Seahawks' Mike Macdonald explains why Nick Emmanwori is built to cover elite tight ends

Second-year do-everything safety Nick Emmanwori continues to make his presence felt in the Seattle Seahawks secondary. 

After a stellar performance against Arizona Cardinals All-Pro tight end Trey McBride, Emmanwori faces another major test this weekend against Las Vegas Raiders star and first-team All-Pro tight end Brock Bowers. 

First Trey McBride, now Brock Bowers

Brady Henderson of ESPN noted that Emmanwori drew extensive coverage duties on McBride, who entered the game as one of the NFL's most dangerous tight ends. While McBride remained productive overall with seven receptions, Emmanwori never allowed one in his coverage. 

More importantly, it continued a growing trend of Seahawks head coach Mike Macdonald leaning on his second-year safety in high-leverage coverage situations against premier pass-catching tight ends. 

Emmanwori's standout moment came on 4th-and-2, with Arizona knocking on the door of its first potential touchdown. Emmanwori stayed with the All-Pro tight end and made a tremendous play in the fourth quarter, also being credited with a pass breakup on McBride.

"We asked him to match up a few times, and he did a great job," Macdonald said, via Ari Horton and the Seattle Seahawks team website. "I think he had a great mentality throughout the week. He was on his details, and I think you saw that kind of manifest itself in the game by him just letting it rip and playing a great game. I mean, we asked him to blitz; we asked him to cover. Obviously the play in the red zone was awesome, and then we had a plan for him to rush as well."

Bowers presents the next test; despite appearing in just seven games, Bowers ranks ninth in the NFL with 658 receiving yards and leads all tight ends in the category. 

Ted Nguyen of The Athletic highlighted a potential matchup complication for Seattle, noting that Bowers' frequent alignments out wide could make it difficult to keep Emmanwori shadowing him throughout the game. Michael Mayer could consequently become the more likely matchup for the Seahawks' versatile defensive back. 

"Not all tight ends run the routes equally; they run different route trees ..." Macdonald said via Henderson. "Nick has the ability to run with anybody ... but the ability to stay connected at the top of routes; the best tight ends are able to use physicality to create separation, and Nick's able to fight fire with fire on that front or be able to absorb some tricks of the trade." 

The Kyle Hamilton blueprint

Emmanwori, 22, is the rare defender built for covering the tight end position. He's listed at 6-foot-3, 220 pounds as a hybrid safety, nickelback, linebacker whom Macdonald has called "a crazy athletic linebacker" and moved all over the formation and even lined up at the line of scrimmage as an edge technique. 

The most meaningful parallel is to Baltimore Ravens' Kyle Hamilton. He's the do-everything safety whose now-three-time All-Pro development was shaped by Macdonald's two seasons as the Ravens' defensive coordinator, where Hamilton earned his first All-Pro in 2023. 

Henderson noted that, according to NFL Next Gen Stats, Emmanwori was one of only six defensive backs during the 2025 regular season, his rookie year, to log over 80 snaps on the line of scrimmage (86), at linebacker (284), and at slot corner (326), along with Hamilton, Derwin James Jr., Jaquan Brisker, Jeremy Chinn, and Nick Cross.