If it feels like the Seattle Seahawks offense has faced a lot of extra pressure, your eyes are not deceiving you.
Through three games, Seahawks opponents have blitzed on 43.4% of pass plays (according to NFL Pro/NextGenStats), good for second-highest rate in the NFL behind the Chicago Bears. It’s probably not a coincidence that the Chicago Bears are first and the Green Bay Packers are fourth, as those teams have already felt the wrath of the Minnesota Vikings and Brian Flores’ blitz-a-palooza. Seattle,
meanwhile, has faced two of the top five blitzing defenses in the Washington Commanders and New England Patriots. Even the Arizona Cardinals, who rank near the bottom in blitz rate, blitzed Drew Lock above their season average.
This isn’t anything new for the Seahawks, who faced the third-highest blitz rate last season on their way to winning the Super Bowl. What is different is how they’re getting blitzed, and it’s something of a growing trend across the NFL.
JP Acosta, a wonderful SB Nation alum who now works for CBS Sports, recently penned a fascinating column examining a league-wide trend among defensive coordinators. As more teams shift toward under-center plays (usually with 12 and 13 personnel), DCs are just blitzing the hell out of those looks.
If you digest football online, you’ve probably heard this before: “everyone in the NFL is going under center now,” and it’s true. Across the league, NFL teams are going under center to manufacture their offense at a rate we haven’t seen this decade. According to TruMedia, through Week 3, the under-center rate is 42.0%, the highest the league has seen since 2013. If we want to parse it further, on early downs (first and second down), 2026’s 49.6% under-center rate is also the highest since 2013. Even with the higher under-center frequency, the leaguewide success rate under center (47.4%) is also the highest it’s been in that same time period (2025 is second at 46.9%). Teams are returning to ethical football, leaving behind the shotgun/RPO world we thought we’d get after the iconic Rams-Chiefs shootout of 2018.
But how are defenses countering the return to the under-center game that offenses are throwing at them? Longtime college defensive coordinator Don Brown once said to “solve your problems with aggression,” and NFL defenses have taken note. The leaguewide blitz rate against all under-center passes is 51% through three weeks, the highest the NFL has seen since TruMedia started tracking blitz rate in 2006. Teams are leaning into the aggression to cause chaotic plays, but the reason why is a great illustration of the constant battle for supremacy within the white lines.
The Seahawks are one of only a handful of teams that runs the majority of their offense from under-center, so they are ripe for the counter-blitz revolution. Seattle also runs play-action at the second-highest clip in the NFL, which is another relevant data point:
Opposing defenses are blitzing under-center play action passes at a 52% clip through three games, the highest rate TruMedia has ever tracked.
Over 60 percent of Seattle’s under-center dropbacks have been blitzed. Based on NFL Pro tracking, they were blitzed less than half the time from under-center dropbacks in 2025. What is notable, however, is that offensive coordinator Brian Fleury has yet to establish an under-center pass game without play-action. There have only been two non-PA attempts out of 32 under-center dropbacks, one of which was the tying touchdown to Jaxon Smith-Njigba against the New England Patriots. For comparison, the San Francisco 49ers have 15 non-PA passes out of 30 UC dropbacks. With essentially two games of Drew Lock and only one with Darnold (who didn’t have a single non-PA UC pass against the Washington Commanders), it might be too early to declare any tendencies for Fleury, but it wouldn’t make much sense for a Shanahan disciple to only want to use play-action passing from under center.
None of this is necessarily bad, by the way. It’s a defensive counter to a change in offensive strategies, as is the nature of sport. If there’s good news to glean from these three weeks, it’s the fact that Drew Lock and Sam Darnold have both shredded the blitz (from UC, shotgun, and pistol) to the combined tune of 30/41 for 382 yards, 3 TDs, 0 INTs, and only two sacks taken. Seattle’s EPA/pass against the blitz ranks third in the NFL behind the San Francisco 49ers and Kansas City Chiefs.
JP’s column did dive into defenses using blitzing to combat the proliferation of outside zone runs, which would definitely be relevant to the Seahawks. The only thing I’ll add is that Seattle is still dealing with one of the highest stacked box rates in the NFL at 32.2%. I don’t have the data for run blitz rate, but the Seahawks run game has performed poorly by EPA/play against stacked boxes, so Seattle is having to deal with a steady diet of loading up to stop the run while sending extra pressure to deal with the heavier personnel, under-center looks.
Regardless of whether it’s under center, shotgun, or pistol, one thing is clear: DCs are blitzing more, full stop.
Across the league, blitz rates are skyrocketing. The 32.3% leaguewide blitz rate is the highest in the NFL since 2010, but it’s not all emotional blitzing after a big play. These are calculated moves, schematic tweaks to force offenses out of their under-center comfort zone and swing the odds back in their favor.
…Well, except the Seahawks, who rank 31st in blitz rate. We’ll see if that changes any time soon once the secondary is healthy again.
