
They’re a bit like the shark from Jaws where it feels like, even when things aren’t going perfectly, they’re liable to bite a head off here and there.
They are threatening.
Again, the defence isn’t perfect.
They’ve been average against the pass and tend to not want to give anything away, which occasionally means they give away big plays.
But this is a season that goes beyond the groundbreaking analysis that nobody’s perfect, nobody’s even close.
In a year that’s so flat at the top, especially in a weakish NFC, the Seattle strengths are as strong as anyone’s.
That makes them a threat.