How the Seahawks transformed from little brother to NFC West bully with a ‘Dark Side’ – The Athletic
The Athletic has live coverage of 49ers vs. Seahawks from the NFL playoffs divisional round.
RENTON, Wash. — As epic as the rivalry between the Seattle Seahawks and San Francisco 49ers has been the past 15 years, the two NFC West foes don’t have extensive playoff history.
The divisional-round game Saturday night at Lumen Field will only be their third postseason meeting since 2010. Seattle famously won the NFC title game in January 2014 thanks in large part to Richard Sherman’s game-winning pass breakup, known as “The Tip.” The 49ers routed the Seahawks in the wild-card round of the playoffs in January 2023.
The difference between the current Seahawks and the team that was blown out three years ago speaks to how far they’ve come and why they are the favorites to win the Super Bowl this season.
In a Seattle sports radio interview after the 41-23 playoff loss to the 49ers that ended the 2022 season, then-Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll was asked about the talent gap between the two teams.
“There’s a distance,” Carroll said. “It’s really because of what they’ve got up front. Their front seven is really, really well-equipped.”
Carroll highlighted Arik Armstead and Nick Bosa as every-down difference makers along the defensive line, in addition to a stacked linebacker group featuring Fred Warner, Dre Greenlaw and Azeez Al-Shaair.
“Those guys make enough stuff happen, and they demand so much focus in the game plan and the approach because they’re going to do something to you if you don’t,” Carroll said. “That’s a big difference than what we have.”
When asked to identify members of his defense that cause problems for the offense every snap, he named safety Quandre Diggs, linebacker Jordyn Brooks and cornerback Riq Woolen.
The roles have since been reversed. The Seahawks are contenders because of it.
“We got killers on our defensive front,” Seattle safety Julian Love said.
Seattle has one of the best defensive fronts in the league and a hard-hitting linebacker tandem, headlined by second-team All-Pro Ernest Jones IV. Up front, the Seahawks are led by second-team All-Pro defensive tackle Leonard Williams, who was also voted to the Pro Bowl. DeMarcus Lawrence made the Pro Bowl, too, as a defensive end. Second-year defensive tackle Byron Murphy II received All-Pro votes after a breakout season in which he was among the best interior defenders in the league.
The injury-plagued 49ers, on the other hand, are without Bosa and Warner, who were two of the main reasons San Francisco won the season opener in Seattle. (Warner returned to practice this week but might not play Saturday.) Their first-round rookie defensive lineman, Mykel Williams, tore his ACL in November. The 49ers finished the regular season with the worst pass rush in the league.
San Francisco’s starting linebackers in Week 18 were Dee Winters, Tatum Bethune and Eric Kendricks. Because of injury, the starting lineup in the wild-card win over the defending-champion Philadelphia Eagles featured Kendricks, Garret Wallow and Curtis Robinson. Defensive coordinator Robert Saleh has his unit competing every week, but the talent gap is obvious.
Meanwhile, Seattle’s defense is arguably the best in the NFL and earned the scoring title for the first time in a decade. To unlock the best version of it, the Seahawks had to adequately stop the run from split-safety structures that are typically advantageous for the offense. That task is nearly impossible without a bunch of bullies at the point of attack and the second level. Seattle is loaded in that area and had one of the top run defenses in the league this season.
“We wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for how our D-line has played,” said Seahawks coach Mike Macdonald, who calls the defense. “But also, we wouldn’t be here if the whole team didn’t play that way on defense in terms of stopping the run.”
Seattle’s starting inside linebackers in the 2022 wild-card game were Cody Barton and Tanner Muse, who was filling in for the injured Brooks (a first-team All-Pro this year with the Miami Dolphins). The front line featured 35-year-old Bruce Irvin, Al Woods, Shelby Harris, Poona Ford and Uchenna Nwosu, one of the 2025 defense’s few holdovers from 2022, along with Boye Mafe, Coby Bryant and Woolen, all of whom were rookies. (That team also had cornerback Michael Jackson, now starting for the Carolina Panthers.)
It took time and serious investments from the front office, but Seattle now has the most dominant front seven in the division.
“Three years ago, we had guys who could get the job done, but I’ll say the difference is we’re a lot more connected now as a unit, as a front,” Nwosu said. “That’s what you need going into these deep playoff runs. Guys gotta be together. Guys gotta talk, hang out, all those different things. It’s good to still be here and be a part of this three years later.”
The Seahawks traded second- and fifth-round picks for Williams, then signed him to a three-year, $64.5 million contract in March 2024. They drafted Murphy with the 16th pick a month later. In March 2025, Seattle released outside linebacker Dre’Mont Jones — whose three-year, $51 million deal was, at the time, the largest given to an external free agent in the John Schneider era — and replaced him with Lawrence (three years, $32.5 million). In 2023, Seattle brought back defensive tackle Jarran Reed, who re-signed before free agency this past March, and used the No. 37 pick on outside linebacker Derick Hall.
In October 2024, the Seahawks acquired Jones from the Tennessee Titans in exchange for a fourth-round pick and linebacker Jerome Baker. Jones signed a three-year, $28.5 million deal in the offseason. His running mate, Drake Thomas, was claimed off waivers in August 2023.
Jones’ arrival is often cited as a turning point for the defense. Seattle whiffed on its 2024 offseason signings of Baker and Tyrel Dodson — after letting Bobby Wagner and Brooks walk in free agency — and the defense suffered in the first half of the season. Jones gave Seattle a calming, trustworthy presence in the middle, similar to what Wagner provided. Healthy for the first time in years thanks to an offseason knee surgery, Jones emerged as a true playmaker at the position and, as Reed said, the “quarterback of the defense.”
“That’s what I pride myself in, being that guy in the middle that keeps everything running,” Jones said. “From a play standpoint, I like to be the first to the fight, just making plays in the middle, making sure nothing goes down there.”
The investments in Devon Witherspoon and Nick Emmanwori are also relevant. They both play nickel, a position that requires being in run fits, and they’re both excellent at it. Emmanwori, the No. 35 pick in April, earned All-Pro votes as a slot defender in his rookie season. Witherspoon, the No. 5 pick in 2023, has been voted to the Pro Bowl on the original ballot in each of his three years in the league and was named second-team All-Pro on Saturday.
“Spoon is a great player, great person, great leader,” rookie left guard Grey Zabel said. “Exactly what we represent as a football team.”
Equally important is the fact that Seattle nailed the personality part of nearly all those investments. Witherspoon is the soul of the team. Jones is the heartbeat. Reed, Lawrence and Williams are the leaders. Murphy is the double-team-defeating dog. Emmanwori is the young pup with a mean bite. Hall is the hammer.
Together, they headline a unit known as the “Dark Side.”
“Dark Side is just a bunch of guys who are willing to risk it all for one another, for their brother,” Murphy said. “We’re just a violent, ferocious crew. We’re just on that with anybody. The Dark Side is the best side.”
Macdonald, the best investment of them all, is the mastermind and an excellent communicator. Players routinely cite his knack for explaining the “why” behind their play calls as the engine fueling their success.
“A good coach is not (just) always having the right information but (being) able to relay what he wants to a player in words that he can receive it in,” said Jones, who relays those calls to teammates in the huddle. “Mike does that great. Our whole staff does that great.”
When Seattle last had the No. 1 seed in the playoffs, the Legion of Boom owned the headlines. The Dark Side is similarly dominant but constructed differently. The front line is the tip of the spear. Before every game, Reed gathers his teammates and delivers a speech. The gist: Run and hit. It’s fitting that Reed, who played with the Legion of Boom, delivers this message, because of how often his position sets the tone each week.
“We can talk about the X’s and O’s all you want to; how hard are you playing is what’s really going to stand out,” Reed said. “That’s why I want to keep reiterating that to the guys. We’re still kids, and we grew up playing this. I been playing since I was 5 years old. At the end of the day, when you don’t know (what to do), you just run and hit. Hit everything moving.”
Seattle hasn’t won a playoff game since January 2020 against the Josh McCown-led Eagles. The last two teams to eliminate the Seahawks in the postseason were the Rams (January 2021) and the 49ers. In both of those losses, Seattle was outmatched up front. Now, the Seahawks are the ones with the advantage in the trenches.
“D-Law said it (well) at one point: He wants to turn the offense’s lights off,” Williams said. “There’s been times this year where we’ve shut offenses completely off. No touchdowns; no points at all sometimes. That’s what it feels like when the Dark Side is playing against you. It’s just hard to get the ball moving.
“It feels like cutting your lights off. Feels like you’re playing against 12 people.”
