How the Seahawks are going from a disaster to difference-making on defense
Jamal Adams is blitzing. Again.
The All-Pro safety is sacking quarterbacks and dispensing quotes at a career-best rate.
Fellow All-Pro Bobby Wagner is making team and NFL history with yet more tackles, while blitzing and covering receivers 30, 40 yards down the field from his middle-linebacker spot.
Carlos Dunlap is transforming a previously listless — almost useless — defensive line into a swarming unit. Seattle is piling up more sacks and pressures than the line’s had in years.
Quandre Diggs is picking off passes, then flapping his arms in the end zone like an Eagle on Philadelphia’s home field to honor one of his idols, one-time Eagles wide receiver Terrell Owens.
Suddenly, this Seahawks defense doesn’t look, or act, like the last-ranked unit in the NFL.
“The swagger’s through the roof, man,” Adams said.
That was after Seattle’s defense led a 23-16 victory over the Eagles Monday night. It was 23-9 until Philadelphia’s garbage-time touchdown in the final seconds.
“We are playing with a lot of swagger, a lot of confidence,” Adams said. “We know when we step on the field we are going to try to take the ball away. We are going to get a sack. We are going to get a pick. And then we are going to invite everyone to the party, man.
“That’s just what we do, just invite everyone to the party. It’s a great feeling.”
No Seahawks defender was partying the first half of this season.
They were giving up more yards, more yards passing and more points than anyone in the NFL through seven games. People were calling for coordinator Ken Norton Jr. to get fired. That wasn’t going to happen, not to head coach Pete Carroll’s trusted deputy for the last decade back to when the head man hired Norton to be on his staff at USC.
Then Dunlap, the two-time Pro Bowl defensive end, debuted for Seattle after his trade from Cincinnati.
Adams returned from a strained groin that kept him out all of October into November.
Pro Bowl cornerback Shaquill Griffin returned Monday night, from a strained hamstring that kept him out all of October.
“I think the last couple weeks we’ve taken this move in the right direction,” Carroll said.
He’s right.
Monday was the third consecutive game the Seahawks allowed its season-low in points. They gave up 23 in a loss at the Rams, 21 while beating the Cardinals and the 16 to the Eagles that was essentially nine.
Seattle’s potentially fatal flaw, the defense, is finally becoming a complementary piece to Russell Wilson and the high-flying offense. That development, plus a soft schedule in December, are leading the team’s way to its eighth playoff appearance in nine seasons.
“Nobody is talking about the defense enough, in my opinion,” DK Metcalf said after his career-high 177 yards receiving at Philadelphia. “They’ve been playing their butts off, from the back end, to our corners and linebackers.
“We’re getting to the quarterback every game right now.
“Our defense is playing unstoppable right now.”
Dunlap has transformed not just the line but the entire defense.
Seattle had 12 sacks in seven games before the team sent never-used offensive lineman B.J. Finney and a late-round draft pick to Cincinnati to get Dunlap in late October.
The Seahawks have 19 sacks in the four games Dunlap has played for them.
A defense that was at the bottom of the league in sacks the last year and a half now is tied with Denver for the fifth-most in the league, with 31.
Dunlap has four sacks already for Seattle. As important, he’s made those around him much more successful in affecting opposing quarterbacks.
Tackle Jarran Reed had three sacks in two years before Dunlap arrived. Reed has 3-1/2 sacks in the four games he’s played next to Dunlap.
Tackle Poona Ford had a half sack in his first 2-1/2 NFL seasons. He’s had two sacks in the last three games with offensive lines worried about Dunlap outside him.
Adams arrived in July from the currently 0-11 Jets in a splashy trade. His sack chasing down Carson Wentz on another backside blitz Monday gives him 6-1/2 sacks in eight games.
“He causes problems,” Giants coach Joe Judge said Wednesday. “Got to account for him.”
Adams’ 6-1/2 sacks tie his career high for an entire season, set last season for New York.
The most sacks in a season by a defensive back since the NFL made sacks an official stat in 1982 is eight, by Adrian Wilson in 2005.
“We are coming together, man. Everybody is getting healthy,” Adams said. “We are starting to understand the defense, as a whole. We are playing together. We are playing as one. ...
“There are certain guys that haven’t played together. It takes time, man.
“I’m still learning, believe it or not.”
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Adams and Carroll have been saying for more than a month this defensive turnaround was coming. It might be more than just the defense playing better. Adding a Pro Bowl defensive end, getting back your All-Pro safety and Pro Bowl cornerback plus adding former All-Pro defensive tackle Damon “Snacks” Harrison sure hasn’t hurt the defense’s improvement.
“From the beginning, we knew what we had. We knew what type of talent we had,” Adams said. “It was only a matter of time.
“We understood that people outside, they were going to chirp. But at the end of the day, we knew who we were as a team.”
It took the trade for Dunlap to silence the chirping — and for Seattle to finally pressure quarterbacks with methods other than the risky blitzing of Adams, Wagner and others among the back seven defenders.
The only pressing concern for the defense entering its home game Sunday against the New York Giants (4-7) is Dunlap’s health, and that of cornerback Tre Flowers.
Dunlap sprained his foot late in Monday night’s win at the Eagles. Carroll said Tuesday that Dunlap was headed to get an MRI to learn the extent of the damage.
Carroll said Wednesday Dunlap has “a sore foot, a little something going on. Nothing serious.” The coach said he and the team are “hopeful he’s going to be able to play” Sunday.
Flowers has “a hamstring issue” from Monday night’s game, Carroll said. Seattle already has cornerback Quinton Dunbar on injured reserve for at least another week. Flowers replaced Dunbar in the starting lineup last month after Dunbar got hurt.
Those injuries threaten to slow the momentum of the resurgent pass rush that has keyed this turnaround.
Then again, it wouldn’t be a Seahawks defense without something to chirp about.
“There’s always something negative about the Seattle Seahawks. I’ve kind of witnessed that over the past couple weeks, since I’ve been here,” Adams said.
“We are 8 and 3. Damn, that feels good. Let’s talk about that.
“You know, all the negatives, let’s miss all that.”
This story was originally published December 2, 2020 at 1:10 PM.
