Leonard Williams pushes Byron Murphy’s Seahawks breakout

Published 9:30 am Thursday, September 18, 2025

Byron Murphy cut it all off.

His prodigious hair is all gone.

“I just got tired of the dreads,” the Seahawks defensive tackle said on his way out of the locker room to practice Wednesday. “And then also, too, I’m like, ‘Man, I’m getting older.’”

Yeah, Murphy is ancient. Last week, Seattle’s first-round draft choice last year just turned 23 years old.

But he really is growing up. He and his fiancée, Maya Hurd, are expecting their first child in early January. So he wants to look like a dad.

“And, also to my to have a daughter, so I was just thinking, like, I need a new look,” Murphy said. “New look, new me.”

The new-look Murphy is becoming a new force in the middle of the Seahawks’ defensive front.

This is not a rookie defensive tackle anymore.

Murphy made his 11th career start last weekend at Pittsburgh. He sacked future Hall-of-Fame quarterback Aaron Rodgers twice. Murphy shared the second one with Pro Bowl defensive end Leonard Williams. He again played the majority of defensive snaps for coach Mike Macdonald’s defense, something Murphy did not do as a rookie last season. He spent much of Sunday in the Steelers’ backfield in Seattle’s 31-17 victory.

Murphy’s 1.5 sacks of Rodgers was three times his career total over his first 15 games entering Pittsburgh.

“We’re looking at good process going into good result,” Macdonald said, as the Seahawks (1-1) began preparing to play the New Orleans Saints (0-2) Sunday at Lumen Field.

“What I was most fired up about was to see how happy Jarran Reed is for his success, to see how happy Leo is for him to finally make plays. Because those guys are the ones that are working with him, playing next to him all the time.

“To see him have the production to back up his work ethic, and to have them be really excited for him, I thought was the coolest part.”

Indeed, Williams’ teachings to Murphy since the spring of 2024 are paying off, for Murphy and for the Seahawks defense that’s allowed just 17 points in each of their first two games. It’s Seattle’s fewest points allowed through the first two games of a season since 2017. “Being a first-rounder myself (with the Jets, in 2015) I understand that it takes a while to develop in the trenches,” Williams said Wednesday.

“I also know that once you had a game like that under your belt, it lets you know that’s your style of play, that’s the type of player you are.

“I think now that he’s had that type of game, he’ll start to believe it.” Leonard Williams’ teachings

Williams has spent much of the last year and a half drilling Murphy on reading offensive linemen. The 31-year-old veteran of 11 NFL seasons has been teaching the 6-foot, 306-pound defensive tackle and former University of Texas run-stopper how to read blockers just before the snap for “tells,” hints by the offensive linemen’s alignment that the imminent play is going to be a run or pass.

Once Williams gets Murphy correctly assessing that pre-snap, the Pro Bowl veteran is having him change his feet to take on the coming play better.

“I’m trying to teach him how to read pass situations a little bit more, how to change his stance when he does see pass,” Williams said. “I think he’s a great run stopper. That’s something that’s shown up since college for him. I don’t think I can teach him much in the run game. He can play the double-team (blocks) better than me.

“But in the pass game, I think there’s times earlier in his career he (was) still getting caught in run stances when it was pass.

“Just trying to see the game a little faster.”

Williams snapped his fingers like it’s been just that easy.

In fact, Murphy has dedicated countless hours to study game film of the NFL offensive linemen Williams already knows, from having played against pretty much all of them over 160 games in the last decade.

“Really, just watching film and just trying to learn. Just learn what my opponents, you know, give me, give me the ops that I want to see when they’re showing pass or showing a run,” Murphy said. “Whenever it is pass, or whenever I see pass or read pass, I try to narrow my stance a little bit. Not trying to be too high like I’m playing a run.

“But Leo has been helping me a lot on that, with that my stance and everything, including the coaches, as well. So whenever I recognize pass, just try to have it in my head just to fix my stance so I can be able to go vertical. Have a faster get-off and just get off the ball.”

It’s those details that have Murphy doing what the Seahawks need him to do this season to become more of the dynamic force they need on their defensive front.

Murphy played just 49% of Seattle’s snaps on defense playing 14 of 17 games as a rookie. As last season went on, he became more of an early-down run stopper. Macdonald often substituted him for a pass rusher, or moved Williams inside to tackle, in passing situations.

Murphy had a solid first NFL year. But it was not quite the splash the Seahawks sought when they made him the 16th pick in the 2024 draft. In his final college seasons at Texas, Murphy absolutely wrecked opposing offensive lines. His conference’s coaches voted him Big 12 defensive player of the year for the 2023 Longhorns.

Macdonald has set out this year to have a more forceful pass rush from his down linemen, his tackles and ends. If Murphy is going to play more in his second season, he is going to need to break through pass blocks and affect quarterbacks.

Murphy certainly affected one of the league’s best quarterbacks of the last quarter century last weekend in Pittsburgh.

Murphy improving his pass-rush recognition and performance has meant more playing time so far. He played 76% of Seattle’s snaps in the team’s opening loss to San Francisco. He’s playing 70.3% of the defensive snaps through two games. Murphy’s quick start to the season has Macdonald so far relying on his front four for pass rushing more than last season. The Seahawks are using a four-man pass rush, no blitzing from linebackers or defensive backs, 83.1% of the time, per NFL NextGen Stats. Seattle’s blitz rate through two games is just 13%. Only Cincinnati has blitzed less often.

And the Seahawks are leading the NFL with a 49.4% pressure rate through two games.

“It’s interesting. I think we take pride in being able to create pressure multiple ways. In this (Pittsburgh) game, for several reasons, we felt like not pressuring was the best thing to do to try to win us the game,” Macdonald said of facing Rodgers. “A lot of it was how well our front was rushing, and some of the coverage that we felt like we needed to play to limit explosives. …

“But we want to be able to do it multiple ways, and take pride in being able to pressure from off the ball at all different positions.

“I think probably the cleanest answer is how well the guys are playing up front.”

Saints vs. Byron Murphy

This week, Murphy figures to play more. The Saints come to Seattle following a loss to the 49ers in which lead running back Alvin Kamara rushed 21 times for 99 yards. That’s 32 more yards than the Seahawks’ Kenneth Walker and Zach Charbonnet had combined rushing into the Niners’ defensive front the previous week.

New Orleans is likely to run Kamara often Sunday, to lessen the burden on quarterback Spencer Rattler throwing to win in his fourth career road start.

Macdonald emphasizes Murphy has been playing well all along, without the tackle and sack numbers he had against the Steelers.

“I’m happy that now the numbers are there,” Macdonald said. “I think the tape tells a similar story of how well he is playing.

“But production does matter, obviously. Especially individually. So I’m happy how he got the production he got on Sunday.”

Byron Murphy, the teacher

Williams and the 32-year-old Reed aren’t the only ones teaching along Seattle’s defensive line. Each Saturday, the linemen gather for an intelligence briefing. Williams, Reed and 12-year veteran end DeMarcus Lawrence give detailed breakdowns on what pass-rush moves are likely to work against the opposing offensive tackles and guards the Seahawks are facing the next day. That’s 33 combined seasons of NFL game experience speaking in those sessions.

Murphy, two games into his second season in the league, gives the scouting assessments of the opposing centers.

“It’s really based on film study,” Murphy said. “Film study of every center in the league is different to me.

“I just write down moves I can try. I can try to hit them with different type of counters depending on how they sit (back) or whatever they do, just try to find a weakness and win off that.”

It’s working, wondrously, so far for Murphy. And for the Seahawks.

“Now I’m starting to feel like my last year of college,” he said. “I’m starting to feel it for the team.”