Seahawks head coach Mike Macdonald held his weekly press conference Monday afternoon after his team’s dominating 37-9 win over the Atlanta Falcons. The return of Julian Love and Jarran Reed saw the Seahawks’ defense take another step toward being considered the best defense in the NFL.
Going into the Falcons game, the Seahawks’ defense was ranked 6th overall and 2nd against the run. While the return of Love and Reed gave the defense a boost, their contributions were overshadowed by the play of rookie Nick Emmanwori.
COMING OUT PARTY
Sunday served as a coming-out party for Emmanwori, who had six tackles, 2 TFL, a sack, a pass defense, an interception, and a blocked field goal. Emmanwori was nominated as the rookie of the week for his efforts.
“You come out of that game and that’s the lasting image in my mind, the guys celebrating with each other, the joy they have when their teammates have success. We talk about ‘12 as One,’ that’s it right there in a nutshell. I’m happy for Nick (Emmanwori), all the work he’s put in, he had a tremendous game. The guys were excited for him, so that’s really cool, said Macdonald.
WITHERSPOON GETS ON THE SCORE SHEET
Another player to finally get on the score sheet was Devon Witherspoon, who recorded his first interception of the season, two pass defenses, and five solo tackles.
“Without getting into all strategy involved, but it’s a guy that’s really dedicated to his craft. It means a lot to him about how the defense plays together, what we’re trying to achieve on a call to call basis, where you align, what you look like, how you time things up, and all that’s going on, on a play to play basis, and you’ve got to be dialed into the game plan, and understand how the offense operates from week to week because everybody operates differently, ” said Macdonald.
“Spoon (Devon Witherspoon) is leading the charge on that front, and he’s got a great feel for the game, which comes naturally too, but it doesn’t just happen by accident. He puts a ton of work into it, it matters to him, and he’s passionate about being right and making it come to life. He said it yesterday, the ball finds energy, and that was a highly energetic play.”
RUN GAME IS CLOSE TO BREAKING A BIG
The Seahawks offense is ranked ninth overall, with the passing game also ranked ninth. The run game is averaging 118 yard per game and ranked 18th overall. Against the Falcons, the Seahawks had 129 rushing yards on 26 attempts. The attempts and yardage were evenly spread out between Zach Charbonnet ( 7-46), Velos Jones ( 4-32 ) , Ken Walker ( 10-29 ), and Sam Darnold ( 3- 23). Jaxson Smith-Njigba had one carry for a one-yard loss. Missing from the Seahawks run game in Sundays game and the season as a whole is consistent explosive plays.
” We joke about it in the team room that we feel like we’re a block away. I’m thinking of Charbs’ (Zach Charbonnet) run early in the game yesterday, where we hit our spots, and we got to the third level blocks. Charbs had a great run, and we got to the next level. That is something that we’ve just got to keep attacking on offense. They were running really good plays,” said Macdonald.
“The guys are playing really hard, and we’re finishing plays really well. It’s like our kick return game. It’s right there, and it’s a block away or it’s a detail here or a detail there. I don’t think we need wholesale changes. We’ve got to just keep chiseling away at this thing, and then we’ll see the results.”
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