Head Coach Mike Macdonald Recaps Week 5, Looks Ahead To Week 6 vs. Broncos

Mike Macdonald (0:02)

All right, I don't think we have any more injury updates from this morning, but I'll try to enlighten you as best I can, if you have questions on, guys.

SPEAKER_2 (0:15)

Just with Zach, just to reiterate, you don't expect him to play.

Mike Macdonald (0:19)

I'll just leave it at that. As of right now, answer is no.

It's subject to change. We're going to have to be boxed in there, Bob. Yeah. It's a wiggle room.

SPEAKER_3 (0:31)

You guys are seeing a little bit higher time to throw this year than last year, but also seeing a higher pressure rate. Are you seeing it as protections breaking down, causing a longer time to throw, or maybe the decisiveness isn't there, and so more pressures come in?

Mike Macdonald (0:46)

Yeah, I think all those things. I would say it's not, we haven't really clicked yet in terms of the timing of our pass game, coinciding with the protections, something we're aware of, something where it kind of falls on everybody's front, everybody's area responsibility, but I think that sounds about right.

SPEAKER_4 (1:13)

With Zach, how much of your plan with him, your plan as of now to not play him is related to like what this week looks like, short week and the mode that you guys are in and all that?

Mike Macdonald (1:23)

I don't want to, it's like, we have to have consensus from all parties that it's the most, he's ready to go, he's the most confident and ready to go that he's had enough exposure to go play an NFL game. And so like those are the variables at play here and can one area of that equation, can that adjust as we go? Yeah.

But we're trying to do right by the process right now, I guess the best way to explain it.

SPEAKER_5 (2:00)

You've talked about the opportunity for growth in the offense and the team in general. How much is that to be expected when you have a new offensive coordinator and it just taking a little while to get into it?

Mike Macdonald (2:14)

We expect to grow in all three phases. There's a sense of urgency to go. I think sometimes you grow best by kind of doubling down on your core competencies and the things you believe in. I think that's something we want to focus on is making sure that we're all aligned in all the things from players to coaches and how we want to play and how we want to execute what's expected of us.

But yeah, I mean, we're growing on defense. We're growing on special teams. I think you saw our special teams take a jump yesterday. So, offense is right there with them, but there's a sense of urgency to get going.

SPEAKER_6 (2:54)

Mike, on that, what are the factors you need for a team to play decisively on this and shocking from this morning?

Mike Macdonald (3:01)

You know, decisiveness is like it's mind, body and spirit, right? It's clarity. It's a sense of connectedness. It's confidence. It's a feeling of I'm letting go of the result because I'm very confident in the things I'm going to do process-wise on the inputs. That's the sizeness.

Shocking is the level of detail.

It's all the things that go into what makes running a great slant route. It's what makes eat come to life. It's what makes people talk about silent tape all the time. What pops off the silent tape and relentless is the spirit we have of playing without circumstance. We just go. We go until the job's done. And I think I think there's definitely there's, you know, there's there's there's evidence of that throughout the game. Right. I mean, I think I think you watched a relentless team yesterday. I think we are I think we are those things a lot of the times, but it hasn't been as connected and it's consistent enough to put a put great Seahawk football out there to the degree and the caliber that that we believe that we can get to. So.

SPEAKER_7 (4:11)

When you've played on a short week in the past, I guess what have you learned over the years as to the priorities that you have to make to get ready for?

Mike Macdonald (4:19)

Yeah, sure. We tweaked our schedule a little bit. We've done it multiple ways.

Me, you're fighting kind of a battle on two fronts. It's the health body battle of trying to get your body ready to play the best you can. So, how you recover and how you kind of get reps without going full speed. There's an element there. It's also something to be said about getting your body moving at some point before the game. So that's something we consider. That's number one. And then two, it's the balance of having a great, clear, concise, aggressive plan that you can go execute at a high level.