{"id":209915,"date":"2025-07-15T21:18:11","date_gmt":"2025-07-15T21:18:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/209915\/"},"modified":"2025-07-15T21:18:11","modified_gmt":"2025-07-15T21:18:11","slug":"2013-seattle-seahawks-2nd-best-nfl-team-since-2000","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/209915\/","title":{"rendered":"2013 Seattle Seahawks 2nd-best NFL team since 2000"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The 2013 Seattle Seahawks were one of the greatest teams in recent NFL history, according to one of football\u2019s most respected writers.<\/p>\n<p>In an article published Tuesday, ESPN\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/billbarnwell?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Bill Barnwell<\/a> ranked that Super Bowl-winning Seahawks squad at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nfl\/story\/_\/id\/45730439\/ranking-25-best-nfl-teams-25-years-2000-patriots-eagles-seahawks\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">No. 2 on his list of the top 25 NFL teams since 2000<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/sports.mynorthwest.com\/nfl\/seattle-seahawks\/seattle-seahawks-best-draft-values-since-2000-sherman-wagner-wilson-chancellor\/1815967\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">4 legendary Seahawks picks ranked among NFL\u2019s best draft values since 2000<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The only team ahead of the 2013 Seahawks was the 2007 New England Patriots, who finished 18-1 after losing to the New York Giants in a stunning Super Bowl upset. That makes the 2013 Seahawks the greatest Super Bowl champion of the past 25 years, in Barnwell\u2019s view.<\/p>\n<p>The 2013 Seahawks, of course, were led by one of the greatest defenses in NFL history. Their famed Legion of Boom defense allowed a league-low 14.4 points per game, which Barnwell calculated as the fourth-best defense since 2000 when normalized against each year\u2019s league average.<\/p>\n<p>But as Barnwell wrote, the 2013 Seahawks also had a better offense than most realized. Seattle tied for eighth in the league at 26.1 points per game that season, which Barnwell ranked in the 80th percentile among offenses since 2000 when normalized.<\/p>\n<p>And it certainly helped that the 2013 Seahawks capped their championship run in style, soaring past the Denver Broncos and their record-setting offense with an emphatic 43-8 rout in the Super Bowl. Those Peyton Manning-led Broncos averaged an NFL-record 37.9 points per game in the regular season, but were held scoreless by the Legion of Boom until the final minute of the third quarter. For context, Barnwell ranked the 2013 Broncos as the 15th-best team since 2000.<\/p>\n<p>Barnwell wrote that the only reason he didn\u2019t put the 2013 Seahawks at No. 1 was due to some \u201csloppy\u201d performances in the regular season. They needed overtime to get past the 2-14 Houston Texans, they fell behind 21-0 before rallying for an overtime win over the 4-12 Tampa Bay Buccaneers and they needed a last-second goal-line stand to beat the 7-9 St. Louis Rams.<\/p>\n<p>In Barnwell\u2019s ranking, the next three teams behind the 2013 Seahawks (16-3) were the 2004 Patriots (17-2), the 2024 Philadelphia Eagles (18-3) and the 2017 Eagles (16-3).<\/p>\n<p>Seattle Seahawks news and analysis<\/p>\n<p>\u2022\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/sports.mynorthwest.com\/nfl\/seattle-seahawks\/seattle-seahawks-at-center-of-nfl-rookie-2nd-round-contract-situation\/1816584\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Seattle Seahawks at center of fascinating NFL rookie contract situation<\/a><br \/>\u2022\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/sports.mynorthwest.com\/nfl\/seattle-seahawks\/seattle-seahawks-defense-can-be-elite-even-without-slew-of-superstars-schatz\/1816098\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Insider: Seattle Seahawks\u2019 defense can be elite, even without slew of stars<\/a><br \/>\u2022\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/sports.mynorthwest.com\/nfl\/seattle-seahawks\/huard-expect-learning-curve-seattle-seahawks-sam-darnold\/1816203\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Huard: Even with familiarity, expect a learning curve for Sam Darnold<\/a><br \/>\u2022 <a href=\"https:\/\/sports.mynorthwest.com\/nfl\/seattle-seahawks\/wyman-boye-mafe-highest-ceiling-seattle-seahawks-edge-rushers\/1816152\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Wyman: Boye Mafe has highest ceiling among Seattle Seahawks edge rushers<\/a><br \/>\u2022\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/sports.mynorthwest.com\/bump-and-stacy\/rost-what-we-can-and-cant-learn-from-seattle-seahawks-training-camp\/1816432\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Rost: What we can and can\u2019t learn from Seattle Seahawks training camp<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a class=\"twitter-follow-button\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/CameronVanTil\" data-show-count=\"false\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Follow @CameronVanTil<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/sports.mynorthwest.com\/newsletters\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" data-perfmatters-preload=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/SeattleSportsEmail-830x100-1.jpg\" style=\"margin: 0 auto;\" class=\"mobile-signup\"\/>\t&#13;<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/SeattleSportsEmail-830x100-1.jpg\" style=\"margin: 0 auto;\" class=\"desktop-signup\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>                    <script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The 2013 Seattle Seahawks were one of the greatest teams in recent NFL history, according to one of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":209916,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2081],"tags":[7,1631,3932,3930,6,238,237,261,2635,9,3931,1951,1952],"class_list":{"0":"post-209915","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-seattle-seahawks","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-home","10":"tag-mynorthwest-com","11":"tag-mynorthwest-com-seattle-news","12":"tag-nfl","13":"tag-seahawks","14":"tag-seattle","15":"tag-seattle-seahawks","16":"tag-seattleseahawks","17":"tag-sports","18":"tag-talk-and-community","19":"tag-traffic","20":"tag-weather"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114859338168687572","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209915","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=209915"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209915\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/209916"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=209915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=209915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=209915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}