Throughout the 2025 NFL season, SB Nation’s Doug Farrar will write about the game’s Secret Superstars — those players whose performances might slip under the radar for whatever reasons. In this installment,
we focus on Seattle Seahawks defensive back Nick Emmanwori, a rookie who may just be Mike Macdonald’s most valuable versatile weapon over time… which Macdonald had before in Baltimore.
At every position in football, there are players who bring talent riches to their teams that can’t really be replicated. For the Baltimore Ravens, there’s defensive back Kyle Hamilton, whose versatility allows him to change the structure and effectiveness of his defense simply by where he is deployed. Last season, the Ravens were sucking wind on defense until they made Hamilton a deep-third defender, and everything turned around. And in 2025, all it took was moving Hamilton back to the box and the slot (along with a really smart trade for Los Angeles Chargers for safety Alohi Gilman) for another Ravens defensive Renaissance.
Expecting to get your own Kyle Hamilton in the draft is generally a fool’s errand — there simply aren’t many humans who can do all the things Hamilton can do at his size — 6’4” and 220 pounds. But when the Seattle Seahawks took South Carolina defensive back Nick Emmanwori with the 35th pick in the second round of the 2025 draft, you could see what head coach Mike Macdonald was thinking. Macdonald, of course, was Baltimore’s defensive coordinator in 2022 and 2023 as Hamilton started to become the unicorn he is. So, he knows the prototype. Emmanwori showed up at the scouting combine at 6’3 and 227 pounds, and the spider chart he put up put any questions about his raw athleticism to rest.
Through his first few games, Emmanwori showed his versatility with eight quarterback pressures, 17 solo tackles, 10 stops, and 18 catches allowed on 24 targets for 130 yards, no touchdowns, no interceptions, two pass breakups, and an opponent passer rating of 95.8. Then, in Seattle’s 44-22 Week 10 beatdown of the Arizona Cardinals on Sunday, Emmanwori was unleashed as a pass defender to an entirely different level. On nine targets, he allowed four catches for 71 yards, four pass breakups, a half-sack, and an opponent passer rating of 72.0. Seeing a guy Emmanwori’s size clamp down in man and match concepts certainly had Macdonald feeling good about things.
“We’re asking him to play two positions right now,” Macdonald said after the Cardinals game, regarding Emmanwori’s box and slot responsibilities. “That’s what we’ve referenced over the course of time now is we can start to add responsibility for him. There was a situation today where we probably would’ve put him in at safety, so learning that as well. So [he’s] doing a great job. I feel like he’s executing at a high level. You feel like he’s being decisive, knows exactly — he’s playing with anticipation, which is a positive, and then letting his physical capabilities shine when he goes out there and lets it rip. So we’ll continue to build with him, and his approach has just been great for a rookie. He’s having success — keep coming back, keep rocking, attacking the preparation. Got a great challenge ahead of us this week, so a team that he hasn’t seen yet, so [we] need to prepare again at the same level.”
Asked postgame whether playing these two positions has helped his game, Emmanwori was pretty affirmative about that.
“For sure,” he said. “The game’s slowing down well for me. It was my fourth real full game today. As the week progresses, and as I’m seeing more ball, seeing more frequent stuff and seeing a lot of similarities between each week… I got some good vets and good coaching, so the game’s slowing down real well for me.”
That great challenge Macdonald referred to happens at SoFi Stadium on Sunday, when the 7-2 Seahawks take on the 7-2 Los Angeles Rams. Sean McVay’s offense puts three tight ends on the field more than McVay has ever done before — a 40% clip over the last three games — and it would behoove the Seahawks to align a massive defensive back to work those tight ends to a fortuitous end.
Now, and perhaps for the second time in his career, Mike Macdonald just might have that kind of do-it-all guy.
