Mike Macdonald: "This Will Be A Good Game To Build Off Of"

Mike Macdonald (0:00)

Dave was still telling me that there's still folks out there in our Seattle area that are still without power. So, our thoughts and prayers go out to those people. And just from our perspective, having gone through it this week, thought it was a great opportunity for us to come together. So I hope everyone's still safe out there and getting through that. And then it's obviously great to win at home finally after this hiatus and bring some joy back to some people's lives. So I thought the defense played with great energy, physicality, a lot of detail offensively. I thought we did some good things, but we need to clean some things up operationally. I thought some penalties kind of drew us back. And then just talking to Geno, continue to make better decisions in the red zone, take care of the ball. But I thought we did, we are improving and we're making strides in that area as well. So it'll be a good game to build off of.

SPEAKER_2 (0:55)

The defense as a whole today, is this kind of what you feel like you've maybe been building toward all season?

Mike Macdonald (1:01)

I just think it's a credit goes to our coaches and our players and everyone in the building of just understanding of what we're trying to build. And just when it's not that way, then you just hammer away and just go to work and work on our processes and try to figure out schematically what we're good at, putting our guys in better situations. So it's just kind of everybody working together all the time, staying together, trusting the process. And then you have games where you feel like you played pretty good and helped your team win the game. But it's about to consistency. We've done three games in a row now, we've played pretty decent on defense.

There's an expectation here and a standard throughout the course of our Seahawks history that we're trying to live up to and build on. So that's the idea.

SPEAKER_3 (1:48)

What did you think of as Leonard Williams today?

Mike Macdonald (1:50)

I thought he was dominant. I knew he played great and then I looked at the stat line, I didn't realize, I mean, he played out of his mind.

SPEAKER_4 (1:57)

How much does it help your defense when you have a player like that, that's 300 plus pounds, that can play inside and destroy the guards and then go out of two point stance and go for a sack?

Mike Macdonald (2:06)

Yeah, there's not many like him walking the planet and I'm glad he's on our team and he's a heck of a guy. And he's leading the charge in the defensive front room. As well with Jay Reid, I thought Jay Reid played really well. John Hankins, all those vets are really helping, kind of building the camaraderie in that room. They're playing together and rushing together. And our coaches are doing a great job leading as well.

SPEAKER_5 (2:31)

The play Spoon was able to make on that fourth down to string Kyler out and force her out.

Mike Macdonald (2:35)

Yeah, that's a Devon Witherspoon 101 Just that elite effort, energy, competitiveness, football understanding, all of the above. So he definitely made that play come to life.

SPEAKER_2 (2:50)

Was that the best timeout you've ever called?

Mike Macdonald (2:52)

Well, originally after initially, I was kind of bummed. I couldn't believe it. And then it turned out to be a great timeout.

SPEAKER_2 (3:02)

Why did you guys call timeout there?

Mike Macdonald (3:05)

We played as guys in two weeks. Just kind of not tell you that one.

SPEAKER_3 (3:09)

You mentioned trust in the process and all that stuff. But you guys really have looked like a different team, especially defensively since the bi-week. Did anything change during that time?

Mike Macdonald (3:19)

I think this is more of an opportunity to go to work on, kind of narrow it down, tighten down the focus about where we're going to live and what we need to do better. So I just think, like, it just doesn't happen overnight. You know, you just got to go through it. Can't go around it. And the guys have that mentality. That's the only way you can make it come to life. Can't just hit a magic button. Guys know that. And, you know, we're looking at three weeks now. I mean, again, you put this thing in big perspective. We're trying to do this over the long haul and make a run here in the latter part of the season. It's going to require us to play this way every week. So the guys know that. They're locked in. And it requires great weeks of preparation. So we got to, you know, we got to do it on kind of a short week going over New York because we have Thanksgiving and everything. We're going to get the guys some time to be with their families.