When the Seattle Seahawks snagged Byron Murphy II at 16th overall, the draft room erupted. People called him the "steal of the draft." If you spend any time looking at Byron Murphy II PFF data, though, you might notice that his rookie year wasn't exactly a highlight reel of elite grades.
Football is funny like that.
Stat sheets and advanced analytics don't always capture what happens when a 300-pound human tries to relocate another 300-pound human against their will. Byron Murphy II is a bit of a statistical enigma. He’s the guy who looks like a wrecking ball on film but sometimes gets "graded out" by PFF with numbers that make fans scratch their heads.
The Rookie Reality Check
Let’s be real. Murphy’s first year in Seattle was a grind.
He ended 2024 with a 57.8 overall PFF grade. For a first-round pick, that looks kind of... underwhelming? Most fans see a sub-60 grade and start smelling a "bust" narrative. But there is massive context missing there. Murphy was dealing with a nagging hamstring injury that cost him three games and clearly zapped his explosiveness when he actually was on the field.
He only played 457 snaps in 14 games. He was stuck behind veterans like Leonard Williams and Jarran Reed, basically acting as a rotational piece rather than the focal point. PFF’s pass-rushing grade for him was 64.5, which is decent but not dominant.
The interesting part? Even in a "down" rookie year, his true pass set grade was 70.0. That tells us that when he wasn't dealing with screens, chips, or play-action—when it was just "you vs. me"—Murphy was winning.
The Massive 2025 Sophomore Leap
If you’re looking at Byron Murphy II PFF stats now, in early 2026, the picture is radically different.
The sophomore leap we all hoped for? It happened. Murphy didn't just improve; he exploded. Through the 2025 season, his overall PFF grade jumped to a 72.4, ranking him as the 25th best interior defender in the league.
Check out these 2025 numbers:
- 9 sacks (3rd among all DTs)
- 50 pressures (9th at his position)
- 783 snaps (7th most for interior linemen)
He went from a rotational rookie to a workhorse. The Seahawks' run defense, which was basically a sieve in years past, became a brick wall. Seattle allowed the third-least total rushing yards in 2025, and PFF credited a huge chunk of that to the Williams-Murphy duo.
Why the PFF Grades Were So High at Texas
To understand why Seattle drafted him so high, you have to look back at his time in Austin. Murphy’s 2023 season at Texas was literally historic for an interior lineman.
PFF gave him a 91.1 overall defensive grade and a 91.5 pass-rush grade. He led all FBS defensive tackles in pass-rush productivity. When people talk about his "freakish" traits, they aren't kidding. He had a 10% pass-rush win rate as a college kid, which is insane for a guy playing the 3-technique.
He wasn't just big; he was fast. He was the Big 12 Defensive Lineman of the Year for a reason. PFF’s stable metrics—things like win rate and pressure rate—pinned him as the #1 interior prospect for a reason.
The Run Defense Debate
There is one area where the Byron Murphy II PFF profile still shows some "red."
His run defense grade in 2025 was a 53.4. That sounds bad, right? Well, sort of. PFF grades run defense based on consistency in gap filling and making "stops." Murphy is an aggressive, upfield penetrator. Sometimes that means he gets washed out of a play because he’s trying to kill the quarterback.
But here is the nuance: while his individual grade was lower, the Seahawks' team run defense was elite. Coaches often value a guy who can disrupt the play's timing even if he doesn't record the tackle himself.
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Lessons from the Tape
If you're evaluating Murphy based solely on a PFF number, you're missing the point. You've got to watch the "gravity" he has on the field.
When Murphy is on the field, centers and guards are constantly sliding their protection toward him. This frees up Seattle's edge rushers. It’s the "Aaron Donald Effect" on a smaller scale. You might not see it in a PFF grade for a specific week, but the defensive coordinator definitely sees it on Monday morning.
Honestly, the biggest takeaway from his PFF trajectory is durability and volume. Going from 457 snaps to nearly 800 in a year shows he’s figured out the NFL conditioning game.
Moving Forward: Actionable Insights for Fans and Analysts
- Ignore the raw grade, watch the win rate: A DT can have a bad grade because they missed a tackle, but if their pass-rush win rate is over 12%, they are an elite disruptor.
- Follow the snap counts: If a coach keeps a player on the field for 780+ snaps, the "low" PFF grade is usually lying. Coaches don't play bad players for 70% of the game.
- Contextualize injuries: Murphy’s rookie year (57.8 grade) was an injury outlier. Always look at the college PFF profile to see a player's true ceiling.
- Watch the "True Pass Sets": If you want to know if a DL is actually good, look for his PFF grade on non-play-action, non-screen plays. That's where Murphy shines.
Byron Murphy II is currently trending toward becoming a perennial Pro-Bowler. The "sophomore slump" didn't happen; instead, we got a "sophomore surge" that has him ranked among the top 10 interior pass rushers in the league. Keep an eye on his pressure-to-sack conversion rate—it’s one of the highest in the NFL right now.
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To get a better feel for his impact, look up his 2025 "True Pass Set" win percentage. It’s often significantly higher than his overall grade, which is the hallmark of a specialist who is rapidly becoming an every-down star.