The Seattle Seahawks found their pass rush mojo against the Jacksonville Jaguars, sacking Trevor Lawrence seven times in their 20-12 victory.
It was not only the highest sack total for the unit this season, but they also exceeded their Week 1 performance against Brock Purdy in pressure percentage, applying pressure on Lawrence on 58.6% of his dropbacks - the highest pressure any quarterback has faced this season.
Second-year defensive tackle Byron Murphy played a massive role in that, getting seven of the team’s 17 pressures and accounting for two sacks.
Seahawks' Byron Murphy’s breakout performance proves Mike Macdonald’s long-term vision was right
Head coach Mike Macdonald seemed a bit taken aback after hearing Murphy’s stat line, though he was clearly far from surprised.
“Byron had seven pressures, or we did? Byron had seven on his own? That's pretty good. I'm going to claim that I was right on Byron as I've been telling you for two years,” Macdonald said after the game.
It’s a fitting reaction from Macdonald after Murphy came into his second season with much higher expectations. His rookie season was a quiet one, where he recorded just half a sack, as he wasn’t afforded much opportunity in the passing game.
This season has been a completely different story. Murphy extended his lead among defensive tackles for total pressures and will also carry the lead in sacks heading into next week. Macdonald might be onto something. The 23-year-old is pretty good.
Murphy’s breakout season coincides with a Seattle pass rush that has been dominant in 2025 more often than not. Over the past two weeks, Seattle’s pass rush cooled, but against Jacksonville, the unit proved it can still dominate just about any offense in the NFL.
After all, the Jaguars were allowing the third-lowest pressure rate in the league heading into Week 6. Seattle just blew that up and then some while itself climbing back into the top 10 of every meaningful pass-rush statistic.
A dominant interior pass rush has that sort of effect, though. So as long as Murphy is out there creating havoc, then Macdonald’s defense will continue to grow into a premier NFL defense.