Pro Football Focus (subscription required) announced its All-Pro teams last week, and two Seattle Seahawks got their flowers. Wide receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba and cornerback Devon Witherspoon were both chosen as First-Teamers. No other Seahawks player was recognized, though a couple others had legitimate cases.
PFF senior analysts voted on the awards this year. They relied heavily on the site’s advanced metrics, but there was some discretion involved. That may have cost the Seahawks at one position, but it is hard to argue with the outcome.
This year’s performance constitutes a slight improvement over 2024, when Seattle had one first-team and one Second-Team selection. An objective analysis recognizes that the Seahawks' dominant defense this season has been the result of great balance – talent and depth at every position, and not merely the result of one or two dominant players.
Should the Seattle Seahawks have had more than two players on the PFF All-Pro team?
In other words, at the risk of resorting to cliché, though the parts have been very good, the Seahawks’ defense has been even greater than the sum of said parts.
Let’s start with the accolades.
Jaxon Smith-Njigba was either the best or second-best receiver in the NFL this season. If he was second, it was only because he slowed down a bit from his record pace in the final weeks and allowed the Rams’ Puka Nacua to catch up. They were the first two of three receivers recognized as First-Team All Pros. They were joined by Detroit’s Amon-Ra St. Brown.
PFF made a point of saying that Nacua and JSN were so far ahead of the rest of the league in yards-per-route-run that the distance between second and third place equaled the distance between the third place and 29th place.
You might debate who deserved the third spot, but JSN and Nacua were no-brainers.
On defense, Devon Witherspoon dominated the PFF grades for cornerbacks. He was more than eight points ahead of the next closest starting corner – a very wide margin – and he was the only cornerback to grade out above 80 (well above 80, for that matter) in all three primary categories – coverage, run defense, and pass rush. Spoon clearly is the kind of do-everything defender upon which Mike Macdonald bases his entire defensive philosophy.
As for the snubs?
Well, Seattle’s two 2024 selections – interior defensive lineman Leonard Williams and punter Michael Dickson – didn’t make the cut. In Williams’ case, it seems to be a result of that extremely balanced attack. He was very good again in 2025, but with Byron Murphy II emerging right next to him, perhaps the Big Cat didn’t stand out quite as much.
Dickson is still among the league’s best punters, but his net yards per punt this season fell well below the punters who got honored.
Were the analysts at PFF were relying entirely on their own grades, then Seattle’s Kenneth Walker would have been honored. He finished second amongst all running backs, while teammate Zach Charbonnet came in third. But they run in a platoon, and the honors went to the backs who finished on either side of them – Miami’s De’Von Achane and Atlanta’s Bijan Robinson.
Robinson is an obvious choice this year, but PFF needs to explain choosing Achane over James Cook, Jonathan Taylor, and/or Derrick Henry, despite the Miami back’s solid performance as both a runner and pass catcher.
The biggest Seattle snub came purely as a function of how PFF chose to define certain positions. By choosing both a kick returner and a punt returner, they effectively boxed out Rashid Shaheed, the only player in the league to have a touchdown return on both a punt and a kickoff.
Though you could make the case for all four of the players chosen for return honors, Shaheed was the best all-around returner in the league in 2025. Regardless of what PFF says, Hawks’ fans would not trade him for any of the honorees.