The Darkside 2.0: How Seahawks DC Aden Durde’s Guides NFL’s Best Defense

RENTON, Wash. — Aden Durde took a moment of reflection before answering my question about what’s next for the Seattle Seahawks’ dominant defense. Head coach Mike Macdonald was rightly credited for implementing the innovative scheme that led to building the best defense in the NFL last season, serving as the catalyst for his team’s Super Bowl run. However, one of Macdonald’s first hires was Durde, Seattle’s defensive coordinator responsible for the day-to-day operation and implementation of the defensive mastermind’s scheme. So, when I pressed Durde about the next iteration of the aptly named “Darkside” defense as they prepare for Wednesday’s Super Bowl rematch against the New England Patriots, he kept it simple. “We’ve just got to keep pushing through — making game-changing plays while dominating early down football,” Durde told me. “Putting people in hard positions to move down the field. And if guys are doing that, there’s going to be opportunities to take the ball away. If we can raise the numbers in that, then you’re ultimately changing the game.” The Seahawks held tight to that mantra last season. Seattle held opponents to a league-low 17.2 points per game, finishing second in rushing yards allowed (91.3 per game) and sixth in takeaways (25). And the Seahawks were even more dominant in the team’s suffocating Super Bowl LX win over the Patriots. Seattle destroyed MVP candidate quarterback Drake Maye and New England’s offense, sacking him six times and hitting him 11 times. They forced the Patriots to punt eight times and kept them off the scoreboard for three quarters. Maye also turned the ball over three times, including a play where Devon Witherspoon hit him so hard on a blitz that edge rusher Uchenna Nwosu caught his pass in midair and returned 45 yards for a score. Despite that dominant performance and the fact that New England will have to witness the unfurling of a Super Bowl banner during pregame festivities before Wednesday’s game, Durde believes his defense is trained to guard against any complacency that could set in. “It’s no disrespect to them, but that’s about us,” Durde told me. “It’s the way that we carry ourselves daily. When you’re preparing for a game, the opponent is the opponent. We have to respect that, and we have to look at the opponent like that. We have to go through our process, and it’s not the opponent, per se. It’s the tape.” Durde’s mentality has carried through the rest of the Seahawks’ defense as they seek to avoid a Super Bowl hangover. Seattle defensive lineman Leonard Williams said he leaned on conversations with Seahawks legends Richard Sherman and Kam Chancellor, along with father-in-law Ronnie Lott (a four-time Super Bowl champ), on how to move on from the big game. “He always says that thing as well, the complacency thing,” Williams told me about Lott. “To me, I feel like we don’t have that in this locker room; we don’t have that in this building. From Day 1 of OTAs (organized team activities) and training camp, you haven’t seen a single person in here still patting his back about what we accomplished last season. “And I think everybody in this room, we all understand that we have to start at the bottom to achieve that goal again.” Durde and the Seahawks did lose players on that side of the football this offseason. Key contributors like edge rusher Boye Mafe, safety Coby Bryant and cornerback Tariq Woolen all signed deals elsewhere in free agency. But they signed veteran pass rusher Dante Fowler in free agency and expect young players like safety Ty Okada and defensive lineman Rylie Mills to help fill the void. While Macdonald has provided the innovation on defense, Durde, a former defensive line coach under Dan Quinn for the Dallas Cowboys and British-born former linebacker in NFL Europe, has helped to create a culture of connectivity and accountability with his defensive players. “How he sees the game, I think, complements how I see it, in terms of how we’ve built our team and built our scheme,” Macdonald said about Durde. “Probably his best quality is being a connector, a leader and a communicator. … He’s done a tremendous job, and we trust him. He’s running the operation 99% of the time. “One of the cool things about AD (Durde) is that I think if you came into our defensive team room, I don’t know if you’d be able to figure out who the coordinator is, or who the DB coach is, or who the head coach is. It’s kind of everybody pulling the same direction. He definitely sets the tone for that feeling, and that’s what we’re trying to create, so I can’t say enough good things about him.” Williams, one of the team’s leaders and the best player on their defense, said he likes that a former defensive line coach is leading his group. “Just like I prefer for my head coach to be a defensive guy, I prefer my defensive coordinator to be a defensive line guy,” Williams told me. “We want to be the tip of the spear. And I feel like if we’re getting that special attention from the defensive coordinator and we’re getting that special attention from the head coach, it allows us to thrive and just be the best we can be. “He just brings the best out of everybody. He’s one of those guys that gets to know his players on a personal level, and because he does that, he can pull the best out of you on the field. Speaking from my own experience, he gets to know me on a personal level, and I get to know him on a personal level, so when we’re out there on the field he knows what triggers me to get me going. He knows how to push me to get the best out of his guys, and. I think he does that with all 11 guys on the defense, and it helps us thrive.” Williams isn’t the only one who feels that way about Durde, either. “He’s great to work with,” Nwosu added. “He always comes to work with a positive attitude, which makes the hard days a lot better as it gets later in the year. We appreciate him and everything he’s brought to the team.” How the Seahawks approach things from a personnel perspective could be different in 2026. The Seahawks played base defense on 6.2% of their defensive snaps last season, the only team to do that at a rate below 10%, according to Next Gen Stats. However, Durde said the Seahawks could use three-linebacker personnel groupings more this season, giving deserving players like linebacker Tyrice Knight a chance to earn playing time. “There are situations where you can get into base,” Durde said. “There are situations where you can maybe put an extra defensive lineman or put an extra safety on the field. And when you’ve got this depth within your roster and people are practicing and developing wherever these guys are, you have to keep giving them opportunities. And the more they push like that, the more it pushes us as a collective of coaches to say, ‘OK, we’ve got to do different things.’ We don’t have to change who we are, but we’ve got to give opportunities to these players.” The Seahawks rewarded foundational players like versatile cornerback Devon Witherspoon, talented edge rusher Derick Hall and Williams with lucrative new deals this offseason. It’s up to Durde to figure out how best to use their unique skill sets. Durde said that’s what makes Seattle’s defense great. There’s an unselfishness that allows them to embrace other players’ success yet also be ready to execute when their name is called. “They have fun,” Durde said. “They joke. They’re loud. They talk crap, and then they lock in when it’s time to go. And that kind of breathes so much confidence into you as a coach, because they go and operate that way when you play the game. And that’s a beautiful thing.” Durde’s accomplishments in Seattle have not gone unnoticed. He interviewed for head coaching jobs with the Cleveland Browns and Atlanta Falcons but ultimately returned to Seattle. Durde said he has Mike McCarthy, Dan Quinn and Macdonald to thank for preparing for that moment. While he has a chance to become the first British-born head coach in the NFL soon, Durde said he has his hands full preparing for the present in Wednesday’s opener. “I just think that what those guys have taught me has allowed me to have a lot of clarity in the principles I believe in, why they’re important, how they’ve helped me and how they’ve helped me express myself,” Durde said. “I didn’t get the job, but I felt good about the way things went.”