The releasing of popular veterans Bobby Wagner, Quandre Diggs, Jordy Brooks, and Jamal Adams left Seahawks Nation perplexed, surprised, and somewhat confused as to which direction head coach Mike Macdonald was headed. The intrigue surrounding MacDonald continued to build when none of the Seahawks coaching staff added the combine. According to General Manager and Vice President John Schneider, the coaching staff stayed at the VMac and got to learn each other’s philosophy. On Tuesday Macdonald spoke to the media during the NFL owners meeting in Orlando Florida.
“It’s still coming together, but the middle of the defense is really, really important,” Macdonald said. “You need a strong spine and we’re excited about the guys we have. Guys that I haven’t coached yet, but watching them on tape and the relationships that some of our coaches have with them, feel strongly about it and I think we’ll be really strong up the middle.”
OWN IDENTITY
The first process according to MacDonald in the team building that spine, wall in the middle is building an identity as a collective.
“I think it’s going well. Obviously there’s no manual for this type of responsibility,” he said in an interview with NFL Network Insider Tom Pelissero at the Annual League Meeting on Saturday. “We have a plan in place, but you’re just trying to do your best day by day and stack days, and now we look back five or six weeks, I feel like we’ve made a lot of progress. But there’s just so much work still to do.”
FEELING GOOD ABOUT BUILDING BLOCK
The re-signing of Leonard Williams was a must for Macdonald to begin his building of an elite defense. Adding Jonathan Hawkins to the current roster of Jarran Reed, and Dre’Mont Jones was another big step for Macdonald and defensive coordinator Aden Durde who knew Williams when both were with the Cowboys last year
“I’m really excited about the guys we brought in,” he said. “I’m really excited about the guys on the roster. If the right opportunity presents itself to make us better, we won’t hesitate to pull the trigger, but I think going in we’re very confident in the guys we have. We have some position flexibility, more so than we might have had in the past. Being able to change up some fronts with the same personnel on the field will be exciting. Guys that can play multiple spots across the line, we’ll have some cool combinations of people on the field at the same time. That will be fun to figure out with AD as we go. He’s got some cool ideas we’ll experiment with as we get rocking. It’s going to be a lot of fun. We’ve got a lot of talent up there.”
BACK END OF THE DEFENSE
According to Macdonald a defense that is stout in the middle must also have a strong, active backend. Linebackers Jerome Baker, Tyrel Dodson, and safeties Rayshawn Jenkins and K’Von Wallace were signed to solidify the middle and the back end of the Seahawk’s defense.
“In general, we are trying to build a wall up the middle. Trying to stay square, trying to set hard edges, make the ball do that (go outside), make them throw the thing outside. You don’t want to get gashed up the middle of your defense, you’ve got to have the right guys who can play right there so you can get the job done.”
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