When you look at Seattle's defense through the 2025 season, it will go down as one of the greatest defenses in the NFL. The Seahawks defense ranked No. 8 all-time in defensive DVOA dating back to 1978. They were also the No. 1 scoring defense in the NFL in 2025. You can pull stats, but they don't tell the story of how exactly the Seahawks were able to achieve that. Football is a team sport, and while the entire team played with unselfishness and for one another, there is one position group that embodied that "no ego" mindset throughout the entire season, recognizing they needed to "rush as one" to reach the goals they had for themselves.

Enter the Seahawks' defensive line.

Leonard Williams, Byron Murphy II, Jarran Reed and DeMarcus Lawrence are the players that headlined Seattle's defensive front that wreaked havoc on offensive lines, made the game very difficult for opposing quarterbacks, and didn't let running backs run all over them, allowing a league low 3.7 yards per carry and posting the NFL's No. 1 rushing defense (75.7 yards per game).

That group named above had veterans in Williams, Lawrence, and Reed to help steady the line, all having nine or more years of experience heading into 2025. That group was also led by defensive line coach Justin Hinds, who was hired to that position in 2024, as part of head coach Mike Macdonald's initial coaching staff.

Hinds was awarded the John Teerlinck Memorial Award Defensive Line Coach of the Year at this year's NFL Combine. The annual award, which is voted upon by peers, was named after John Teerlinck, who was known as one of the NFL's top defensive line coaches and passed away in 2020.

"I've seen guys win it," Hinds said. "You go through it, and you don't ever think of it. I'm not looking for attention or anything, but it was a cool award to get because it was like a by-product of the players, and it just shows that if you invest in other people, you don't have to beg for shine or try to parlay yourself into whatever thing you may think [you deserve] or place yourself at an advantage. You're going to be blessed enough to be put into the light and get the recognition. As much as I sometimes hate it, it was still a great award for me to receive. It was awesome. And it's really up to the guys that I coached. They've allowed for me to come into this position and really grow into who I am as a coach, and then we win the Super Bowl, which has been fun, and each one of those guys got a big place for that award."

Yes, he's a coach, so he is inherently invested in the development of other people. But Hinds' investment in other people shows up in the way he coaches.

"The key components with me is, one, it's about the guys in the room, and how do you learn them individually, and then build them up from the ground up," Hinds said. "It's understanding what they do well and trying to put them in a position to succeed. And then being demanding in the same realm… We want tough guys that are going to play the run, play physical, play dominant, and that's how we want to show up every single day. We want to be the tip of the spear at the end of the day is what we talk about, and each one of these guys play a different role in being a tip of that spear."

Hinds added, "You have to be able to communicate with them like human beings. I can come out there, and you can yell every day, but to me, that's not getting anything accomplished because it's not who I am. Now, I have to yell when the time comes, but to come out there and not teach and coach the guys and communicate with them in a positive way, you're just not going to get the best version of them."

His coaching philosophy, which lies in the pillars of meeting each player where they are, setting expectations, being demanding, and showing love, stems from a servant leadership mindset. During practices, Hinds can often be seen repping drills with the players. Hinds was a defensive lineman at Rowan University for four years before he moved on to coaching.

"If you're telling me to do something, you have to pick up the shovel," Hinds said. "It's servant leadership, it's being available to these guys, and not just talking at them and telling them, 'Hey, you need to do this, and I'm not being a part of it.' So, the same stress that they [are] under, I try to put myself through it. But sometimes, to me, it's about immediate feedback. Just the feel of where the player needs to be. It's about trying to give them the right look, so when I'm in the middle of that, it allows for me to be with them and say, 'Hey, we're going through this journey together. I'm putting a sweat equity into this just as much.'"

And the players do have their fun, trying to make it difficult for Hinds.

"It's a little bit fun, sometimes they're going to try to knock you over," he said. "They're going to try to do the whole thing. You talk a little trash to them. So, it's kind of a fun time, with banter, for us to connect."

But when he's not running through drills with players during practice, he's setting aside one-on-one time for individual players.

"Rylie Mills, for instance, we spent a lot of time during the Super Bowl, just working some little things that could help him be better, and, to see him go out and perform it in the Super Bowl was a cool experience."

Mills, who missed most of the 2025 season, working his way back from an ACL injury, played in four regular season games and two playoff games. He recorded his first-career sack in the Super Bowl.

While Hinds was the person given the award, he credited it all to the players and was most proud of what that group was able to accomplish together, as one, with no egos, during the season.

"It's one thing to get people to come into a room and perform but performing together, to me, is the separator," Hinds said. "Those guys have had very big accomplishments in each part of their careers, and they really took on the identity of our team, and trying to spearhead it and say that we were going to win and not be denied. When I think about DeMarcus Lawrence who's had a lot of years of production, it took a lot of humility from all those guys to be able to come together and really think about, like, 'I want to win.' But the guys it came down to them really enjoying each other. And I think that's what it boils down to. Like these guys really come here, enjoying the opportunity to come to work with each other and it's not, it's not malicious, it's not vindictive, it's no cutthroat, it's not like, 'Why is he getting this over me?' The guys are really trying to operate as a group. And I think that's hard in the NFL because it is a very transactional, superficial type thing because it's like, this is how I make money."

He added, "The guys came in with a mindset that they weren't going to be denied, and then, it kind of [went] through our defense. We make it competitive. It's like, 'Who's going to be the group that leads?' And the guys really took that on."