Arguably, the biggest evaluation for the 2025 Seattle Seahawks’ season sits on the schedule mere hours away. There is one injury on Hawks’ coach, Mike Macdonald’s defense that can be counted on to be quizzed
and probed thoroughly… the absence of Julian Love looms large.
In his stead, Seattle will ride into battle with the ’23 UDFA Ty Okada as the deep cog of the secondary, patrolling as a free / duo safety. This isn’t new, as Okada has started 6 games so far in Macdonald’s second season as lead man.
Is it too early to say it’s a Ty Okada breakout season?? I think it is… but he’s playing some darn good football (if he shows out against LA I will use an expletive next time) in replacement of star safety, Julian Love and deserves a little respect. He has a 74.6 PFF grade (13th out of 91 safeties), which is higher than Love’s this season (62.3, although the sample size is less than half of the playtime this year).
Defensive end, Mike Morris had this to say about Ty Okada when asked which Seahawks teammate is having a great offseason: “There’s a lot of guys” … then continues to say “I’m going to say Ty Okada. Ty Okada has been— we’ve even been talking about it in the defensive meeting room… he’s just been letting it loose, having fun. That that same thing where it’s just like: you get the monkey off your back, and you just start playing free. He probably leads the team in picks in all the OTA’s. He’s just been ballin.’”
As a fill-in starter, he has not proven to be a weak point, as an undrafted player and is providing versatility. Okada is 4th among safeties in sacks, with 1.5, as well as 11th in total pressures and 7th in pass breakups! He will need all of that multi-functionality to fill against the run and cover over the top versus McVay’s run and play-action games. Doesn’t hurt the swag levels that he had his first career interception two weeks ago.
Having that been said, Matt Stafford is playing at an MVP level right now and will undoubtedly test the Hawks’ secondary deep. Here is where we see if Okada is a dude after all, or just doing a good job keeping things together until Love gets back before a potential playoff appearance. Even in that scenario, having a backup safety playing well for an extended period of time (à la Ryan Neal) is better than the alternative.
