New York Giants Week 5: A Look at the Seattle Seahawks Defense

New York Giants head coach Brian Daboll will face off against Seattle Seahawks head coach Mike Macdonald this weekend for the first time since 2022.

In the previous matchup, Daboll beat the Baltimore Ravens 24-20, a Ravens team whose defense was orchestrated by none other than Macdonald.

Let’s take a look at how much, besides the personnel, Macdonald’s defense has changed now that he’s with Seattle.

Injuries have eaten up the Seahawks’ defensive line, but when healthy, they’ve been very productive.

Boye Mafe missed this past week’s game against the Detroit Lions, but he had been one of the more effective pass-rushers in the NFL through the first three weeks of the season.

Former Giant Leonard Williams and rookie Byron Murphy II also missed the game against the Lions, meaning that the Seahawks were missing guys who produced 35 pressures this season.

It’s unclear at this point who will be returning and who won’t be available this weekend, but if any of the consistent contributors return, the Giants’ offensive line will have its hands full.

Tyrel Dodson has been the only linebacker to appear in all four games and play significant snaps there, as there’s been another case of the injury bug throughout the linebacker room.

The secondary is king, with Tariq Woolen, Devon Witherspoon, Tre Brown, Julian Love, and Rayshawn Jenkins handling the majority of snaps there.

Witherspoon is one of the starters on the outside, but when the Seahawks shift to a nickel defense, he’s the player who slides into the nickel, with Brown lining up on the outside.

Love was formerly with the Giants to start his career, but since joining the Seahawks, he’s taken the next step in his development as an all-around defensive back. Love has been a Swiss army knife that lines up on all three levels of the defense and is asked to defend the run while also being tasked with covering anyone from a running back to tight end to wide receiver.

At the end of the day, it’s about working as a unit, and right now, few defenses have the chemistry that the Seahawks have on the back end.

Macdonald is part of the new age of defensive coaching that relies heavily on Cover 3 and quarters coverages in zone over Cover 1 when playing man coverage.

The Seahawks aren’t a blitz-happy defense because they don’t need to be to generate pressure. Mafe, Hall, Williams, Jones, and Reed have all been pass-rush threats when healthy.

When the Seahawks do blitz, they actually send Witherspoon from the slot more often than anyone else.

Their pass-rush plan is to use all of their available tools, including creepers and sim pressures, but not limited to them. 

Creepers, formally known as replacement blitzes, are calls in which a defense does not show blitz, only rushes four defenders, but rushes at least one non-traditional rusher (off-ball linebacker or defensive back), and drops a traditional rusher (interior defensive lineman or edge rusher) into coverage.

It generally causes a miscommunication or overload that leads to pressure and still drops seven defenders into coverage so that the team increases their pass-rush potential while not sacrificing coverage too much on the back end.

Sim pressures are when a defense shows it’s going to blitz but instead drops into coverage, hence the name simulated pressures.

What Macdonald has done from a defensive scheme perspective is something that many have tried to do, but few, if any, have succeeded.

Many modern defensive coordinators aim for a Cover 3, quarters, and Cover 1 defense that generates pressure and is capable of coming up to make tackles and force punts.

The last time Daboll and Macdonald faced off, the Giants beat the Ravens by attacking underneath and using the run game to set up manageable conversions.

This time around, I think the catch-and-run opportunities will be less fruitful, considering the physicality of this secondary, but I think the run game could be more effective. 

The Seahawks’ run defense is still average, but their pass defense has been one of the best in the NFL this season.

The Giants will need to run the ball more effectively than they have so far. Seattle’s edges have been weak against the run, so testing out the waters, there should be a focal point of the offense.