The Arizona Cardinals are heading into Week 2 with full appreciation for what Seattle brings to the table, and that respect starts at the top. Cardinals head coach Mike LaFleur spent this week talking about Mike Macdonald’s defense like a staffer who has spent too many late nights staring at the same nightmare on tape.
"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.
He didn’t stop there.
"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."
Seattle’s 2025 defense backed up that kind of praise. The Seahawks allowed 17.2 points per game, the best mark in the league, and finished with a point differential of +246, the highest of any Super Bowl champion this century, according to Seattle Sports.
The article also noted they were the No. 8 DVOA defense of all time.
LaFleur isn’t approaching this one blind, either. Before taking over in Arizona, he was the offensive coordinator for the Los Angeles Rams during Macdonald’s first two seasons in Seattle, 2024 and 2025.
Including the postseason, LaFleur went 2-3 against the Seahawks in that span, with the Rams averaging 25.4 points per game. The Cardinals, by comparison, averaged 16.5 points per game against Seattle over that same stretch.
That background gives him a clear read on the challenge, even if the personnel around him has changed.
"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.'"
Macdonald’s defense still has the pieces that make the whole thing hum. Seattle lost Coby Bryant, Boye Mafe and Riq Woolen this offseason, but it kept all five All-Pros from last year, including Leonard Williams, Ernest Jones and Devon Witherspoon on the defensive side. According to Fantasy Points Data Suite, the Seahawks leaned heavily on Cover 3 last season, using that coverage on 31% of their plays, while no other man or zone look topped 18%.
That kind of variety - and discipline - is exactly what has Arizona’s offense bracing for a long afternoon. Cardinals quarterback Jacoby Brissett didn’t pretend there was some simple answer to solving it.
"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 also made it plain what the Cardinals felt from Seattle a year ago.
"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."
Offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett echoed that same theme, and he did not soften it.
"This Seattle defense, it's special. When you keep watching it, it keeps you up at night. That is for sure," Hackett said.
"What I think is the coolest thing about them is how unselfish they are."
Even Trey McBride, one of Arizona’s top weapons, pointed to the problems Seattle creates from every angle.
"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."
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