By Mazvita Maraire Posted on

Quotes from Mike Macdonald’s press conference after loss to Commanders

The Seahawks 12 game franchise winning streak was snapped Sunday afternoon by the Washington Commanders in Washington D.C. The Seahawks had uncharetistric three turnovers . One fumble by Jadarian Price and two interceptions by Sam Darnold who completed 31 of 45 passes for 379 yards and four touchdowns. It was Darnold’s first starter after injuring his glute muscle in Week One. The run game was non existent as the team had 18 carries fro 44 yards. Here is what head coach Mike Macdonald had to say after the teams first losss of the season.

(On what stood out to him on tape)

“Our guys played hard. Hopefully the message got across in our team meeting of how important the play-to-play mindset is of stacking plays. How interconnected that is between phases. There are some things that are good in all three phases that showed up that you didn’t feel coming off the field and there’s some things that we fell short on. It’s mixed emotions. It’s an excitement about the type of team that we can have and that we aspire to be. It’s there and it’s also a sense of urgency and a bit of a kick in the gut that we’re not there yet. We have room to grow. The exciting thing is, it’s early in the season and we have an opportunity to go make it right.”

(On why it’s not as simple as sneaking with AJ Barner from the goal line)

“We do have a reason for it. I haven’t seen it yet. Not saying that we won’t be able to do it. Probably don’t want to say the reason publicly. It’s an option, it’s a viable option. It’s something that we might do. Probably will leave it at that. Understand the sentiment and it’s something that we’ll keep considering moving forward.”

(On sequencing plays on defense to set up the offense)

“We think through that lens for sure. You’re a bit more reactive, more subject to the things that they’re doing and how they present their personnels and how they deploy their people. We look through it for that lens by game-plan area. You think about early downs, you think about third downs. It’s more through each one of those buckets.”

(On what he saw from the safeties and on Julian Love’s health)

“Guys played good football, they communicated. There are some opportunities out there that I think both would say we’d like to be able to take advantage next time. As far as Julian (Love) goes, it’s a day-to-day thing right now. We’ll see how that shakes out. He did some extensive work this morning and it went well. We’ll see how that translates to Wednesday and move forward.”

(On the running game against Washington and Jadarian Price’s fumble)

“Credit to Washington. Did a great job. We feel like there’s plenty of room to grow. It’s a function of in real time execution and also finding solutions as the game goes. Also, the way the game is going of some things we wanted to be able to do, offensively in the pass game and in the screen game. It’s a process. We stick to our process and with our whole team right now, the message after the game is we’d feel the same way after the game whether or not we closed it out and found a way to win or the way it shook out. In every tentacle from coming out of the game of, ‘Where can we grow? How can we make our process better?’ That’s been the mentality today. With JD (Jadarian Price), he understands what’s going on, he needs to take care of the ball. There’s some things fundamentally where we can focus on and we’re going to continue to give him the ball, we trust him. We know that he’s going to work hard to do his part as well.”

(On how much he attributes run-game struggles to Washington’s scheme) “I don’t think it’s one thing. I don’t want to take credit away from Washington. I thought we did find some good answers in the second half, the way the game was going. We needed to throw it there for the majority of the second half as well. Not the most satisfying answer you want. There are multiple answers to it. One, ‘Hey let’s play better across the board. Let’s control the game earlier so we can get to some of those runs more so on our terms rather than be subject to chucking around because we’re down multiple scores in the second half.’”

(On Zach Charbonnet)

“No update from this morning. We’re still working through that process. I’m sure we’ll have an answer by sometime tomorrow, whether or not he’ll start practicing this week. It’s not out of the question yet, we just haven’t had an update.”

(On what his time with Jim Harbaugh meant to his career path)

“A ton. The whole Harbaugh family, I feel like I’m indebted to. I had the honor to work for both Jim (Harbaugh) and John (Harbaugh). One year with Jim. He gave me so much autonomy and the belief that he had in our staff on defense, me personally as well, felt like he never left your corner. That meant a lot for a guy that was unproven and trying to figure things out on the fly. That was a foundational year for me, understanding the power of where ‘12 as One’ started to come from. The power of everybody doing it together, all going in the same direction. The passion he had for his players. We had a blast that year in Ann Arbor. Proud to say that I worked for him and proud of the year that we had. We had a great team and that was a lot of foundational stuff on what type of vision we want for our football team here.”

(On the benefit of seeing different looks that forces him to change on the fly)

“From the conversations we’ve had today, it’s a great learning experience for everybody, including reinforcing what our philosophy is on a day-in, day-out basis, on a per-play basis. As a play-caller, how we game plan, how we get to solutions throughout games. How we play, play-to-play as players and as a team, going from unit to unit. There’s a lot of things to learn. If you’re not learning from a game like that, you’re missing the target. I’m proud of the mentality that we’ve had today. The guys, you can tell they’re upset, which they should be. You can feel the resolve, you can feel the eagerness to get back at it on Wednesday.”

(On his assessment of Josh Jobe)

“He (Josh Jobe) gave up the one nine-ball, inside release nine-ball. It’s the NFL. (Terry) McLaurin’s a great player. We’re going to continue to put Josh (Jobe) in one-on-one situations. He’s a great press player; he’s a great corner. Sometimes, you’re going to give up completions. You can’t go undefeated. I thought Josh played hard, he played technically sound. There were a couple one-on-ones that he didn’t win, there was also several one-on-ones that he did. That’s life in the NFL. We’re going to continue to push coverage away from him sometimes, sometimes we’ll help him. We believe in him for sure. He’s had a good start to the season.”

(On Trevon Diggs)

“He’s part of the conversation, without getting into all the details. He’s done a great job since he’s got here. He’s practicing well. If the situation worked out, that he could be up, I think he’d be ready to play.”

(On if Trevon Diggs has physically ramped up practices from January)

“Yeah.”

(On the overall performance of the defense)

“You watch the tape, when you talk about playstyle, our guys played incredibly hard. They played physical. I thought we took a lot of shots at the ball, the balls didn’t come out. There’s a couple of opportunities in the pass game where we could’ve made the ball come to life. Our effort, I’m proud of the way our guys played. Our mentality. I love our group, and they played hard. It shows you the importance of team football and also understanding situations. How we can play it better. That’s why the guys are disappointed. There are some situations that we could’ve taken better advantage of to put our team in a better position to win the game.”

(On if it’s a big deal that Jaxon Smith-Njigba is seeing so many targets each game)

“I think I got this question last year. Yeah, Jax’s (Jaxon Smith-Njigba) off to a great start. We got great players around him. The ball’s going to find other guys at some point. I told him this today, the thing with Jax’s game is that I thought he blocked really well. I think we need to improve that from our receiver position right now, is getting to the third level and getting guys blocked, so we can pop some more runs. That’s the best game Jaxon’s had blocking in a while, and if he keeps doing that, then we’ll be just fine.”

(On how often they stick to their routine during the week compared to when there is new information)

“I would consider it like tweaks. We have a meeting every week around noon about the process. It’s several coaches and people who are really sitting around about how we went about our business, how we want to cadence things, how we want to practice, and how we get the team ready. It’s always a conversation. We think critically about why we do, what we do, and when. We’re just constantly like my dad with his golf swing, constantly tinkering to try to make it come to life, but that’s really our philosophy. If the wholesale change is needed, we would do it. I like to think that, at least, but at this point, it’s really just whittle away at the statue until it looks like David.”

(On the consistency on special teams)

“Yeah, to put it plainly, it’s not good enough. There’re things process-wise that we can improve on. We’ve talked about this throughout training camp, and really since we got here, but a Seahawk play needs to look like a Seahawk play. There are plays on tape that we’re not doing that. The standard is higher on special teams here. We’ve proven that, and the guys will get it right, but there’s definitely a sense of urgency to make it look like us and play our style of ball on.”

(On if Irvin Charles will join the special teams unit when he returns)

“Everybody is eligible to play on our special teams units. No one is exempt from special teams consideration.”

(On Nick Emmanwori’s performance in Week 3)

“I thought Nick (Emmanwori) had a good game. There were some really great plays, and he’ll continue to get better. I think he should be really proud of how he approached last week mentally. I think that’s one of the things that’s something that we want to discuss as a staff of what the process is every week of how, where and how often he plays, so he can have a really focused game plan. Where he plays really affects the position group around him because he’s playing out of really three position groups. That’s something we’ll continue to think about and make better, but he’s done a great job.”

(On what’s keeping D’Anthony Bell from getting an opportunity)

“D-Bell’s (D’Anthony Bell) done a great job and so has Max (Maxen Hook). We felt like Max deserved that opportunity to come up from the practice squad yesterday. We wouldn’t have any problem with D-Bell playing for us. It’d be exciting for him to play for us.”

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