With Bears and others chasing, Seahawks already intent on staying ‘on the forefront’

SAN FRANCISCO — It’s easy for an NFL team, especially during a rebuild, to become so engrossed in getting itself on track that it forgets the rest of the league is trying to do the same.

Even the Seahawks, the morning after winning Super Bowl LX against the Patriots, are fixed on improving for next season as everyone takes aim at them. They won’t just sit and wait for the Bears and others to catch up. Instead, they’re looking to widen the gap.

“We use the term ‘chasing edges’ here in Seattle,” coach Mike Macdonald said Monday. “You have to live like that. . . . We want to be on the forefront of things. We know that we’re Target No. 1 now.”

The Seahawks quietly dominated in the regular season, going 14-3 in the extremely tough NFC West and leading the NFL with a plus-191 scoring differential. The Bears, by comparison, were a plus-26.

With the No. 1 scoring defense, the Seahawks steamrolled the 49ers and outlasted the Rams to reach the Super Bowl, then blanketed the Patriots for a 29-13 win at Levi’s Stadium for the second championship in franchise history. They held the Patriots scoreless until early in the fourth quarter, and most or all of that defense will be back next season.

The numbers were scary for any team that assumes it’ll be able to run its offense normally against the Seahawks next season. They sacked Patriots quarterback Drake Maye six times for a net loss of 53 yards and held him to a 79.1 passer rating after he led the NFL with a 113.5 during the regular season. Running backs TreVeyon Henderson and Rhamondre Stevenson combined to average 96.7 rushing yards per game during the regular season but totaled just 42 on Sunday. Wide receiver Stefon Diggs had a pedestrian 37 yards on three catches.

The Patriots’ offense was second in the NFL at 28.8 points per game, so the challenge ahead won’t be any less daunting for the Bears (ninth, 25.9). An 11-6 record with an exit in the divisional round of the playoffs won’t be celebrated again in Chicago. For them to get a firm grasp on what they’ll need to do next season to go all the way — and what’s the point of enduring a rebuild if the goal isn’t a championship? — they’ll need a clear view of what the Seahawks have.

What they have is an exceptional defense and a good offense, a combination that made things easier for quarterback Sam Darnold, who took full advantage this season. No one considers Darnold a superstar, and he played unremarkably Sunday, but he wasn’t merely along for the ride, finishing the regular season in the top 11 in passer rating, yardage and touchdown passes.

That said, the Seahawks went against the trend, proving defense can still win. Macdonald, just 38, is the first defensive-minded head coach to capture a title since Bill Belichick seven years ago and is believed to be the first coach to win a Super Bowl as his team’s defensive play-caller. Essentially, he’s the defensive version of what the Bears believe they found in coach Ben Johnson.

With a visit to Seattle coming up on the schedule next season, Johnson and quarterback Caleb Williams will get their shot at the Seahawks’ defense — perhaps as early as the season opener in September. Rams coach Sean McVay and quarterback Matthew Stafford already have been seething for weeks in anticipation of going after the Seahawks again. The Lions are loaded. The Cowboys and 49ers can put up points with the best of them. The NFC is full of explosive offenses that will spend the offseason innovating, analyzing and upgrading to give themselves a chance to take down the defending champs.

“It’s really going to be our mentality for us to keep pushing the envelope with our personnel and where we can take things,” Macdonald said. “There’s going to be times where teams get a bead on us and we’re going to have to move and shake, and that’s happened several times this season. That’s just how we operate.”

The bright spot for the Bears is that this conversation is much different than the one they usually have this time of year. For years, the Super Bowl was a slap of reality for them, leaving no doubt about how lost they were compared to champions such as the Eagles, Chiefs and Rams. This time, after a season in which they asserted themselves as a real threat in the NFC, they’re looking at how close they might be to catching the Seahawks, not how far away.