It’s that time of year! Aaron Schatz, the godfather of DVOA, has released his annual Football Almanac, which for the third year in a row is in partnership with FTN Fantasy. The Seattle Seahawks chapter is filled with all sorts of terrific advanced analytical insight, along with the league-wide statistical appendix. Here are the biggest Seahawks observations I’ve noted going through the almanac.
(Spoiler: There are a lot of positives)
Offense
The Seahawks passing game was a monster out of 12 personnel
When Seattle
deployed two-tight end sets, they averaged 9.3 adjusted net yards per pass attempt, third-best in the NFL behind the Buffalo Bills and Detroit Lions. As you might regrettably recall, Seattle was heavy on 11 personnel in 2024 under Ryan Grubb, to less than desirable results. Seattle flipped its identity under Klint Kubiak, and the expectation is that we’ll see Brian Fleury continue to utilize heavier formations moving forward.
Play action vs. non-play action difference was stark
The Seahawks offense without play action was good but not great. They were exceptional as the best play action team in the NFL, and no team had a wider disparity in PA vs. non-PA than Seattle. Seattle was the only team to average north of 10 yards per play action pass, which is phenomenal. Sam Darnold in PA passing is as lethal a QB as there is.
Health was instrumental in Seattle’s offensive success
As a whole, the Seahawks did not suffer many long-term injuries to key players. The defense might have lost the likes of Jarran Reed and Julian Love to injured reserve at times, but the offense was among the cleanest for Adjusted Games Lost, a metric “which measures how often a team’s starters and other important players are missing games or playing at less than 100%.” Seattle’s offense had the third-best AGL, which makes sense when you consider only Charles Cross and Jalen Sundell missed multiple weeks due to injury among all starting players. Cooper Kupp and Zach Charbonnet each missed a game during the regular season but no more than that.
The bane of Seattle’s offense for years was seldom used
This might be considered sweet music given how bad this aspect of Seattle’s game has been for an eternity:
“The Seahawks used only 10 running back screens, the lowest figure in the league.”
The Seahawks excelled at breaking tackles and making people miss
I consider this to be an astonishing statistic that is worth quoting:
Seattle led the NFL in broken and missed tackles on offense by a large margin. The gap in broken tackle rate between the Seahawks and the No. 2 Falcons was larger than the gap between the Falcons and the No. 23 Bears.
A lot of that can be attributed to Kenneth Walker III, who had 105 of the 203 broken tackles and ranked third among all running backs. Jaxon Smith-Njigba was ninth among receivers and tight ends with 16.
Seattle’s pass catchers did not leave yards on the field
Out of 435 passes, only 14 were dropped, good for fourth-lowest drop rate in the NFL. You’re not going to find a single Seahawks target at the top of any dropped pass list.
Sam Darnold stayed upright
We’ve been used to Seahawks quarterbacks taking beatings behind shaky offensive lines for over a decade. That was not in the case in 2025, as Sam Darnold ranked eighth-lowest among starting quarterbacks in knockdowns (sacks + hits) suffered. His raw total was 62 knockdowns but his knockdown rate was just 11.7%. For comparison, Justin Herbert’s KD rate was 23.4%, which led all QBs who started the majority of the season.
When looking at the offensive line, not a single Seahawks player ranked top 20 in pressures allowed, which is a phenomenal achievement. Abe Lucas had the highest ranking at his respective position, coming in at 8th out of 38 right tackles. Rookie Grey Zabel was 12th out of 36 left guards, while Anthony Bradford was 13th out of 33 right guards. Interestingly enough, Charles Cross was 26th out of 37 left tackles and had the highest pressure rate of any of Seattle’s starters (6.2%), but keep in mind there are all sorts of other metrics that would affirm the idea that Cross had a good season.
Defense
The Seahawks had three of the 15 best coverage corners by DVOA
Folks, is this good? Check out the performances of Riq Woolen, Devon Witherspoon, and Josh Jobe. Riq ranked the best of Seattle’s trio, narrowly above Devon Witherspoon, while Jobe fared quite well given he had the most targets sent his way out of anyone on this list.
DeMarcus Lawrence raised the ceiling of Seattle’s edge group
No Seahawks edge rusher had more defeats—described as “number of plays which stop the offense from gaining first down yardage on third or fourth down, stop the offense behind the line of scrimmage, or result in a
fumble (regardless of which team recovers) or interception”—than ‘Tank.’ Lawrence led Seattle’s edges with 23 defeats, 54 pressures, 13 QB hits, and just 1.9 rush yards gained on average when he was credited with making the play.
Leonard Williams and Byron Murphy II were as dominant as you thought
This interior tandem was an unsolvable puzzle for opposing offenses. Williams and Murphy each had 39 pressures and ranked in the top 20 among all defensive linemen in run stop rate. Williams led all Seahawks with 14 QB hits.
Nick Emmanwori is already scary good
You know how DeMarcus Lawrence led all Seahawks edge rushers in defeats? Emmanwori, technically a nickel safety but pretty much functioning like a linebacker, led the entire secondary in defeats with 19. His coverage DVOA ranked 11th among all nickelbacks, and his broken tackle rate was 16th best among all qualifying defensive players.
One of the most penalized defensive players in the NFL? Josh Jobe
Including declined and offsetting penalties, Jobe was tied for fourth-most flags against among all defensive players. However, Jobe’s 10 penalties only were worth 49 yards, so they weren’t lethal in terms of long pass interference penalties or anything of the 15-yard variety. For context, Riley Moss of the Denver Broncos was flagged 12 times for 203 yards.
Ernest Jones is good at football
Seattle’s underappreciated linebacker ranked 14th in pass coverage DVOA at his position and tied for 13th among all defensive players in defeats. A note on this fairly recent metric: “If the receiver being covered is not targeted, it is treated the same as passes where the covered receiver does not make a successful play (incomplete or a very short gain).”
Special Teams
Michael Dickson and Jason Myers are at the top of the class
Dickson’s gross punt value over average was +8.3, good for best in the NFL. The almanac describes gross value on special teams as follows:
We also have methods for measuring the gross value of kickoffs and punts. These measures assume that all kickoffs or punts will have average returns unless they are touchbacks or kicked out of bounds, then judge the kicker or punter on the value with those assumed returns.
Jason Myers, the NFL’s leading scorer, was second in gross kickoff value and first in net points.
Special Teams has long been considered a highly volatile year-to-year statistic, but there must be something to the fact that, outside of the disastrous Dee Williams/Laviska Shenault Jr experience, Seattle’s ST unit has been one of the most consistently strong units for several seasons.
If you have a question that might be answered in the almanac, drop it in the comments below and I’ll see if I can fetch the information!
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