5 Seahawks takeaways from Super Bowl 51
By Keith Myers
Inside pass rushers are irreplaceable
He wouldn’t have won the award, but a case could be made for Grady Jarrett to be the Super Bowl MVP if the Falcons had hung on to win. His ability to get pressure up the middle was a huge part of why the Falcons were able to keep the Patriots from getting their offense going until midway through the third quarter.
Jarrett had three sacks, and was a one-man wrecking crew in the middle of that defensive line. His impact cannot be overstated.
All three defensive tackles that played significant minutes in 2016 for Seattle were run stuffers. It showed every time the Seahawks needed to get stop late in games and they couldn’t get pressure on the QB.
The Seahawks haven’t had a player like Jarrett at defensive tackle in the Pete Carroll era. The closest thing on Seattle’s roster would be Clinton McDonald, and he was never the same caliber of player to Jarrett.
The Seahawks need to find an inside pass rusher if they ever to hope to have their defense dominate the way in did in their Super Bowl years.