‘The light is coming on’ for Seahawks DT Byron Murphy II

Sep 18, 2025, 9:12 AM

Seattle Sports

For a first-round draft pick, Seattle Seahawks defensive tackle Byron Murphy II had a relatively quiet rookie campaign last year. The 6-foot, 306-pounder did plenty of invaluable dirty work in the trenches, but there weren’t many splash plays that showed up on the stat sheet.

It’s already a different story this fall.

Huard: Seahawks QB Darnold thriving at attacking the middle

Murphy has exploded out of the gate with 1.5 sacks, a tackle for loss and four quarterback hits through Seattle’s first two games this season. He has seven pressures, which is tied for 10th among all interior defensive linemen, according to Pro Football Focus. He ranks 27th out of 120 interior defensive linemen in PFF grading.

And those numbers from last season? He’s already tripled his 2024 sack total and racked up one-third of his 2024 pressure count.

Another sack for Byron. pic.twitter.com/YMSvP3U84G

— Seattle Seahawks (@Seahawks) September 14, 2025

Why the NFL transition process is longer for DTs

As NFL Network’s Daniel Jeremiah told Seattle Sports’ Brock and Salk on Tuesday, sometimes it takes defensive tackles two or three years to adjust to the NFL level.

Jeremiah pointed to three-time Pro Bowler Dexter Lawrence and two-time Pro Bowler Nnamdi Madubuike as examples. Lawrence totaled nine sacks over his first three seasons before piling up 21 sacks over his next three seasons. And Madubuike totaled just three sacks over his first two seasons before exploding for 25 sacks over his next three.

“Defensive tackle is one (position) where there’s a lot of examples over the years of it taking guys two or three years to get comfortable and then to really kind of show what they’ve got,” Jeremiah said. “Dexter Lawrence is a recent example of that. It took him a couple of years to kind of get up and going, and all of a sudden you’ve got this dominant force. Madubuike with Baltimore, all of a sudden he turns into this dominant, dominant player.

“And I was just looking at Murphy going, OK, man, this is a good sign. The light is coming on here and he’s figuring it out.”

Jeremiah then explained why it can take defensive tackles longer to acclimate to the NFL.

“It’s just such a different game for those guys at the college level than it is at the NFL level,” Jeremiah said. “Every single college game – I don’t care if you’re playing in the SEC or the Big Ten – one of those three interior offensive linemen is a tomato can and you’re going to get a chance to beat up on him. And that just isn’t the case when you get in the NFL, so you’ve gotta figure out other ways to win.”

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