Seattle Seahawks 2025 Predictions: Defensive Line/Interior Linemen

Seattle Seahawks 2025 Predictions: Defensive Line/Interior Linemen

Can the Seattle Seahawks dominate on defense through the power of their defensive line? What’s going on everybody? Good morning. Happy Monday. We’ve got some more Seattle Seahawk predictions today. Got some more prognostications on deck here and we’re moving over to the defense now. We did the offense over the last not quite week. Now we’re going to start knocking out the defense and we should be done with this by the end of the week and we’ll be able to really have a good firm picture of where I see the Seahawks individually for the 2025 season. So, we’re going to start with the defensive line, and this is the interior defensive line, right? You’ve got your interior guys, and then you’ve got the edge rushers. In a three, four defense, traditionally, the edge rushers and defensive linemen are kind of siloed, but some places, some aggregators will kind of group them together. I’m not going to group them together. I’m just going to do the interior guys, which is in my eyes really the five guys you see on screen. Leonard Williams, Byron Murphy II, Jiren Reed, Jonathan Henkins, and Mike Morris. Um, there could be one or two other guys that get involved here, I guess, like Riley Mills. But for the moment, I’m going to say that Riley Mills gets kept on ice simply because you look at how good things are in terms of three texts for the Seahawks with Williams, with Murphy, with Reed. I don’t know why you would want to hurry Riley Mills back from an injury that was pretty significant. And even if there was a need for some kind of three-tech assistance, Mike Morris has been in the league a couple years. And I know the guy isn’t that good, but he’s probably better than Riley Mills will be given the fact that Riley Mills missed the whole off season and is recovering from a big injury. So, I I don’t think he’s going to get involved. There are one or two other guys that have a chance, but it would require a lot of injuries. It would require a lot of unexpected things to happen. So, I’m not going to get into that. We’re going to be talking about these five guys exclusively for this video. And this should be one of the strengths of the team, right? This should be one of the areas where the team dominates. If we’re not getting dominant play from this group, hard to believe we’re going to be very good and hard to believe we’re going to be able to look at this current team as any kind of a success. All right. Uh please click the thumbs up button on this video if you haven’t already. Subscribe if you’re new. Click the bell for notifications. Become a channel member for $2 a month. Those are the best ways to support the channel. We’re going to start with big cat Leonard Williams. So, Leonard Williams coming off a career year as good as any interior defensive lineman in the league. Uh, probably should have been ranked very high in the defensive player of the year race. He was not, but I I I I don’t think I need to go any further on that conversation. You you guys know. If you know, you know. But the only thing that really matters to us as fans is the fact that he is that good. and he was that good. Now, I don’t think he’ll be as good this year for a couple of different reasons. So, I’m going to say 57 tackles, which is very close to what he had last year. Not a big fall off there. um not necessarily anything he’s doing differently, more so that it is there’s going to be more opportunities for him to rest on the bench because this year you’re going to have Byron Murphy, 22year-old Byron Murphy ready to go, ready to really attack the field, ready to get on the field in that three-tech role more often. That’s going to take snaps away from Williams and I think that is going to bring his numbers down a little bit, but it might not bring down his effectiveness. Like we might see a very similar rate of pressure, similar rate of plays made in the back field. You’ll just see fewer of them total because there are going to be fewer snaps for him. And that’s not a bad thing, especially because he is getting older. Tackles for loss, I went with 13. Again, a little bit less than last year. I don’t think it’s going to be less in terms of rate. I think it’s just going to be less in terms of volume because Murphy needs more snaps. And Murphy and Williams can be on the field at the same time sometimes, not all the time. So, I do think we’re going to scale Williams back a little bit. You’d probably want to do that anyway when he’s getting to the age that he’s at, and he’ll still be one of the best players in the league, but it won’t be quite as prolific. to that point. I went with nine sacks, which is a couple less than he had last year. I I think last year was a career year for him. I do. And I don’t think that it’s wise to expect him to be able to meet or top that because they call it a career year for a reason. And pressures. And one thing about my pressure count is that I’m doing it by the PFR standards, Pro Football Reference. So, this is going to be 25 total pressures by their standard, which on PFF might end up being like 55. So, if you’re wondering why this number is so low, it’s because I’m using the harsher metric, the harsher greater, I guess I should say. So, that’s slightly less than last year for Leonard Williams. I do think you’re going to see a small down tick, but he’s still going to be very dominant. And it’s not going to be a bad thing that his numbers go down. If anything, it’ll be positive because it’s getting spread around. You got a guy like a Byron Murphy who I still don’t think is going to be dominating the league yet because there aren’t going to be enough opportunities for that, right? Like you’ve got Leonard Williams as your starting three tech. Byron Murphy, if he is correct, if what he said is true that he’s going to play a lot more three tech this year, there’s going to be a little bit of a log jam. Murphy’s not going to be able to play a ton of snaps every game if he’s jockeying for snaps with Big Cat. And that says nothing to how he might end up jocking for snaps with even a Jiren Reed. We don’t know exactly how this is going to play out for the Seahawks. It’s it’s an imperfect situation and I trust McDonald to figure it out, but it’s not necessarily the log jam I would like to have in a perfect world. So, I went with 29 tackles, which doesn’t sound like a lot, but remember, Byron Murphy’s not a very good tackler. Byron Murphy is not a great finisher. He’s a guy who creates havoc. He’s a guy who creates pressure. He’s a guy who creates opportunities for other players. He himself is not typically the guy that’s bringing the man down. He’s got short arms. And he proved through college that he’s not very good at the whole finishing the play thing. So 29 sounds low. It kind of is. But also keep in mind that he is backing up one of the better players in the league at his position and he is a down lineman. Six tackles for loss. Significant improvement over last year. I I I do think he’ll be a lot better. I do think that maybe the numbers won’t show it, but he will be a more effective player in 2025. He he pretty much has to be. How can you not improve on a season where you were 21 years old? 5.5 sacks, which honestly I’m a little bit hesitant to say it’s going to be this high because it’s not really his game. But I’m going to say over the course of a 17game season, he finds his way to five and a half. I I I do think that the move to three tech will help. It’s not going to fix everything, but I’m willing to put some put put a non-trivial wager on it helping some. And then the pressure count, I went with 19. Pretty good. Again, it’s the PFF, PFR standard. So on PFF, that could easily end up being like 45. But again, I think he’s more of a pressure guy than a sack guy anyway. So understand that the sack to pressure rate for him is not going to be as good as some other players. And those are your two main guys. But we also have Jiren Reed, who we just gave a significant contract, who’s coming off a pretty good year. Now, it’s hard to know exactly what to expect when you don’t even know what position he’s going to play. Given common sense, I can only come to one conclusion. Jiren Reed must be playing nose tackle for a significant portion of 2025. Otherwise, this doesn’t make any sense. How are you going to have Leonard Williams, Byron Murphy, and Jiren Reed all playing three tack? It it kind of can’t be done. Not realistically, anyway. Especially when you don’t really have another nose tackle. have Jonathan Henkins who is probably good for 12 to 15 snaps a game. So, because of that, I do think his numbers will go down compared to previous years. I don’t think they’ll go down that much because at the end of the day, he is still kind of a playmaker even at the nose tackle spot. Went with 37 tackles. I’m going to assume that he gets the bulk of the action at nose tackle and that’ll eventually add up even though it’s a position where you obviously don’t put up big numbers. five tackles for loss. You’re you’re not going to see a ton of penetration from him when you’re playing at that nose t one tech nose tackle, whatever you want to call it spot. And I went with three and a half sacks. Again, at the nose tackle spot, it’s pretty rare that you’re the guy who actually gets in and makes the play on the quarterback. So, went with 14 pressures. I think that there is some pass rush ability in Jiren Reed that cannot be denied regardless of his position. So, he’ll find his way to the quarterback on occasion, but it’s not going to be anything crazy, and it doesn’t need to be. I think he can serve us better in this role, and I’m excited to see what he can do for us in that role. Okay, now we have the guy that we know for sure is a nose tackle, Jonathan Henkins, who I’m not terribly up on. I I view Jonathan Henkins as somebody who probably should have retired this off seasonason and we will be just hoping he can provide 12 to 15 decent snaps a game. I would have rather found some young player with upside who could probably do the same and gives you the upside for better. But he’s here and he’s going to play some. So I went with 17 tackles, backup nose tackle. Not going to be a ton going on for him. three tackles for loss. He’s always been a little bit of a playmaker, one sack, and two pressures. Just at some point during the year, it happens. But it’s not going to be about the numbers with him, right? We’re not looking for Henkins to have 10 tackles in a game. We’re looking for him to do his job for the snaps that he’s on the field for. And doing his job often means not necessarily acrewing stats. And the only other guy that I right now think is going to do anything particularly notable at all on the defensive line is Mike Morris. And I don’t I don’t have a lot here. Mike Morris is pretty clearly a player that whatever coaching staff we have, there just isn’t a lot of interest there. It seems like didn’t seem like Carol thought much of him and McDonald had a chance to show he thought something of him last year and it never happened. And remember, Mike Morris has a little bit of a leg up here because I believe he played under McDonald in college. So, if anybody out there should have a little bit of an affinity for this guy, should be McDonald, but still doesn’t get on the field. And we don’t really need him when you’ve got Big Cat, Murphy, Reed. You’ve got enough going on in that area. You don’t need another guy like a Mike Morris unless there’s a lot of injuries. So, eight tackles, no none for loss, no sacks, and one pressure. Gets on the field in garbage time. Gets on the field because somebody gets dinged up. At some point, he finds his way onto the field, but I’m not expecting much. Okay, so that’s it. That’s all I got for these guys. So, if you take the totals, that is going to be about 150 tackles. So, that’s what 8 to nine per game from the defensive line. I think that’s pretty reasonable. I think that’s pretty fair. I think that if we’re doing that, things are probably going well. Again, we’re talking about a defense where most of the playmaking is on the responsibility of the second level. 27 tackles for loss. So, that’s about one and a half per game from the defensive line. And 19 sacks, that’s more than one sack a game. And you’ve got Byron Murphy kind of picking things up to make up for Reed not being quite as productive because of the nose tackle move. And Leonard Williams also drops off a little bit to make way for Murphy. But in terms of the sum, very similar to last year. And 61 pressures. 61 pressures. Little less than four a game. As long as we’re getting good stuff from the second level, I think that should serve fine. But we are placing a lot of hope and faith into our second level and their ability to capitalize on what the front is doing. All right, so this is a pretty good baseline. Again, it doesn’t tell you the whole story, especially with these down linemen that I mean, with the exception of Leonard Williams, these guys are more meant to set things up for other players than to actually make the play themselves, right? like Murphy is a disruptor more than he is a finisher. If Jiren Reed does play nose tackle, he will definitely be a guy who’s looking to set things up more so than make his own plays. Henkins goes without saying, so understand that this doesn’t tell the whole picture, but it’s a good start. All right, I will see you guys either later today or tomorrow. More predictions coming soon. Go Hawks. Let me know what you think down below. Let me know how you’re feeling. Let me know if you think any of this is off in one way or another. And yeah, this is the part of the team that needs to dominate and these numbers paint the start of domination, but we’ll see the domination in other areas. Go Hawks.

These guys need to dominate.

Linktree: https://linktr.ee/seahawksbrendonnelson
Send a tip: https://streamelements.com/seahawksbrendonnelson-9211/tip
Become a member: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjutr2XsEsIQX93fdF2QIwg/join
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/SeahawksBrendonNelson
Business Inquiries: seahawksbrendonnelson@gmail.com
Discord: https://discord.gg/4nSAZWf8Bn
Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/seahawksbrendonnelson
Kick: https://kick.com/seahawksbrendonnelson
Twitch VOD Archives: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCELY9cLRxhoAG3x2zVxzJzA
Twitter: https://twitter.com/SeahawksBN
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/seahawksbn/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seahawks.brendon.nelson/
Paypal: https://www.paypal.me/brndnuwt
Cashapp: https://cash.app/$brndnuwt
Venmo: https://www.venmo.com/u/brndnuwt
Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/SeahawksBrendon/

Thank you to channel members
caesar castillo, Michael Centalonza, David Joaquin, Devin Martzall, John randolph, Danny H, CapnQweef, DeezMoobs, Bob Brunius,
Ian Rudolph, Brandon, Bow Liu, 67Plush, ConciergeWithNolan, David Velez, King Fisher, White Noise, Lasse Dobler, zaknyfein z, Famecut,
Aaron Jacobs, mjseahawk, TOnyBagaDOnuts, Tyler Skywalker, Photon RT, glc0stanza, Franco Bruna Salazar, Larry Byrd, Matt Glover,
Tim Malone, PowerHitter 427, Alexandra Tibbetts, PretentiousCameron, Pxomise, Tom Cox, Danish12, Captain Kalli, Austin Roberts,
Cory Scalf, Dimsyl, Moss Productions, Brian Stuart, The Zekinator, AllStarRay, Original Stevie Ji, Jordan, Jerry Keeney, Joseph Miller,
EnamelCamel69, rusty west, Space, Jessica Butler, Chad Hart, Misfit74, Owen Carter, Ghashiun, Adrian Ponce, in vino veritas, Jesse Lund,
Robert Kearn, yoda seattle, Keith Lovell, Richard Ross, Stephen Shettler, Mike Glennon, Harrison Hill, Zak, Kev Will, PsyDude07,
marcus P, nick holmquist, Filipinomad, N R, Y2kha, Paul Carlson, dacian23, Alex Bliss, Aaron Zhang, iAm, Tyson McGill,
Matthew Clements, Monk, Ari, Ivana Ilic, Ernie Renn, Bobby Strahsburg, RobertVanliew, Harrison Grose, Miguel Rodriguez

Special thank you to Elite channel members
arfman23, ItsHoof, Roy Frohlich, The Hawk’s Nest, Christopher Johnson, Clemente Jackson, Tony Borges-Silva, Corey Hawe, Chase Stern,
Frank Darcy, Carson Schroer, Scotty Mac, Felipe Imanishi, WANDA BACKEN, Captain Oreo, AfghanMusicFan (AMF), CArson Youngren, VRay,
Brucie Bonus, Jay Freeman, Taylor McClure, senor tinybabygoats, youpeeps64, Calupoh, mumbles

Extra special thank you to Ring of Honor channel members
Nolan Stout, Eric Tams, Frank Darcy, Eric Palmer, John Stillwell, Trent Oliver, Go Geno

Thank you to Patreon supporters
Scott, Bart Mol, Tyler Servies, chad hart, Scott Chomitzky, John Stillwell, Nicholas Kahoun, Andrew Merriman, Trent Oliver

Hard As Steel by Alex-Productions | https://onsound.eu/
Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com
Creative Commons / Attribution 3.0 Unported License (CC BY 3.0)
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en_US