2026 NFL Preview: Changing Face of the Modern NFL Defense
[Editor's note: The following article is from Athlon Sports' 2026 NFL Preview magazine. Order your issue online today, or grab a copy at newsstands and retail racks nationwide.]
In their 29-13 win over the New England Patriots in Super Bowl LX, the Seattle Seahawks refused to play base defense. They played dime defense on 40 of their 72 defensive snaps, and because of their personnel, they were able to get away with it. Seattle's defense is filled with interior wrecking balls, an evil rotation of edge rushers, a linebacker in Ernest Jones IV who's versatile enough to be the only man at his position on the field, and more than one do-it-all defensive back who can shore things up when defending the run.
This aligns with recent NFL trends.
In 2025, six different teams (the Seahawks, Philadelphia Eagles, Los Angeles Rams, Los Angeles Chargers, San Francisco 49ers and Carolina Panthers) ran light boxes on more than 50% of their defensive snaps. Add in the increasing use of Cover-4 and Cover-6 alignments where teams pair two-high shells with match coverage principles underneath, and it creates a real need for linebacker/defensive back hybrids who can play both roles. There's no way that the Seahawks could have done what they did without rookie Nick Emmanwori in that role.
In their 40-22 win over the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl LIX, the Eagles refused to blitz Patrick Mahomes. They didn't blitz a single time in their 56 defensive snaps, but they still disrupted Mahomes to the tune of six sacks and 30 total pressures. Instead of sending extra pass-rushers at Mahomes, the Eagles stunted their defensive linemen to an extreme degree, and it worked to great effect. Philly stunted its linemen 11 times in the game - two of their sacks and five of their pressures came as a result.
This also aligns with recent NFL trends.
The Eagles kept four defenders at the line of scrimmage on every snap (there were a handful of snaps in which linebacker Zack Baun did rush the passer, but always with a defensive lineman dropping back into coverage); they also had six or fewer defenders in the box on 52 of those 56 snaps. And they played with two-deep safeties on 36 of 56 plays.
Sorry if this sounds familiar, but the Eagles were able to get away with this because they had a defense filled with interior wrecking balls, an evil rotation of edge rushers, a linebacker in Baun who was versatile enough to be the only man at his position on the field, and more than one do-it-all defensive back who could shore things up when defending the run.
If you want to know how modern NFL defenses have changed in the past few years, look no further than the two most recent Super Bowls and the teams that won them.
Today's ideal defense is one in which fronts and coverages look relatively "vanilla" before the play and then can morph into just about anything once the ball is snapped. The value of this philosophy is that it gives the quarterback, and whoever's calling the protections, very little intel with which to work. With these structures, offenses are flying blind a lot of the time because they have to discern two different defenses on nearly every play - the one they appear to be getting pre-play and the one that actually happens post-snap. And those two looks can be radically different.
How are NFL coaches changing the face of their defenses so radically and making it work? With the cunning use of scheme and personnel. This has always been the case throughout pro football history; it's just that it's now being done with a decidedly 21st-century flavor.
Positional versatility
Once upon a time, defensive players who excelled at multiple positions were generally seen as jacks of all trades and masters of none. The NFL wanted fixed positional definition in eras when defensive structures were more basic because the offenses coaches were trying to solve were also more rudimentary. Now, that kind of positional versatility is not only accepted but also favored - and in some defenses, absolutely mandatory. If you're playing only one position on defense, you'd better be playing it at a very high level, or you'll find yourself subbed out for someone who can either be great in one place or really good in two or more.
In the 2025 season, 53 NFL players played at least 200 snaps at more than one defensive position. And five players logged at least that many snaps in three spots. That flexibility came in all manner of ways.
• Dax Hill of the Cincinnati Bengals - 951 total snaps at cornerback (387), slot defender (363) and box defender (201).
• Jessie Bates III of the Atlanta Falcons - 873 total snaps at free safety (405), strong safety (257) and box defender (211).
• Grant Delpit of the Cleveland Browns - 793 total snaps at slot defender (304), box defender (270) and free safety (219).
• Budda Baker of the Arizona Cardinals - 776 total snaps at free safety (314), box defender (245) and slot defender (217).
• Jalen Redmond of the Minnesota Vikings - 728 total snaps at defensive tackle (258), defensive end (241) and edge defender (229).
Pittsburgh Steelers defensive lineman Cameron Heyward, a 15-year NFL veteran with seven Pro Bowls and four first-team All-Pro nods to his name, has long been the type of player you could align at any gap in a line with great success. Now, Heyward is seeing that kind of multi-position wisdom everywhere on defense.
"I think versatility is at an all-time high," Heyward told Athlon Sports. "And it's not just for my position now. I think a lot of times, we saw the linebacker position only being one way. Now, you see safeties playing like linebackers. And I think everybody's relished these opportunities.
"Just watching the Super Bowl, you watch [Seahawks defensive back Nick] Emmanwori. If you can have that positional flexibility now, it just benefits your team at an all-time high. More teams have better defenses because they're adjusting to their players, rather than the structure where the player has to adjust. And I think it's benefiting teams at a higher level."
Emmanwori is a great example. He was a second-round pick for the Seahawks in 2025 out of South Carolina, and at 6-foot-3 and 220 pounds, he was the perfect catalyst for Seahawks head coach and defensive play-caller Mike Macdonald's lighter fronts and two-high "shell" safety looks with match coverage underneath. As a prototypical "big safety," Emmanwori was a linebacker in the box but with slot and safety responsibilities as well.
Seahawks assistant head coach Leslie Frazier, whose playing career hit its peak when he led the legendary 1985 Chicago Bears defense with six interceptions and whose NFL coaching career began in 1999, told Athlon Sports why the Emmanwori-style player is so crucial to modern defensive success.
"Part of it is that the rules in the NFL are so liberal for the offense when it comes to contact and coverage," Frazier said. "A lot of teams will try to spread you out and create mismatches [on offense]. One of the ways to offset that is to have hybrid-type players who can play out in space and not just be a box safety, for instance. Have the ability to cover, but can still get close to the line of scrimmage, and tackle like a linebacker as well."
This is also why the three highest-ranked "safeties" in the 2026 NFL Draft were all multi-position players in their own ways.
• Ohio State's Caleb Downs, selected 11th overall by the Dallas Cowboys - 627 total snaps at box defender (241), free safety (240) and slot defender (146).
• Oregon's Dillon Thieneman, selected 25th overall by the Bears - 799 total snaps at box defender (434), free safety (247) and slot defender (118).
• Toledo's Emmanuel McNeil-Warren, selected 58th overall by the Browns - 632 total snaps at box defender (401), free safety (198) and slot defender (33).
Stunts over blitzes
Everybody loves to watch the destruction that a successful blitz inflicts on the offense, but in the modern NFL, the people calling those defenses are seeing the value in keeping their personnel stable. Now, defensive coordinators want their pass rush to come from concepts that are more consistent than blitzes, which leave gaps in coverage when extra defenders are moving against the quarterback.
This is why we've seen an increase in the use of stunts, in which defensive linemen exchange gaps post-snap, leaving offensive linemen and other blockers to figure out who they're supposed to deal with. It's not always an easy calculation. Stunts also work well against the run, but teams are really loading them up against the pass.
Why? Because with stunts, the combination of pressure and coverage is simply more effective:
• When NFL teams blitzed in 2025, they allowed 2,778 completions in 4,516 attempts (61.5%) for 7.30 yards per attempt, 304 touchdowns (6.7%), 89 interceptions (2.0%) and an 8.1% sack rate (396 sacks on 4,912 dropbacks).
• When defenses stunted instead, they allowed 2,902 completions in 4,670 attempts (62.1%) for 7.44 yards per attempt, 159 touchdowns (3.4%), 122 interceptions (2.6%) and a 9.0% sack rate (464 sacks on 5,134 dropbacks).
Any concept that can cut your rate of touchdowns allowed in half while actually increasing your sack rate? Well, what defensive coordinator wouldn't sign up for that?
Coverage switches
Another clear defensive trend over the past few years is the backfield equivalent of the stunt - pre- and post-snap coverage switches in which defensive backs show offenses one coverage look before the play and something decidedly different after the snap. These switches have been around pro football for decades to a degree, but they've really come into prominence in recent years.
Over the past few seasons, post-snap coverage switches have held fairly steady from a rate perspective - 27% in 2022, 26.7% in 2023, 28.6% in 2024 and 27.8% in 2025. What we have seen more of in the past few draft cycles is the increasing value of defensive backs who are capable of starting in the deep third and coming down to support short and intermediate defenders - and the obvious reverse, defenders who can start in the box or the slot and haul it back to the deep third in a big hurry.
From Minkah Fitzpatrick to Derwin James Jr. to Kyle Hamilton to Brian Branch, these multi-layer defenders are more important than they've ever been, especially because they're no longer sub-package guys in an era when sub-packages (everything from nickel to big nickel to dime) have become base concepts for more and more defenses.
How did passing games perform against these sleights of hand last season? The results were interesting. Offenses had a higher completion rate (65.6% vs. 64.1%), a higher yards per attempt (7.37 vs. 6.90), a lower interception rate (2.1% vs. 2.2%) and an identical sack rate (6.9%). Where things changed for the better for defenses was in the most important column - against static coverages, quarterbacks had a 6.1% touchdown rate, and that rate plummeted to 2.2% against disguised coverages.
For that reason alone, defensive coaches will deal with the occasional coverage busts that come from disguised coverages and can have defenders playing in disadvantageous spots if the assignments aren't executed to perfection. Coverage switches can fool the guys who are covering, too.
It's all about connection
Right after their respective Super Bowl wins, both Baun of the Eagles and Julian Love of the Seahawks told me that the real key to modern defense is for everybody on the field to know what everybody else is doing.
"I think Vic [Eagles defensive coordinator Vic Fangio] does a good job of telling us where our help is and what leverage we should play," Baun said. "We've always got help. When I'm out there, I trust my own tackling ability, but I also trust that Coop [defensive back Cooper DeJean] is going to come down and make the tackle with me, or Oren [linebacker Oren Burks] is going to come down and make the tackle with me."
Love spoke to both the talent on Seattle's roster and the connections therein.
"To be able to run the scheme that we do and have success the way we have, it just takes talent," Love said. "It starts up front. [Defensive tackle] Byron Murphy Jr., he's the heartbeat of our defense. Him, Leonard Williams, Jarran Reed up front, the depth that we have in the interior, then our edge killers. You see Boye [Mafe], you see [Derick] Hall, you see D-Law [DeMarcus Lawrence], they just make plays, so it starts up front. And the linebackers, Ernest [Jones IV] is our leader, our captain. Him and [fellow linebacker] Drake [Thomas] have been playing good ball.
"And then I would say our rookie man, having our rookie, ‘Demonwori' [safety Emmanwori], him and Spoon [Devon Witherspoon], playing that slot role, they're killers. They're some of the best players in this league, and so allowing that to happen when they can be stout for us against the run, having our four down linemen be stout for us against the run, it allows me and [safety] Coby [Bryant]and our corners to be free. It's talent."
It is about talent to a degree, but to play truly great defense in the modern NFL, all three levels must be connected, and the positional overlaps must be managed, at the proverbial next level.
If you're not playing defense this way in 2026 and beyond, you are playing from behind before the games begin.
Related: Athlon Sports 2026 NFL Preview Magazine Now Available
Related: The 3 Biggest Questions Still Looming for All 32 NFL Teams
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This story was originally published June 23, 2026 at 10:11 AM.