Week 12 tracker: Reborn Seahawks defense pays homage to the L-cO-By era

We got Coby Bryant out here doing Beast Mode things and Leonard Williams doing a Michael Bennett impression?

There will never be another Legion of Boom, and there will never be another Marshawn Lynch. Icons from the past deserve to stay in the past, letting new players blaze their own trail, unencumbered by impossible-to-meet comparisons.

But what if, on one glorious afternoon, we got a little callback for both?

I like to imagine Marshawn’s phone blowing up from the second Seattle Seahawks safety Coby Bryant crossed the goal line and instructed the Cardinals what they could do with his jewels. That game-changing 69-yard pick six wasn’t just the nicest play of year — it was a vintage Earl Thomas moment combined with Beast Mode flair. It was a Mamba for his Mama. (In an uncanny coincidence, Bryant’s mom was celebrating her birthday Sunday.)

Meanwhile, Leonard Williams did the best impressions of Mike Bennett since MB had the temerity to read a book in a meeting, earning himself a one-way flight to Philly.

What a day. Big Cat doesn’t even get credit for the strip sack that officials called a fumble in real time then reversed on reply without so much as a whiff of “clear and obvious” evidence. Guys. If you’re not going to follow the language of your rulebook, just say so. Don’t set a standard for overturning the call on the field and then pivot to “probably, give it your best guess, see what happens.”

I’m gonna post the trackers then talk about what everyone is already thinking: what has gotten into this defense since the Los Angeles Rams game? Because they look transformed. They appeared ordinary a month ago. Remember the six touchdowns allowed against the Lions? That turned into a total of five in their last three division games. There has been a changing. A Macdonalding.

(Did you think Jacson called them “ravenous” in Cigar Thoughts by accident? Come on. Give the man some credit.)

Tracker 1

Every category is up double digits. What more do you want in Year 1?

Tracker 2

Little blip in YAC this week, which continues to be rather non-predictive. Wouldn’t lose any sleep over it. Missed tackles are down to 8 percent after cresting at 10 percent earlier in the year. That’s far more statistically significant.

Tracker 3

All along the trackers have been designed to be bias-free. With categories chosen before the season, for that purpose. There are 16 stats up there. Just as counting only one to make the Seahawks look better than they are would be malpractice, to change the rules mid-season would be unethical.

However.

Here’s a category that wasn’t included in our pre-season list: three and outs. Do you know the Seahawks entered Week 12 with the most in the league? 33 of them, in fact. I would never have guessed. So while we will not be adding stats to the the tracker, because that would be cherry picking, it would be the reverse sin to ignore this particular skill. It would be cherry putting-back-on-the-treeing. Bad form. If the Seahawks are excelling at something, let’s shout it from the Lumentops.

One of the reasons Seattle has survived Geno Smith’s 12 interceptions, including three in the red zone, is their ability to get him back on the field right away so he can make up for the error (or bad bounce) with a scoring drive, or a game winning drive. Which he leads the league in since 2022.

Furthermore! I want to mention this right now, before everyone in the world catches on: Josh Jobe might be a revelation. Remember, when pressed into starting duty against the Bills, he perpetrated the best kind of Josh-on-Josh violence by becoming the first player this season to intercept Josh Allen? Well,

Maybe Jobe is arriving? It’s too early to say definitively, but consider one pet theory: every great defensive team becomes great because it received greatness from an unexpected source. File that one away.

Don’t think Ernest Jones’ contributions have gone unnoticed, either. His specific impact can be explained better by the film gurus. But I’ll tell you before it gets official in this space next week: the statistical correlation between his arrival and the defensive turnaround has been unmistakable.

So starting after Thanksgiving, we’ll have a “Last 4” column in the trackers. Because if this defense has truly turned a corner, they should not be saddled with half a season of data while they adjusted and learned the ways of Mike Macdonald. And if the turnaround is a mirage, the upcoming stats will reveal it. Glad that’s settled. Now it’s time to make Aaron Rodgers feel like it’s 2012-2014 all over, with the mean people in blue and green making him reach for the magic mushrooms again.