Early in his first NFL training camp, rookie guard Grey Zabel began wondering if he was in over his head. Three months after becoming a first-round pick, Zabel wondered if a desk job, not a starting job, was in his future. But as the regular season wore on, he realized his early-camp struggles weren't the result of a lack of ability on his end, but rather the inevitable result of a rookie lineman taking on some of the best veteran defensive linemen the NFL has to offer.
"Going against our defensive line is probably the most welcome-to-the-NFL moment, every single day," Zabel said. "It's like Week 19 and I'm still getting baptized from practices and stuff. It's one of those deals where you witness every day in practice, so the stuff they do on Sundays is just normal, you're used to it by now. But I'm so thankful they're on my team and I get to watch them go out there and watch them play on Sunday and not have to play against them. It's one of those defenses that kind of keeps you up at night, and if you had to go against them, it'd be nightmare fuel until the end of time. I'm excited we have them on our squad.
"I mean, the first two, three weeks of training camp, it was like, I thought a desk job wouldn't be that bad. I thought a cubicle for the rest of my life was something that was going to happen. But then when you start playing other teams, you realize, 'Oh yeah, I don't have to block Leonard Williams or Byron Murphy.' So it's one of those deals where practices are harder than games, for sure."
And it's precisely that nightmare fuel of a defensive line that helps make Macdonald's defense go.
Macdonald's Seahawks have several slogans or mantras, or whatever you want to call them, that help define the team they want to be. To name a few, there's "Chasing Edges," "MOB Ties," which stands for Mission Over Bull(expletive), "Through, Not Around," "Shocking Effort," "A Style Nobody Wants To Play," rebranding the practice squad the "ready squad," and "Stacking WINS," with WIN an acronym for what's important now, borrowed from legendary college coach Lou Holtz, who's granddaughter, Hailey, works closely with Macdonald as the team's football operations coordinator.
And then there's 12 as One, something Macdonald came up with that both represents the team's connection with the fans, but also something the Seahawks want to do to challenge teams. Namely, to attack opponents with a combination of talent, effort and scheme that, when it comes together, makes it feel like the Seahawks have an extra player on the field.
"When you play each side of the ball, we should feel like we have 12 guys out there," safety Julian Love said. "Obviously, our fan base are the 12s, but we want to carry that 12 with us on the field as well. That's how I see it—everyone is doing a little bit more, giving a little bit more effort for the common good."
Macdonald, a self-described nerd, of course brings math to the equation, asking each player to give his 1.09 on every play, because, well, go ahead multiply that by 11 and see what you get.
"We used to toss around the term like 14 or 15 guys, but we know the number 12 is a sacred number around here, and it felt like that was a great fit," Macdonald said. "Then just try to paint a picture to the guys as nerdy as possible, that's where the 1.09 came from, and guys liked it, so we stuck with it."
One of the biggest reasons the Seahawks can make an offense feel like they're playing against a 12-man defense is the play of their defensive front. The Seahawks had five or more defensive backs on the field for 92.5 percent of their defensive snaps during the regular season, the most in the league according to NFL Next Gen stats, and they played 78.3 percent of defensive snaps in a two-high safety shell, also the highest rate in NFL.
Traditionally, playing a lot of nickel and dime defense with two-safety shells is a great way to slow down a passing attack and limit big plays, but those light boxes can also be an invitation to run the ball.
And yet, the Seahawks spent the 2025 season playing more nickel and dime than any other team while also having the league's stingiest run defense, holding opponents to a league-low 3.7 yards per carry while running their streak of not allowing a 100-yard rusher to 26 games, a franchise record and the longest active streak in the league.
There are many reasons the Seahawks have been able to do that, from the great linebacker play of Ernest Jones IV and Drake Thomas to a physical secondary that's not afraid to mix it up in the run game, to a pair of uniquely versatile and physical defensive backs in Nick Emmanwori and Devon Witherspoon who give Macdonald so much flexibility, but the most basic level, Seattle's defense works so well because they have a group of defensive linemen and outside linebackers that can not only get after quarterbacks, but can also take on double teams, set edges and do all the rest of the dirty work it takes to be elite against the run.
Seattle's front four is regularly outnumbered at the line of scrimmage, but the way that players like Williams, Jarran Reed, Byron Murphy II, Lawrence, Uchenna Nwosu, Derick Hall and Boye Mafe are able to get the job done, the Seahawks can still stop the run, setting up pass-rush opportunities on later downs where Macdonald can really show off his genius by dialing up different pressure looks to confuse opposing quarterbacks.
"As much as it feels good to get a sack, that feels just as good to hear," Williams said when asked about those run defense numbers. "You know, when we can play with two high safety and stop the run with just four down linemen, knowing that at least two or three of us are getting double teams. That means not only are we stopping the double team, but we are beating the double teams. Murph is one of the best in the league that I've seen do it in my career and he's a young guy. To see our front be able to stop the run with just four guys is a testament to how we value and take pride in stopping the run."
A decade ago, Seattle's defense created numerical advantages against offenses because their secondary, led by Hall of Fame-caliber players like Earl Thomas and Richard Sherman, made it nearly impossible to throw downfield despite the Seahawks regularly playing eight-man boxes while leaving Sherman, Thomas and another cornerback like Byron Maxwell or Brandon Browner to handle the back end. This version of a dominant Seahawks defense, conversely, often has more players in coverage, but can still stop the run and get after the quarterback thanks to a dominant front four.
"The guys up front have been playing tremendous football, and to play the way that we play, you can't just go one for one all the time," Macdonald said. "You have to take care of your responsibility and then get to the ball. That creates where you can actually cover all gaps and things like that, so they've done that. But I will say, it's really the team defense that makes it come to life. How we play at the second level, how we fit runs at the third level has been tremendous as well. We wouldn't be here if it wasn't for how our D-line has played, but also, we wouldn't be here if the whole team hadn't played that way on defense in terms of stopping the run."
The Seahawks defense has thrived this year because of a level of cohesion that even veteran players say is rare, which fits one definition of 12 as One. They're also dominating because, thanks to that defensive front as well as rare versatile players like Witherspoon and Emmanwori, they create number advantages, which is also 12 as One. And this weekend, they plan to also feed off what should be a raucous crowd and tap into the unique connection the team has with its fanbase, and that, too, is 12 as One.
"It means all of us playing together, all of us on one accord, offense, defense and special teams," Witherspoon said when asked about the idea of 12 as One. "You could break it down further than that, when it's just defense, we're all out there on the field playing on one string, everybody's communications, everybody knows what's going on. It kind of means a lot, but it just describes our team as one."
Said Williams, "To me it means having the crowd on our side is a big part of it. Just overwhelming presence where it feels like there's more than just 11 players on the field, and a part of that is our play style on defense, as well. A lot of times we see the ball carrier on the ground, we pause the film to see how many blue helmets are in the picture. A majority of the time it's nine plus players standing over the ball carrier, and over time that's just overwhelming and intimidating to offenses, when an offensive guy is getting off the ground and he's seeing 10 Seahawks around him, after a while it's like they're getting hit by so many of us, they're getting swarmed by so many of us. It just feels like there's more than 11 guys on the field."
