Just how good were the safeties on the Seattle Seahawks in 2025? A new ranking from ESPN confirms what was readily apparent to anyone who watched the games. Seattle not only had talented players at the back end of their defense. They had more talented players at safety than any other team.
ESPN has been rolling out the results of a poll it conducted among general managers, coaches, and scouts to determine the best players at each position across the NFL. At safety, 27 players fell into one of three categories – top ten, honorable mention, and “receiving votes.”
Nine of the league’s 32 franchises were not represented on the list. 16 had one player recognized. Four teams had a pair of safeties in one of those three categories. And one team had three players so honored. Guess who that was?
Seattle Seahawks quality and depth is verified yet again in new ESPN ranking
Seattle had one safety in each of the three categories. Despite missing roughly half the season with injury, Julian Love still appeared in the “others receiving votes” column, along with 11 other players.
Coby Bryant, now in Chicago, was an honorable mention. The entry noted that his background as a cornerback made him a very versatile option in the secondary.
Rookie Nick Emmanwori, the youngest of the 27 safeties, finished sixth in the voting. That placed him ahead of highly respected performers like Tampa’s Antoine Winfield Jr. and Arizona’s eight-time Pro Bowler Budda Baker.
If you want to quibble, you could argue that Detroit’s two young safeties – Brian Branch (4th) and Kerby Joseph (ninth) – offer an even more impressive back end. They are the only club with two safeties in the top ten. However, they also provide a perfect example of why depth matters and why Seahawks’ GM John Schneider is the best in the league at loading up on talent.
Joseph missed a good part of last season, and unlike Julian Love, his injury appears to be far more serious. Love has returned to full health and will be ready to go for 2026. Joseph’s knee issues have his status in doubt.
The Lions do have decent depth behind their starters, but not in the way Seattle does. At least not according to the ESPN numbers. And those rankings do not take into account the emergence of Ty Okada, who played much of last season in relief of Love.
Okada finished in the top 20 in Pro Football Focus’s (subscription required) safety grades for 2025, as did Love and Emmanwori. (Bryant finished just outside the top 20.)
Taking nothing away from the Lions, who also had four players in PFF’s top 20, I’ll go with the Seahawks group. They are younger (Detroit’s rankings include a couple of veteran reserves), and Joseph’s injury remains a dark cloud. But it goes beyond that.
Seattle’s safeties in 2025 were perfect complements for one another. Emmanwori had the raw athleticism to play anywhere, but as one of the ESPN voters noted, he was at his best when attacking the line. His deep coverage in space is still developing.
When healthy, that is the best part of Love’s game. He is among the best deep safeties in the league. Okada is a Swiss Army Knife who can play deep or in the box as needed.
With Bryant gone this year, Schneider went out and drafted an ideal replacement in Bud Clark, another versatile performer who combines the skills of a safety and a corner. If he develops as expected, he will allow both Love and Emmanwori to do what each does best. And if Clark takes some time to adjust to the NFL, Okada is on hand to pick up whatever slack there might be.
What makes Mike Macdonald’s defense so dangerous is that this pattern at safety is repeated at virtually every position on the squad.
But the safety spot is special. We’ve been speculating since before the 2025 draft that Macdonald was eager to find a back end game changer like he had in Baltimore with Kyle Hamilton. Hamilton, who finished first in the ESPN rankings, remains the gold standard for do-everything safeties.
Nick Emmanwori is rapidly growing into a similar player, but whereas the Ravens have no other safeties amongst the 27 recognized by ESPN, Seattle has Love, Okada, and now Clark (in for Bryant) to round out the best safety room in the NFL.
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