Two Seattle Seahawks projected to be in the top 50 for sacks in 2023

The Seattle Seahawks finished tied for 7th in the NFL in sacks in 2022 with 45. But that number is a bit misleading as well. For instance, the team got a bunch of sacks late in the year so the consistency of the pass rush (and a team must be consistently good to be successful) wasn't there.

In terms of pressure rate, the Seahawks ranked 19th. Seattle was only 28th in hurry percentage. So yes, Seattle's pass rushers got home relatively a lot, but they weren't scaring opposing quarterbacks very much. The lack of hurries means quarterbacks could just wait and wait and wait many times for a receiver to become open. The rate also means the Seahawks weren't very aggressive defensively.

This must change in 2023, and Seattle appears to have re-designed the defense this offseason to make the unit faster and more aggressive. The team has also drafted big edge rushers Boye Mafe and Derick Hall in the last two drafts so Seattle should have more diversity in how many players are able to consistently get quarterback pressure. This is why ESPN's 2023 projection of the top 50 pass-rushers might be misleading.

Seahawks Uchenna Nwosu and Darrell Taylor projected to be top-50 pass rushers

Two Seahawks rank in the top 50. Uchenna Nwosu is projected to have the 29th-most sacks in 2023 with 7. Darrell Taylor is 33rd with a projected total of 6.8. The projections are partly based on how much a team blitzes (the Seahawks don't often so Taylor and Nwosu's projected totals are negatively affected by that), along with what the players have done the last couple of seasons. There is a bunch of other criteria as well.

Only the top six players are projected to get double-digit sacks. In reality, 19 players had at least 10 sacks in 2022, so the actual number of pass rushers with double-digit sacks in 2023 will likely be a lot more than six. Hopefully this means that Taylor and/or Nwosu also have a few more sacks than the 7 they are projected to have.

The Seahawks should also get some help from Hall and Mafe. Hopefully, Seattle reaches at least the same number of sacks they had in 2022. More importantly, with a deeper edge rush group, the Seahawks should be a lot more consistent in pressuring quarterbacks and affecting games.

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