With a dramatic midseason turnaround, the Seattle Seahawks defense has found its breakthrough under first-year head coach Mike Macdonald.

How Macdonald’s first year with the Seahawks impressed an NFL insider

The Seahawks have allowed a league-low 14.8 offensive points per game since Week 9 after each of their last five opponents scored 19 offensive points or fewer. Seattle has also held four of those five opponents to fewer than 300 yards in regulation.

The most recent strong defensive performance came last Sunday when the Seahawks defeated the Arizona Cardinals 30-18 to stay atop the NFC West with their fourth straight win. After watching film of that game, NFL Network’s Daniel Jeremiah described what stood out most about the Seahawks’ defense during his weekly conversation on Seattle Sports’ Brock and Salk.

“Every single play you watched on the defensive side of the ball, it was a different player making the play,” Jeremiah said. “Just the depth of their front line (and) the guys they roll through make all the plays. … I don’t know that there’s another team that gets as many contributions from as many different players.”

The statistics prove it.

Defensive lineman Leonard Williams has been on a roll, recording 4.5 sacks, six tackles for loss, an interception-return touchdown and two pass breakups in the last two games. But it was anything but a one-man show.

Over the last five games, the Seahawks have recorded seven different players with at least one sack, twelve different players with at least one tackle for loss, 12 different players with at least one pass breakup and five different players with at least one interception.

Even a player who didn’t generate as many stats – rookie first-round defensive tackle Byron Murphy II – made a notable impression.

“I know Byron Murphy isn’t going to show up much in the box score because Leonard just goes crazy and does what he does,” Jeremiah said. “But (Murphy) picks up two blockers. He does dirty work, so to speak. And the linebackers are filling up and playing aggressively. Ernest Jones was all over the field. … So you’ve got a really, really, deep, talented group there.”

Listen to the full conversation with Daniel Jeremiah at this link or in the audio player at the top of this story. Tune in to Brock and Salk weekdays from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. or find the podcast on the Seattle Sports app.

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