This is the biggest need on the Seattle Seahawks defense

The Seahawks almost certainly aren't done with their off-season moves. They don't have much cap space left, and they absolutely need a run stopper in the middle far more than they need another pass rusher on the edge. Someone a lot smarter than me has zeroed in on this idea.

Go ahead 12s, search for articles about the Seahawks' defense this year and you'll see a lot of pieces about the pass rush. You may even find articles I wrote, like why Boye Mafe will have a big year. Unfortunately, almost every article about the Hawks' run defense will be about how awful it is. It's so bad, my own search for "Seahawks run stopper" yielded this gem with the seventh result. Sorry, but it's out of stock, just like the Hawks' ability to stop the run.

Yes, Bobby Wagner is back, and his presence alone should pay huge dividends for Seattle's run defense. But there's one position in a 3-4 defense that is critical to the success of the team, and that's the nose tackle. As of this date, June 22, the Hawks are in rough shape here. Check out their depth chart, as provided by ESPN, and you'll see the first man on the depth chart at NY is Bryan Mone. That isn't the best news, since he only got three starts last season in his fourth year with the Hawks. Even worse, of course, is that he's recovering from a torn ACL and will certainly miss the first few games of the year.

Seahawks desperately need a big man in the middle

Yeah, yeah, I say a lot of things, and some of them are not very accurate. Just to save you the trouble of reminding me, I said picking up Eddie Lacy was a good move for Seattle. Turns out it was only a good move if you were actually lifting him in the weight room. But I was right on the fallback, Chris Carson. So while you may not trust me on the issue of the nose tackle, I imagine you will trust Seahawks all-time great, K.J. Wright.

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On his recent appearance on the Brock and Salk Show on Seattle Sports, Wright said that his Seahawks still need a nose tackle to stop the run. Specifically, he said:

"When you talk about 3-4 defenses, you look at the history of 3-4 defenses and nose tackles, you’ve got Tony Siragusa, Vince Wilfork, Haloti Ngata. When you step on that football field and you see that big man at 6 foot 5 and 350-plus pounds, you don’t want to run the ball in the middle. You need that guy.”"

- K.J. Wright, Seattle Sports

To be clear, K.J. didn't forget the guy you see at the top of this article, rookie Cameron Young. We at 12thManRising were pretty stoked about getting Young in the fourth round. Most draftniks projected Young as a starting nose tackle, noting his power and length. I like the man and think he's got a great shot at filling the hole there.

But heed the words of the master, K.J. Wright, who acknowledged Young, then added, “But we need that big monster where it’s like there’s no inside running play that you’re going to run against us,” he said. “Run the ball on the perimeter, but in these trenches, it’s a no-go.” Young weighed in at 304 in the NFL combine. It's hard to project him to have the same impact as Al Woods, who weighed 330. Poona Ford took a major step back in 2022 in no small part because, at 310 pounds, he was undersized as a nose tackle.

There aren't a lot of guys like Vince Wilfork floating around in free agency. Okay, I'm not prepared to discuss the buoyancy of anyone that goes over 340 pounds, but you know what I mean. I suppose I'll have to get busy and find a few likely candidates. For now, maybe the Hawks could pick up former Eagles tackle Linval Joseph as a stop-gap player, at least until Mone returns, or Young proves he can do the job. No matter who it is, in a 3-4 defense, you need a massive roadblock in the middle. I hope Young is the answer, but I agree with K.J. Wright; we definitely need a monster in the middle.