Seattle's Defense Wanted To Show It Was The 'Best Defense In The NFL' With Dominant Win

The Seahawks' Week 18 win showcased arguably one of the best performances this season by the defensive unit that held San Francisco to just a field goal.

Jan 04, 2026 at 12:07 AM

Ari Horton

Seahawks.com Writer

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Santa Clara—When Seattle's defense stepped on the field for the Week 18 matchup against the 49ers, they had a few goals in mind, winning was of course one of those, but they wanted to show everyone watching they are the best defense in the league.

"We made up our mind that we were going to be the best defense in the NFL," linebacker Uchenna Nwosu said. "We were going to show the world tonight and that's what we did."

As has been the case for the entire season, the Seahawks' defense was once again a highlight in their 13-3 win. The Seahawks won, in part thanks to a dominant performance by the defense that held the San Francisco 49ers to just three points. The last time Kyle Shanahan's offense was held to just three points was in his 49ers head coaching debut in 2017. Since then, San Francisco has scored at least 6 points in every game, until Saturday.

Coming into Saturday's game, the 49ers were riding a three-game streak of great performances by its offense. Throughout all three of those games, San Francisco was averaging 42.3 points per game, 455.3 yards per game and 29.3 first downs per game.

Seattle's defense held San Francisco to just 53 rushing yards, which included 21 yards from quarterback Brock Purdy, 127 yards through the air, a lone field goal, and just nine first downs. They also picked off Purdy once, sacked him three times and forced the 49ers to punt four times.

"They're a tremendous offense," head coach Mike Macdonald said following the game. "Probably top whatever in the league and have been doing it for a long time. They have great players, they have great coaches, and the numbers back it up. Our guys played great complimentary football today. They really did. I can't say enough, but I can't wait to watch the tape. There's a lot of assists going on in there, guys rushing unselfishly to free somebody else up or to let somebody else have a two-way go so they can cover for them. How we played in the back end, it felt like we were ahead of plays. These guys did a great job. I'm looking forward to watching it."

Christian McCaffery, one of San Francisco's top offensive playmakers in both the run and passing game was held to his lowest rushing yards all season with 23 yards through the night and his fourth lowest receiving yards with 34.

Nick Emmanwori who had a team high seven tackles, as well as a tackle for loss and quarterback hit said, "Our front seven is the best in the world. Our D-Line is the best in the world. Got dudes like Jarran Reed, Leonard Williams, Byron Murphy. Our edges are dogs. They handle business every week. We've got the best run defense I the league. It makes it easy for us on the back end."

Ernest Jones IV said, "Those guys, the 49ers, they've been scoring at will. They haven't been punting. So, I think for us, we know our style of play. Let's just go out here, play how we know how to play, and let's just see what happens. Let's see what they got. And for us to come out there and hold them to three points, that's huge."

Seattle's defense finished with 42 tackles, three sacks, four tackles for loss, eight quarterback hits, one interception and five passes defensed. Purdy finished with a passer rating of 64.9.

"I witnessed it firsthand in OTAs and in training camp. Going against our defense is tough," quarterback Sam Darnold said. "They have a lot of different looks, and they present some problems, whether it's upfront or from the linebacker position. Nick Emmanwori doing his thing wherever he's going to be on our defense, and then the back end obviously, doing what they do. They're such a good group. Very talented, but I think more than talent alone, they're very smart football players and smart people. They're just very cohesive in what they do defensively."

And though there are players who made plays that are easy to point out, like Nwosu's sack, Drake Thomas' interception or even Derick Hall's quarterback sack, Nwosu said it was an all-around team effort.

"Everybody was running, everybody was hitting, everybody was on a mission," he said. "We made it our mission to not let these guys do anything. We owed them one for the first game of the year."

Devon Witherspoon said, "They got us week one. They got the first game. We had to wait all year to play them again. It's just so crazy it had to be the No. 1 seed on the line. So, I mean, you can't ask for nothing better, man. In San Fran. I mean, we know they're a great team. We know they're going to come to battle when they play us. So it was just a good win."

Derick Hall who also had 1.0 sack said, "We felt like we were the best defense in the league and we went out and showed that tonight."