Disruptive Nick Emmanwori Taking Star Turn Behind Seahawks’ Calculated Approach

RENTON, Wash. - It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand how rare of a physical and athletic skill set Nick Emmanwori brings to gridiron. 6-3, 230-pound safeties with sub-4.35 40-yard dash speed and 43-inch vertical jump explosiveness don’t grow on trees, after all.

With such immense potential and a ceiling that may or may not actually exist, it would have been easy for Mike Macdonald and the Seattle Seahawks to want to push the limits before Emmanwori was ready to take his next steps. But ever since the franchise sent a second and third-round pick to the Tennessee Titans to move up to the 35th overall pick to select him in April, the coaching staff has had a clear plan in place to ensure the uber-talented defender wouldn’t be thrown to the wolves too quickly.

Even as Emmanwori continues to improve by week while gradually taking on more responsibilities playing multiple positions, including becoming only the third player in NFL history to post nine tackles, a partial sack, and four pass breakups in the same game in Sunday’s 44-22 win over the Cardinals, the Seahawks haven’t delineated from that course at all. Instead, especially after he missed three games earlier in the season with an ankle sprain, they have remained steadfast in employing a patient approach rather than rushing the developmental process during his rookie season.

“It's a part of the process,” Macdonald said of Emmanwori’s progress prior to Wednesday’s practice. “Even though he's healthy, you can't just say, ‘Alright you’re going to do all these things.’ It's, ‘Okay, let's pick a handful of things that we feel like you're confident in doing and as you’ve shown that you can execute those things and handle it, there's natural progressions on things that you can do.’ Where it might look like he's doing something different, but it’s maybe just a little bit of a change, a little deviation from what he's been doing. We think that's the way to maintaining that type of execution.”

Since coming back from his injury in a Week 5 loss to Tampa Bay, Seattle hasn’t been shy about inserting Emmanwori into the lineup, as playing time has not been restricted at all as part of the aforementioned game plan. In fact, he has logged at least an 87% snap share in every game during the team’s current four-game winning streak, earning three starts along the way.

Where the Seahawks haven’t fully taken off the training wheels yet, however, has been in regard to Emmanwori’s usage position-wise. At South Carolina, he played more than 550 snaps as a free safety, strong safety, and as a slot defender, proving to be one of the most flexible players in the entire country. Such versatility stood out as a major reason why the Seahawks valued him so highly with general manager John Schneider acknowledging the organization had a first round grade on him.

But in Macdonald’s complex scheme, Seattle didn’t want to overwhelm Emmanwori with information overload out of the gate. As demonstrated during the offseason program and training camp, incremental steps would be the name of the game, with the staff starting him off spending most of his time near the line of scrimmage either as a box safety or a big nickel and gradually starting to expand his toolbox with more responsibilities on the back end down the road.

Sticking to that script thus far, Emmanwori has played more than half of his snaps in the slot while receiving 121 combined snaps in the box, lined up on the line of scrimmage, or rushing off tackle. In contrast, he has only played six snaps as a free safety, which Macdonald reaffirmed has been by design with proper growth in mind.

“We're trying to develop him more as an in box run defender, where I think he can make some decisions a little bit quicker,” Macdonald explained. “When he's playing his best ball, he's really heavy handed, a tough guy to move, and he can also play great in space, so he gives you that flexibility. He's on the field a lot since he's been healthy and it's been an asset for us, and those are decisions we have to make every week on how we want to deploy him.”

So far, it’s hard to make any arguments against how the Seahawks have slow-played Emmanwori’s progression. In his first six NFL games, the athletic unicorn has excelled on multiple fronts with a steadily increasing workload, starting with his effectiveness as a stout run defender regardless of where he lines up.

Per Pro Football Focus charting, playing a key role in the team allowing under 91 rushing yards per game thus far in 2025, Emmanwori has yet to miss a single tackle against the run, producing three stops and an average depth of tackle of 1.8 yards, third-lowest among qualified defensive backs. He also ranks 26th with a respectable 4.2% stop rate and grades out as the 25th best run defender (78.1) out of 191 cornerbacks and safeties.

Interestingly, Emmanwori has hit the ground running as a threat on the blitz, something he wasn’t asked to do often at South Carolina. He only had 44 combined pass rush snaps in three seasons with the Gamecocks, but he has already proven himself to be a viable weapon coming after the quarterback the Seahawks, producing an outstanding 39% pressure rate on 23 blitz attempts. Only two other players (Amani Hooker and Jacob Parrish) with at least five pressures have a better pressure rate from cornerbacks or safeties.

Deftly shedding a block from a running back and working back towards the line of scrimmage, Emmanwori recorded his first NFL sack against the Cardinals, wrapping up Jacoby Brissett after the quarterback tried to step up in the pocket.

Though Macdonald called it a team sack with Demarcus Lawrence crashing hard inside on a slant, Boye Mafe generating pressure from the backside, and Drake Thomas taking away the hot route in coverage, he credited Emmanwori for finishing off the play by managing to go from a full speed rush out of the slot to executing a counter to work back to the quarterback. Not bad for a player who rarely ever rushed the passer in the SEC.

“That was a great job by Nick, having an awareness of ‘Hey, I'm past the quarterback. Now I need a counter.’ And you saw his athleticism too, so that was a great play all around,” Macdonald remarked.

Like any rookie in the NFL, as Macdonald mentioned a couple of times in his weekly Monday press conference, Emmanwori has plenty of areas to improve upon. In particular, his results in coverage have been more hit and miss adapting to the speed of NFL receivers and tight ends while trying to stay afloat playing multiple positions in a scheme that requires players to keep their head on a swivel with tons of communication and checks to keep tabs on every down.

In Sunday’s win alone, Emmanwori allowed six receptions on 11 targets for a season-high 98 yards, including a 15-yard touchdown reception to tight end Trey McBride on 4th and 6. On multiple occasions, he got caught flat footed as receivers flew past him, almost looking to be unsure of his zone drop assignment, allowing the opponent to create separation and pick up significant yardage after the catch.

But at the same time, Emmanwori forced four pass breakups on five incompletions thrown his direction, flashing excellent closing speed and ball skills for a player of his size. One of those incompletions came against McBride as he bodied up the tight end and legally extended his left arm in front of the target to deflect the football away, while another came in the end zone against running back Bam Knight on a decisive fourth down that forced a turnover on downs.

Amongst his rookie brethren with at least 200 coverage snaps this season, Emmanwori currently ranks fourth in forced incompletion rate (17%) and second in pass breakups (two). Compared to the rest of the 2025 draft class, even considering he missed a third of Seattle’s games to this point, he ranks first among linebackers, cornerbacks, and safeties with nine pressures and 11th in run stop rate, stacking up nicely as a trendy Defensive Rookie of the Year candidate as he gains more confidence in Macdonald’s defense.

“The game's slowing down well for me,” Emmanwori said following Seattle’s win vs. Arizona. “It was my fourth, real full game today. As the weeks progress, and as I'm seeing more ball, seeing more frequent stuff, and seeing a lot of similarities between each week, I got some good vets and good coaching, so the game's slowing down real well for me.”

With eight games left to play in the regular season, the Seahawks believe Emmanwori has just started to scratch the surface in terms of his ability to disrupt opposing offenses in a myriad of ways. He’s not anywhere close to being a finished product and mistakes will continue to happen along the way for the 21-year old, which makes his contributions to this point all the more exciting for a defense that currently ranks fifth in points allowed.

As for what the next step will look like for Emmanwori, Macdonald has kept things close to the vest this week while happily teasing expanded opportunities, opting not to delve into specifics when it comes to new ways Seattle may try to get the Swiss army knife involved. But prior to Sunday’s victory, he could been seen getting some work as a two-deep safety in warmups, a sign that may be the next role that he begins to get his feet wet with on game day to add even more flexibility to what the team can do schematically. Continuing to dip more into a nickel/dime money linebacker gig may also be in the cards.

But at this point, in regard to Emmanwori’s future and just how good he can become, Macdonald isn’t peering ahead past a critical matchup against the Rams in Los Angeles. All that matters is putting his players in the best position to succeed on Sunday at SoFi Stadium, and whether he’s living in the slot, moonlighting as an edge rusher, or mixing in some deep safety looks to his repertoire, both he and his assistants will be focused on how to best utilize the talented rookie weapon as part of the Seahawks weekly game plan to slow down a dynamic offense led by Matthew Stafford and a host of dangerous skill players.

“I'm not sure. I haven’t really thought about it. I'm just thinking about how well we can get our guys to play right now. I know it sounds crazy. We don't have a lot of time to think about anything other than what it's going to take for our guys to go play well and how we can go help them. That’s really what I’m thinking about.”