Dominant Seahawks’ Front Line Ready to Take Disruptive Nature to Another Level for ‘Dark Side' Defense
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Seattle Seahawks defensive end Leonard Williams (99) and defensive tackle Byron Murphy II (91) sack Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Aaron Rodgers (8) during the second quarter at Acrisure Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Barry Reeger-Imagn Images [/caption]
Adequately coining themselves as the “Dark Side” defense during the midst of a historic 2025 season, the Seattle Seahawks deployed Death Star-worthy weapons of mass destruction from all three levels of coach Mike Macdonald’s unit on the way to a Super Bowl LX victory.
Playing the quarterback of the defense with elite cerebral whit, a commanding demeanor, and playmaking prowess, Ernest Jones may as well have been wearing Darth Vader’s mask rather than a football helmet. Playing seemingly every position except nose tackle during a spectacular rookie season, safety Nick Emmanwori pulled off a football-equivalent feat to Darth Revan mastering both the light and dark side at the same time. Bringing tenacious ferocity and fearless aggression snap after snap, Devon Witherspoon’s relentless style and penchant for dishing punishing, bone-jarring hits makes him a worthy Darth Maul clone.
But while all of those players starred for Seattle’s No. 1-ranked scoring defense and helped the empire reign supreme over the rest of the NFL, Leonard Williams and Byron Murphy II anchored the true foundation of the unit’s dominance up front, collectively holding the title of Emperor Palpatine while unleashing ruthless terror on opposing offenses that caused disturbances in the force that sent shockwaves all across the league.
Leading the charge with everything except visible force lightning coming from his fingertips as an unstoppable wrecking ball lining up all over Seattle’s front, Williams finally received the credit he has long deserved as one of the premier game-changing defensive linemen in the sport, garnering All-Pro honors for the first time in his illustrious career. While he didn’t quite match his 11 sacks from the season prior, per TruMedia, he still finished tied for ninth among defensive tackles with seven sacks while racking up 58 pressures and 14 quarterback hits, ranking inside the top five in both categories.
“Big Cat” also swung sharp claws anchoring a bodacious Seahawks’ run defense that allowed a league-best 3.7 yards per carry, finishing 13th in run stop rate (9.1%) and fifth in tackles for loss (nine), regularly stuffing ball carriers at the line of scrimmage as well as in the backfield.
Alongside him, coming off a rookie campaign where he only managed to record a partial sack and two quarterback hits with a stat line that didn’t fully reflect how well he actually performed, Murphy broke out as one of the best young defensive talents in the entire league, playing up to his first round billing and then some. Benefiting from more opportunities as a 3-tech defensive tackle to go with his nose tackle reps, his pass rushing blossomed as he equaled Williams with a career-high seven sacks and surpassed his veteran teammate in pressure rate (10.4%), ranking 18th among qualified defensive tackles.
But Murphy’s greatest contributions came against the run, where his innate ability to take on single and combo blocks with a difficult to execute knee drop move and quick hands to shed blockers with the power of a Darth Tyrannus force throw led to outstanding overall production. A thorn in the side for every team that dared to try and run the ball against Seattle, he tallied 31 solo tackles and finished with a slightly better run stop rate (9.2%) than Williams, tacking on seven tackles for loss as the cherry on top.
Illustrating their reign of supremacy by the numbers, Williams and Murphy were the only pair of defensive tackle counterparts on the same team to each eclipse 50 quarterback pressures and seven sacks during the regular season. They also stood out as one of only three defensive tackle pairs to post 23 or more run stops and a run stop rate north of 9% last season, joining the Titans and Steelers in that exclusive company.
With just Williams and Murphy alone, Seattle had arguably the best one-two defensive tackle punch in the entire league last season, but they received ample support behind them as well. Even with an injury costing him four games, ageless veteran Jarran Reed remained a rock against the run and mixed in timely pass rushing production, while Brandon Pili surfaced as a viable run stuffing nose tackle, Mike Morris held up well as a rotational reserve defending the run, and rookie Rylie Mills came through with a sack in the Super Bowl after missing much of the season rehabbing from a torn ACL.
Ready to soon embark on defending their title, the Seahawks will be able to unleash that entire group once again, as they didn’t lose a single interior defensive lineman from last year’s Super Bowl squad during free agency. In fact, with that continuity and a couple of potential wild cards in the mix to further bolster the group, Williams believes they have yet to reach their peak and have room to still grow in 2026.
“That's a huge piece of it. When I can trust the guy next to me, know the guys next to me, we play on a different tempo, we sometimes can just look at each other and know how we're going to rush up front, how we're going to play blocks. That continuity is just huge,” Williams said during mandatory minicamp in June. “We just talked about how guys come and go and stuff like that. I think we've done a good job here of keeping the majority of the same guys around each other.”
Recently turning 32 years old in June, Williams now has 11 seasons of NFL wear and tear on his resume, which always leads to speculation about when an aging player may begin to show signs of decline. But regression hasn’t been evident in his game at all to this point, as he has played his finest football since coming to Seattle from New York at the trade deadline midway through the 2023 season and been a beacon of consistency across the board, surpassing 50 pressures, 10 quarterback hits, and nine tackles for loss in each of the past three years.
Aiding his cause, while he has still hovered north of a 70% snap share over the past two years, Seattle’s depth in the trenches has allowed Williams to stay relatively fresh, not coming close to the 76% or higher snap share he played in five of his first eight seasons in the league. That percentage shouldn’t increase in 2026 and may even go down a tick with Macdonald and defensive coordinator Aden Durde having more bullets to put in the chamber.
As for Murphy, with his 24th birthday coming in September, the ex-Texas standout should be just starting to enter the prime years of his career. Sacks can be hit-and-miss with interior defensive linemen from season to season, but after posting Pass Rush Win Rates of 10% or better in his first two years in the league, he should be positioned to be even more productive getting after opposing quarterbacks, especially with Williams continuing to draw so much attention. His run defense has been elite for most of his career so far and that level of play hasn’t peaked yet either, a scary thought for opponents.
Assuming Williams and Murphy stay healthy and produce similar numbers to the elite ones they posted in 2025, the Seahawks have the firepower in place to be even better when rotating in reserves behind them in waves. Most notably, the organization has high expectations for Mills, who ended a difficult first season with the team on the strongest of notes by wrapping up both quarterback Drake Maye and guard Jared Wilson in the Super Bowl for a crowd-stirring sack that equally delighted teammates and fans alike.
Unlike last summer when he had to watch the entirety of training camp as a rehabbing bystander, Mills has enjoyed a healthy offseason program and will be poised to take on an expanded role rotating in with Williams, Murphy, and Reed. The 290-pound defender has the capabilities to play in multiple alignments, adding another versatile, physical behemoth to the front line arsenal for opponents to have to deal with.
“He's just looking a lot more bouncy. I know he was coming off of an injury his rookie season. He was doing a great job of learning from the sideline. Took his opportunity when he could,” Williams said of Mills. “Now going into OTAs, this is his first OTAs in his second year. He looks more confident on his knee, just looks more confident as a player. I think he's going to be a big help for us up front.”
Away from Mills, Seattle also invested one of its three seventh round selections in April’s draft on Minnesota defensive tackle Deven Eastern, an addition that could prove to pay dividends earlier than expected due to his unique build and pass rushing profile. A different body type than Pili at 6-5, 315 pounds with long, vulture-like arms, he produced 4.5 sacks in the past two years playing in the Big Ten, offering penetration ability not often seen at the nose tackle spot while having enough athleticism to slide to 3-tech and even base defensive end in heavy fronts if necessary.
Like most rookies, particularly late round picks, Eastern has highlighted consistency as his biggest area of improvement coming into the NFL. The presence of Pili ahead of him creates a massive obstacle between him and a roster spot, but if his pass rushing ability and disruptive gap-shooting talents against the run at the college level translate in the pros once the pads come out in camp, he has a higher ceiling that could warrant snaps at some point as a rookie.
Not to be omitted entering the final season of his rookie contract, Morris played an underrated role for Seattle’s defensive front a year ago, including ranking first on the team in run stop rate (9.9%) while totaling seven run stops on just 72 snaps. Rushing the passer has been his Achilles’ heel thus far with a career pressure rate below 8%, but he did produce his first two quarterback hits last year and his 6-6, 295-pound frame allows him to line up everywhere from 3-tech to two-point outside linebacker, checking off the flexibility component Macdonald covets.
If there’s one other overlooked storyline to consider, even as his 34th birthday approaches, Reed also could be a prime bounce-back candidate after missing four games with a broken hand last season. The beloved veteran finished with a better Pass Rush Win Rate than Murphy just two years ago and had 11.5 total sacks in 2023 and 2024. With better health fortunes, even on a reduced workload compared to earlier in his career, he may have enough gas left in the tank to get back to a four-plus sack season with more pressures and run stops as one of the best complementary interior line cogs in the game.
With a second Lombardi Trophy now taking up residence in the VMAC, every NFL team has spent this offseason seeking a fatal flaw or two in Macdonald’s defense, hoping to find a vulnerability like the one that led to the unexpected demise of the original Death Star. There will undoubtedly be a target on their backs as the rest of the league aims to dethrone Seattle, signifying why only a handful of franchises have managed to win back-to-back Super Bowls.
But unlike many of their championship predecessors before them, the Seahawks had a rare dearth of roster turnover this offseason, keeping the Dark Side running near-full steam ahead, particularly with Williams and Murphy heading a defensive line with the entire core back together. If there’s reason to believe they will avoid the same fate as their fictional counterparts from a galaxy far, far away, that formidable, force-wielding front will make it far more challenging to crack the code trying to destroy the core reactor.
