'Keeps You Up at Night': Cardinals Brace for Seahawks' Defensive Nightmare

ARIZONA — The Arizona Cardinals are, by all accounts, about to see one of the best defenses in modern NFL history.

That's on the accord of head coach Mike LaFleur, who ahead of his team's Week 2 tilt against the Seattle Seahawks, was more than complimentary towards Mike Macdonald's side of the ball.

"It's such a challenge. It's a challenge schematically, and it's one thing even if you feel good about what you're doing schematically (but) then you actually have to go do it against their players. That's a whole other issue," LaFleur said in press conferences this week.

"Just a ton of respect and not trying to put them on the pedestal, but they were, in my opinion, one of the best defenses probably this league has ever seen last year."

While it might be tough to put last year's Seahawks defense along the historical greats (though they were the No. 8 DVOA defense of all time), they were undoubtedly the top unit in 2025. Last season Seattle allowed 17.2 points per game — which ranked first in the league — while their point differential of +246 was the highest of any Super Bowl champion this century (h/t Seattle Sports).

This isn't LaFleur's first rodeo game-planning against Macdonald. LaFleur was the offensive coordinator for the Los Angeles Rams in Macdonald's first two seasons (2024-25) in Seattle.

Including the postseason, LaFleur went 2-3 against the Seahawks in that stretch. In that time, the Rams averaged 25.4 points per game. For comparison, the Cardinals averaged 16.5 points per game against Seattle in that stretch.

Sean McVay will (and should) get the credit for that success, though LaFleur had a front-row seat on how to attack the Seahawks.

Does that familiarity translate in Arizona with an entirely different team?

"You do know them well, particularly from the defensive perspective," LaFleur said.

"I'm not sitting here like I knew what Sam and their offense was doing. You kind of knew because of 'Kub' (Raiders Head Coach Klint Kubiak) and stuff like that, and obviously the crossover tape, but from a defensive perspective you pop on the tape, and it's like, 'Oh yeah, I remember sitting there in late January having to get ready for them for what felt like the 10th time in 14 days.'"

Seattle has a strong mix of elite defensive personnel — at all three levels — while Macdonald is highly regarded as one of the top defensive minds in the game, if not No. 1.

What makes Macdonald specifically strong in the headset?

Cardinals quarterback Jacoby Brissett didn't have a straight answer.

"I wish I knew. He does so many different things (with) different personnel groups. Obviously, he has the players to do a lot of the things that he wants to do, and they're very versatile in the way they can play in different spots of the game, and they're disciplined," he said.

"It looks like they're doing a lot of different things, but they're disciplined in their rules and present a lot of different problems on every down of football."

Brissett, after admitting the Seahawks "beat the s--- out of us" last season, also added:

"It's more so from the standpoint of you can watch the film to see how physical those guys are. You watch the last game from them, and it just re-confirms how physical they are and how tough they are. It's going to take 60 minutes — it's going to be a bloodbath."

The Seahawks lost Coby Bryant, Boye Mafe and Riq Woolen this offseason. However, Seattle retained all five All-Pros from last season, three of whom (Leonard Williams, Ernest Jones and Devon Witherspoon) were on the defensive side of the ball.

But what makes Seattle so good defensively?

Last season according to Fantasy Points Data Suite, the Seahawks were primarily a Cover 3 team with 31% of plays running that coverage. No other coverage in man or zone had more than an 18% utilization.

Seattle, in the second year of Macdonald running the show, made good on continuity and played incredibly well as a unit. Each individual position group works in unison with the others to create a defensive unit that's incredibly hard to crack.

"This Seattle defense, it's special. When you keep watching it, it keeps you up at night. That is for sure," Cardinals offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett said.

"What I think is the coolest thing about them is how unselfish they are."

Even Cardinals star tight end Trey McBride knows how difficult of a task is at hand.

"A lot of pressure, a lot of different looks, and they got a lot of freaking good players on that team," he said.

"They're all really good players and they bring a lot of different pressures. They make everything kind of look different but kind of the same, they put guys in different positions so it's like the illusion of complexity, but it's really pretty simple what they do.

"So just the way they line guys up, it kind of screws with your vision and your eyes a little bit. But he [Macdonald] is a great coach. He's obviously a really good coach. So they do a really good job. They're well coached, and we got our hands full this week."

Add us as a preferred source on Google