Being the pragmatist that he is, Seahawks head coach Mike Macdonald was direct and to the point when he started Friday’s media briefing.
“All right, great to see everybody. I’m sure you’re interested in all our injury situations, so, talking about Sam (Darnold), I heard what he said to you guys yesterday. I see it the same way. We’re listing him as questionable. We’re really optimistic he’s going to be able to play, ‘ said Macdonald. “ Right now we’re going through all the protocol, one, just out of caution to make sure we’re ready to go, and we’ll test it out tomorrow, kind of make the final decision. We’re optimistic he’ll play. If he doesn’t or at some point he doesn’t, Drew (Lock) is ready to go. That’s why Drew is here. He’s doing a great job.”
With the said declaration, the questions turned to how the players embraced the opportunity to participate in the team’s first playoff game under Macdonald. After a few days off for rest and recovery, the team returned to a truncated schedule, with a slight concern about how it would approach the game week. According to Macdonald, the players never missed a beat.
“Yeah, guys did a great job. Coming off the break, you could tell that we had some time off on the first practice, but we had a great football practice on Thursday. We had a great day yesterday, considering all that was going on. Just had a great day today. Guys have done a great job. You can hear them. They’re excited.”
REGULAR HOME GAME SCHEDULE
With a 5 pm kickoff on Saturday and the game at home, Macdonald and his staff made slight changes to keep the same schedule used two weeks ago in Santa Clara before the two teams faced off in the season finale.
” We’re going to treat it like we did two weeks ago, just in terms of what we’re going to do at the hotel. It’s a little different being at home where the guys will be on their own getting to the stadium, but business as usual for a primetime game on the west coast, “said Macdonald.
Two other players who are ready to go after fighting illness and injury are linebacker Ernest Jones and Riq Woolen. Jones missed the first two days of practice this week and was limited on Thursday due to an undisclosed illness. Woolen was limited in practice for the first two days of the week but was listed as a full participant during Thursday’s practice. On Friday, Macdonald said both players were cleared to play on Saturday.
“ Yeah, he was able to do a majority of yesterday and did all of today. Looks a lot better than he looked the other day. Modern medicine,” said Macdonald when asked about Jones. Macdonald had the same upbeat tone when asked about Woolen.
“Yeah, he’s just working through the oblique, and again, we had a plan for it. He’s done a great job. Worked his tail off over the weekend, and he’s ready to go, “said Macdonald
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