It's a misnomer that Seattle runs a 3-4. Sure, 3-4 is considered or "base" defense but in reality it's less than 25 percent of the time. The Seahawks are mostly in a 2-4-5 formation of some sort like someone else mentioned. In this formation it means that we have only two lineman in on any given down. In place of the DE's, in this formation we run two stand up linebackers in place of the two DE's traditionally found on a 4-3 front.
In today's modern NFL, you see 3-4 and 4-3 employed very rarely among NFL teams as a base. Many times you're going to be seeing some variation of 3-3-5 or 2-4-5 front being ran. The Seahawks were actually one of the last teams in the NFL to switch exclusively to this type of front. In 2021, we ran more base defense than any team in the NFL not named the Jaguars.
This formations main benefit is that it provides more flexibility and speed at any given point in the game. When ran right, modern NFL offenses are struggling with this style of defense. It also provides an extra benefit of being able to disguise what is being ran.
The formation isn't the issue here, the implementation is the problem.
This formation has a huge downside, if your linebackers, D-Line and secondary don't stay disciplined, it's easy to exploit, particularly in the run game. The Seahawks lack discipline and they don't do important things such as maintain gap integrity. All of these things are down how we've implemented this defense on the team and the coaching.
The Seahawks huge mistake was our DT's. If you're playing a 2-4-5 defense, normally you need a guy that is going to eat space. We don't have that player on our team. In this defense a lot of pressure is put onto the linebackers and secondary to fill that gap.
The way we've constructed the defensive line on this team leaves me perplexed if running the 2-4-5 front is the goal. Clint Hurtt and Pete Carroll have failed miserably in the implementation.
