Daniel Jeremiah: Seahawks’ defense looks even better than last year

During their run to the Lombardi Trophy, the 2025 Seattle Seahawks totaled a plus-246 point differential across both the regular season and postseason, which was the highest mark of any Super Bowl champion this century.

Daniel Jeremiah: Rams’ depth ‘not close’ to the Seahawks

And yet, NFL Network’s Daniel Jeremiah shared a bold statement after watching the Seahawks’ season-opening 13-10 win over the New England Patriots last week.

“I saw a team that looked better than the version of the team we saw win the Super Bowl last year,” Jeremiah told Seattle Sports’ Brock and Salk on Tuesday.

Jeremiah’s comment was directed primarily toward the Seahawks’ defense, given that their offense played nearly the entire game with backup quarterback Drew Lock after Sam Darnold got injured on the opening series.

After allowing a league-low 17.2 points per game last year, Seattle’s “Dark Side” defense held the Patriots to just 277 total yards and 4.1 yards per play, while generating three takeaways and three sacks. And that came despite the Seahawks missing two starting defensive backs – standout big-nickel defender Nick Emmanwori and safety Ty Okada – due to injuries.

“This team looked faster to me,” Jeremiah said. “They looked even more connected defensively, even without Emmanwori out there. Like, it was impressive. That did not look like a first game. As someone who’s consumed a lot of the tape this week from all the games, that was about as clean of a group that was very, very connected defensively.”

That high level of connectedness makes sense, given that the Seahawks returned the vast majority of their defensive starters and top rotational players from last season. Even with Emmanwori and Okada both out, Seattle had eight returning starters on the field in last week’s opener.

In particular, that showed up with the Seahawks posting nine tackles for loss from eight different players.

“You don’t see any hesitation,” Jeremiah said. “So it’s not like all these guys just hit the weights and all of a sudden they just all became magically faster human beings. But there’s just a trust and a conviction in how they play. There’s just no pause. There’s no just kind of like, wait, what do I see? They trust it, they’re connected and they go.

“(And they got) hats to the ball,” Jeremiah added. “I think probably anybody that’s watching the games, you can just see it. … That was a calling card last year, but even more so this year. They get so many hats to the ball. Whether it’s run or pass, they are sprinting.”

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

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