Head Coach Mike Macdonald On The 30-23 Win vs. Chargers

Mike Macdonald (0:02)

All right, I would say we're very grateful for a win. To be three and one is a tribute to our guys and our mentality throughout the week. I thought the guys were great throughout the week in terms of our approach. And to win in the NFL is dang hard, man. And so, with humility, we're really grateful for where we're at right now, and excited to move forward. But we also understand that we have definitely a lot of room for improvement with our operation, how we take care of the football, and obviously penalties are something we need to address. So, you know, we have a spectrum around here on how we ascribe penalties, once it costs doing business. We, you know, in terms of playing style, we want to play hard, sometimes we make mistakes. And on the other side of the spectrum is we call them selfish penalties. So we need to be, this is going to be a through not around type of next 24 to 48 hours on on how we address the penalties. So I look forward and move forward. I've got a big week ahead of us and guys were excited. They played extremely hard, stayed together and did enough to win the game. So we're thankful for that.

He's got an ankle right now, doesn't look serious right now, which is positive news. So we'll see.

SPEAKER_2 (1:27)

The penalties, you kind of was just in here saying he thought emotions got the best of them, maybe a little bit out there. Did you sense that at all? Like it was kind of a building thing or?

Mike Macdonald (1:36)

For me to say right now, but to have seven personal foul penalties is unacceptable on any level, and the RV slice it, so that's not us, and that's not going to be how we play football around here.

SPEAKER_3 (1:51)

Without Jenary being available today, what are your thoughts on the way that Brian coordinated the run game, mixing in Rashid back there and the success that you guys had?

Mike Macdonald (1:59)

Yeah, it's great. We got to be able to run the ball, so the guys did a great job. Thought Emmanuel ran the ball well.

Thought George ran the ball well. It's great to get Sheed going, which is really cool. And Justin Outen deserves a lot of credit. John Benton, it's a team effort, so the guys did a great job.

SPEAKER_4 (2:17)

Mike, it seemed like you guys had them on the ropes there in the second half of 21 points with their business. You guys, why do you think it took you till the end of the game to realize you shouldn't have?

Mike Macdonald (2:27)

Well, we were off the field multiple times and we got penalties, so it's cut and dry. It's not, it's not, that's not how we're going to do business. That's not how we need to play. That's unacceptable.

SPEAKER_5 (2:38)

Despite all of that, your defense was able to shut them down in the last sequence. How important is that to the press of the Marlins?

Mike Macdonald (2:44)

Well, it was good. We had to stay together, you know. As frustrated as we were, we got to go win the game.

And Chana got a game ball for closing it out, so it was great. That was awesome.

SPEAKER_2 (2:54)

How do you balance everything you said at the beginning about how hard it is to win the NFL and celebrating a win and, you know, how you want to close a game and that wasn't necessarily the standard you want to say?

Mike Macdonald (3:04)

I think it's a process thing. It's like, yeah, we want to win games, but we want to be the Seahawks and the vision of how we want to play.

And so when we're not that, then that's why we feel the way we feel, you know. Again, we're very, we're like, we're grateful for wins. We're great and it's freaking hard to win, you know, which is awesome. But it's also that we're not there yet, you know. And so, so we got to go to work, you know, we got to attack the process and attack the things so we can improve and get better.

SPEAKER_2 (3:36)

How much do you expect that to come from you versus the leaders you got on that team?

Mike Macdonald (3:40)

Everybody in the locker room knows it, so it's going to be everybody. The guys will be great. I told them this, you know, is to the guys, anytime we've set our intention on something, really, I have a hard time finding an exception. The guys have done it, you know. So if we want it, so we just have to be honest with our process on how we approach it and how we go through it straight up. And it's everybody pulling the same direction. So that's where we want to improve. The other parts of the game, we did a great job.