Following his career-high 9.5-sack season in 2022, Seattle Seahawks edge rusher Uchenna Nwosu emerged as the team’s top stand-up outside linebacker, especially from a pass-rush perspective.
But when Nwosu suffered a torn pectoral muscle in Week 7 of the 2023 season, and was ultimately ruled out for the season, a more subtle strength of the now-seventh-year pro bubbled up to the surface: his run defense.
Seattle, for the season, had the second-worst run defense in the NFL from a yardage standpoint, allowing opponents to pile up 2,352 rushing yards — ranking ahead of only Arizona, which gave up 2,434 yards and finished the season with a 4-13 record. The Seahawks’ yards per carry allowed (4.6) tied for fourth worst and they gave up the most first downs via rush in the league (143).
However, it wasn’t that abysmal the entire season. Isolating rushing yards generated by running backs, specifically, Seattle gave up an exceptional 59.5 yards per game on 20.2 average carries (2.95 yards per carry) from weeks 1–7. Opposing running backs cracked 100 yards rushing versus Seattle just once during that span (Week 2 vs. Detroit).
Then the Nwosu injury happened. Nwosu, as a pure edge player, is a quality pass rusher. But one of his most underrated strengths is his ability to set the edge, preventing the interior defensive line from being spread out and, as a result, limiting creases in the Seahawks’ front seven. He is often placed on the strong side of the offensive formation when Seattle is expecting a run and plays with a patience that seldom leaves him out of position to impact the play.
