Byron Murphy II is suddenly being talked about as a Defensive Player of the Year candidate for 2026, and that changes the way the Seattle Seahawks are viewed on defense. He is one of three Seahawks singled out for the race, but he is the one whose rise could mean the most.
The reason the discussion has his name on it is simple. Murphy nearly matched Leonard Williams as a pass rusher last year even though he was effectively the nose tackle, the player asked to anchor the middle rather than chase the spotlight. He was also the tip of the spear of the league’s best run defense, which gives him a case that goes beyond raw sack totals and into the kind of impact voters notice when a front is controlling games.
That matters now because Murphy is another year closer to his prime, and the award conversation is starting before the season rather than after it. The Seahawks defense is described as deep and well-rounded, built more like a unit than a one-man show, which is exactly why an individual candidate has been hard to find. Last year, there was no realistic Seahawks contender for the award, while Myles Garrett stood out as the obvious pick elsewhere.
Murphy’s path still runs through a hard number. Defensive tackles have won Defensive Player of the Year before, but most of the recent winners got there with elite sack totals, and eight winners in the last 30 years reached at least 11 sacks. Dana Stubblefield did it in 1997, Warren Sapp in 1999, and Brian Urlacher in 2005, while the last off-ball linebacker to win was Luke Kuechly in 2013. That history is the friction point for Murphy: he can be central to an elite defense without automatically becoming the kind of pass-rush force that usually captures the award.
So the question is not whether Murphy matters to the Seahawks. He already does. The question is whether his next step turns a dominant interior player into the kind of rare defensive tackle who can collect enough sacks, and enough attention, to force his way into the 2026 race.
