By Mazvita Maraire Posted on

Seahawks Mike Macdonald says team must quickly move on from loss to Vikings

After looking at the game tape from his team’s disappointing loss to the Minnesota Vikings less than twenty-four hours earlier, Mike Macdonald acknowledged the team’s poor performance and was ready to move on.

“We had our opportunities to win the game. You’ve got to give the Vikings a lot of credit with their track record in tight games like that, being able to play well when it matters most and we fell short, so we’ve got to move on,” said Macdonald refering to his team scheduled game with the  Chicago Bears on Thursday night.

LACK OF CONSISTENCY

All season long the Seahawks have been plagued with a lack of consistency. Yes, there have been improvements in the defense as a whole and more specifically, in defending the run. For every step forward there is immediate regression.

“I just think that we’ve got to keep attacking it and hammering away at it. I don’t know what else there is to do. Keep attacking it. All the things, having the discussions, having the conversations, chasing the things that we want to chase, ” said Macdonald when asked about how to build consistency within the team. ” That sounds like (it) might be some coach speak crap. You might call me out on that, but I really feel the same way, I really feel that way. I feel like you’ve got to be steadfast in what you’re trying to achieve and chasing that vision and that’s how we’ve always operated. That’s how we’ll always operate. Our guys know that. We had a great recovery day. They’re still working right now as we speak and we’ll be ready to play on Thursday.”

PLENTY OF BLAME TO GO AROUND

The low-hanging fruit in the blame game is Geno Smith, the lack of a run game, and the offensive line. Makes sense. The three are connected. Smith has thrown five red Zone interceptions, one more than the Vikings Sam Darnold. Smith has thrown ten red zone touchdown passes and 17 overall.  The flip side is Smith has thrown 15 interceptions and been sacked 45 times. As with every post-game press conference, McDonald’s was asked to assess Geno Smith’s performance.

“I said this morning I thought he played good enough to win the game. He did some really great things. You know, if we get a stop when we’re up four in the end of the fourth quarter, we’re having a different conversation right now. Everybody wants to talk about the interceptions and rightfully so, and those are things that we’re working through, but I mean, one of the reasons that we’re here with life, like I said last night, is I really felt that Geno’s (Smith) helped put us in this position. So, I thought he played a strong game.”

OFFENSIVE LINE  UP AND DONW PERFORMANCES

The offensive line had its best run-blocking performance when the team rushed for a season-high 176 yards and left State Farm stadium with a 30-18 victory over the Arizona  Cardinals.  That was the step forward.  In the  13-30 loss to Green Bay the Seahawks rushed for  80 yards on 16 rushing attempts. Against the  Vikings, the Seahawks managed 59 yards on 13 rushing attempts. Those performances were a step in the wrong direction.

Sataoa Laumea has started the last four games at right guard, and his play has steadily improved, although he had a rough outing against the Vikings. Olu Oluwatimi has settled in at center since replacing Connor Williams.  Abe Lucas has regained his  game speed since he returned to the starting lineup six games ago. The left side of the line has been consistent with  Lake Tomlison at left guard and Charles Cross at left tackle. All players need to be consistent in the run and pass block. That will take better communication, more physicality, and the will to dominate your opponent.

OTHER QUOTES FROM MACDONALD MONDAY PRESS CONFERENCE

Q. You mentioned Jarran Reed a couple times this year as playing really quell even when we don’t see it in the numbers. The numbers were there yesterday. What’s he been giving you and particularly what did he do well yesterday?

MIKE MACDONALD: I think it’s similar to Leo’s (Leonard Williams) curve for the middle of the season. We just knew he was playing really good football and it was great to see Leo kind of break away, break up the stat category and I put Jarran in the same sentence of guys playing really good football. He’s playing really hard. How they’re working together in some of the pass rush stuff is pretty cool to see and it’s exciting to see him get some production.

Q. Their winning touchdown yesterday you say they made the play. It was a great play by them, but did that go as designed for you guys? MIKE MACDONALD: No. Definitely didn’t want to give them a touchdown there. I mean, yeah. We can execute what we’re asking them to do better. We shouldn’t be giving up 40-yard touchdown passes. That’s not a good thing. But you do have to credit them, by making a good play as well.

Q. The run/pass numbers obviously looked kind of (off) by the end of the game. How much of us that circumstance versus if you looked back at it we just need to run the ball more here in certain situations?

MIKE MACDONALD: Yeah. Like I said this morning, we just have to keep chasing, keep moving the ball forward. How far that manifests itself based off the game plan, we can do a better job of that and so that’s stuff that we’re thinking about doing, so some of the things that Minnesota was doing got us out of some runs earlier in the game and we made them pay and some of the early down pass stuff, so you just start looking at straight numbers of just more going on than just called runs and called passes but overall we’ve got to do a better job of moving the ball forward.

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