Seahawks' two championship defenses: Legion of Boom vs. the Dark Side; inside the historic top-ranked units

If you didn't know their defense entering the Super Bowl, consider yourself introduced. It's not the 'Legion of Boom 2.0,' it's the 'Dark Side.'

The Seahawks' No. 1 scoring defense turned the lights out on the Patriots and an MVP-caliber QB in a coronation for head coach Mike Macdonald, the defensive scheme god who had his fingerprints all over this Super Bowl-winning season.

"They lived up to the Dark Side today, it's gonna go down in the history books," Macdonald said following a Super Bowl masterclass.

Don't be fooled by the garbage-time offense the Patriots ran up in Santa Clara, this was indeed one of the best performances by a defense in Super Bowl history. The Seahawks were the first team since the 1974 Steelers to shut out an opponent through three quarters in the Super Bowl. 

You might have to go back to the Legion of Boom days to find the last time a defense dominated in the Super Bowl like this. The 2013 Seahawks pulled off one of the most incredible defensive feats in league history by holding the Broncos to eight points in the Super Bowl after they scored an NFL-record 606 points during the regular season and Peyton Manning threw for 5,477 yards and 55 touchdowns. All three records still stand today despite the NFL's 17-game schedule. 

It's wild to think that just over a decade later the Seahawks actually built another championship defense that can hold a candle to the Legion of Boom. 

Here's how it happened and how these two defenses stack up after rewriting the record books.

Different nickname, same impact

The 2025 Seahawks finished with the NFL's top scoring defense for the first time since 2015. The peak of the Legion of Boom came from 2012-15 when they were the first team to lead the NFL in scoring defense for four straight seasons since the 1950s Browns.

We may never see another run like that again, or another defensive performance like how they shut down the Broncos historic offense. We certainly won't see a brand like the Legion of Boom again. They were truly one-of-one, illustrated by this unforgettable Richard Sherman interview with Erin Andrews.

Still, you won't be able to talk about great defenses in Seahawks history or in the 21st century without mentioning both of these championship units. The 2025 Seahawks put up numbers that rival their 2013 team in some respects.

2013 vs. 2025 Seahawks Super Bowl champion defenses 

The 2025 Seahawks defense might not be 2000 Ravens, 2002 Buccaneers or 2013 Seahawks level good, but they are in the conversation, a discussion nobody thought we would be having entering the season. 

Best Super Bowl-winning defenses this century (reg/post)

After all, the Legion of Boom was a room full of superstars between Bobby Wagner, Sherman, Earl Thomas and Kam Chancellor. Most of America is still familiarizing themselves with the stars that make up the Dark Side. Demarcus Lawrence and Leonard Williams were the household names entering the year, but Devon Witherspoon, Byron Murphy and Nick Emmanwori are blossoming stars in their own right.

Seahawks' starting defense in Super Bowl wins

This group wanted to carve its own path. Williams explained the origin recently. "We always hear of Legion of Boom (in Seattle). We were starting to get to a point like. 'Hey, maybe we deserve our own name, you know?' I think guys started coming up with names and stuff like that and I think Dark Side kind of stuck with us."

It's official, they earned the nickname with a style of their own and a historic performance to book. The Legion of Boom had talent across the board but they will forever be known for having one of the greatest secondaries of all time. Sherman put superstar receivers on islands, jumbo safety Chancellor used to rock people, and Thomas was an incredible playmaker known for chase-down forced fumbles at the goal line.

While that defense was built from the back, this defense had its identity in the trenches. Everything this Seahawks defense did well flowed from the front four in Macdonald's groundbreaking scheme. 

The front four put its stamp on Super Bowl LX by sacking Drake Maye six times, and for a minute they had tied the Super Bowl record with seven sacks until a stat change corrected a sack-fumble to a pick six. 

The front four of Lawrence, Murphy, Williams and Uchenna Nwosu consistently swallowed up running backs all year while putting pressure on opposing quarterbacks without the need for a blitz. That's been the blueprint for great defenses this century and it continued with Seattle's group.

The Seahawks ranked top 10 in pressure rate this year while blitzing at one of the 10 lowest rates. They allowed the fewest yards per rush (3.7) in the NFL this year while playing the least amount of base defense (6%) in the league. Earlier this year they had a game vs. the 49ers where they did not play a single snap of base defense, and San Francisco still couldn't so much as sniff a big play in the run game. 

The use of rookie Emmanwori as a de facto linebacker unlocked the success for the rest of the defense. The Seahawks could stop the run with smaller defenders and collapse the pocket with four pass rushers which made life easy in coverage all year, just like it did on Sunday.

The Seahawks allowed just one play of 12+ yards in the first three quarters to a Patriots offense that was arguably the most explosive in the NFL during the regular season. America may have just been introduced to Seattle's defense, but they were suffocating offenses all year. They played zone coverage at the third-highest rate in the NFL this year (80%), making it nearly impossible to break big plays. They even went over a month without allowing a 20+ yard play from Week 17 through the divisional round, the first team to do that in three straight games in nearly a half-century.

So yes, while the jerseys and the results were the same, this defense truly carved its own path to the record books this year.

Legion of Boom demise led to Dark Side birth

Make no mistake though, this defense would have never come to be if not how the franchise hit rock bottom after the quick demise of the Legion of Boom.

The Legion of Boom took over the NFL in a flash and it went away in the blink of an eye. Injuries, old age and contracts (they had to pay Russell Wilson) all caught up the league's most feared defense too fast. Sherman (torn Achilles), Thomas (broken leg) and Chancellor (neck) all suffered season-ending (or career ending in Chancellor's case) injuries that more or less ended their time in Seattle by 2018. It's a crime none of the trio played with the Seahawks into their 30s. Michael Bennett was also traded, Cliff Avril suffered a career-ending neck injury and poof, it was over.

The downfall of the LOB and the lessons learned led us to the next generation of defensive brilliance. The Seahawks had one of the worst defenses in the NFL in the post-LOB era and they couldn't find any success in the playoffs with Wilson and Pete Carroll. The wave of offensive masterminds in the division (Sean McVay and Kyle Shanahan) entered the NFC West around the same time. Shanahan, McVay and Matt LaFleur's teams combined to score 99 points while eliminating the Seahawks in three playoff runs in 2019, 2020 and 2022. 

That made things crystal clear. A reset was needed. The counter move was to make then 36-year-old Macdonald the youngest head coach in the NFL after he led the 2023 Ravens to the title of top scoring defense as coordinator. Macdonald has proved to be exactly what the Seahawks needed as a great leader and communicator to usher in another winning culture while figuring out how to stop the NFL's best offenses. 

Seahawks general manager John Schneider said it best when he introduced Macdonald in 2024. "This is the future right here, this is where it's going … I think you're going to learn in getting to know Mike that he's a special dude." 

He was right. Fast forward two years and Macdonald is the third-youngest head coach to win a Super Bowl ever and he has a formula on defense that many will be trying to copy this offseason. Fittingly, he beat the two head coaches (Shanahan, McVay) he was hired to counter on the way to Seattle's second championship. 

John Schneider built two No. 1 defenses

Credit Schneider for hitting on the Macdonald hire and also building this defense from scratch over the past four years. He put on a clinic from the draft, free agency and trades like a mad scientist. Witherspoon, Murphy and Emmanwori were home runs in the draft. The Williams trade in 2023 set the foundation for the defense, and Earnest Jones IV was a steal in 2024. The Lawrence signing put the finishing touches on a masterpiece. 

How quickly Seattle built its new elite defense

Now that we know this group can play like the Legion of Boom, we'll find out if it also has staying power or if it is a one-hit wonder. With Macdonald's scheme and future superstars on that side of the ball, I'm willing to bet this won't be the last we hear of the Dark Side.