RENTON — Mike Macdonald is a head coach with a defensive background who is calling plays for a defense that has performed poorly through eight weeks. This is the reality the Seattle Seahawks are living in after another bad defensive showing contributed to a 31-10 shellacking at home against the Buffalo Bills on Sunday.
“It’s disappointing, where we’re at,” Macdonald said Monday afternoon. “We definitely expect better.”
They better earlier in the season. Through three games, Seattle had the best defense in the league by EPA per play (all stats provided by TruMedia unless stated otherwise). It is now 21st in that same category. The Seahawks also rank 23rd in success rate and 17th in points per drive.
The run defense is the root of the problem. When teams can move the ball on the ground, Macdonald’s defense is on its heels, reacting instead of bringing the fight to the offense. The loss to Buffalo illustrated what can happen when that is exploited by a well-coached team led by a talented, veteran quarterback. Buffalo rushed for 14 first downs on Sunday; the NFL average is 6.8 per game, and the Eagles lead the league at 9.8. The Bills eliminated Seattle’s ability to generate pressure and scored 31 points on the road despite committing eight offensive penalties and one turnover.
On Monday, Macdonald called the loss “humbling.” Later, after meeting with his staff, watching the film and getting started on game prep for their Week 9 matchup against the Los Angeles Rams, he said the team remains optimistic.
“There’s belief and a faith in the men (on the roster) and in all of our coaches,” Macdonald said. “We’re going to attack the heck out of this week, and we’re going to have a great week and be ready to play the Rams.”
Seattle has had to shuffle its lineup due to injuries and players not executing properly, though Sunday’s unit was about as close as the team will get to full strength while Rayshawn Jenkins and Uchenna Nwosu are on injured reserve. Josh Jobe started at cornerback in place of Tre Brown, who dressed for the game, and there will be a competition for that job this week, as Seattle no longer sees Jobe solely as a backup.
Despite something resembling an ideal lineup, Seattle was deficient in nearly all of the same areas, the run game in particular.
“Having some consistency in the back end and at linebacker is going to help us moving forward,” Macdonald said. “We need to play those runs better. We’re going to continually see them (because) other offenses know that, too. We’ve got to fix the problem because we’re going to keep seeing the same plays.”
The attention must now turn to Macdonald and his staff. Macdonald was asked Monday whether enough is being done during the week to prepare his players to execute better against plays they’ve been consistently seeing.
“The whole operation right now is not good enough,” Macdonald said. “And that’s showing up on tape. That’s my job to make sure our process is good. I think our guys are ready to play. We try to prepare the best we can, but all things are on the table. … We’ll continue to tweak our process and how we put guys in different positions and front structures and personnel groups.”
Macdonald inherited a roster with defensive talent. He was hired because general manager John Schneider believed he’d get more out of the roster than the previous regime. Now that Seattle has healed up on the defensive line and in the secondary — and made a couple of trades to address areas of concern — it’s time for this staff to deliver.
The season is virtually on the line in Week 9 with the Rams (3-4) coming to town. Seattle (4-4) lost the division lead on Sunday by way of tiebreakers to the Cardinals (4-4) and 49ers (4-4). A loss to the Rams, who found their form in Week 8 against Minnesota thanks to the return of Cooper Kupp and Puka Nacua, would drop Seattle to fourth place just days before the Nov. 5 trade deadline as the team heads into its Week 10 bye. Climbing out of fourth place wouldn’t be impossible, but it’d be highly unlikely, particularly if the defense doesn’t improve.
Macdonald used the phrase “hot and cold” to describe his team’s situational defense, although that term could be used to describe the entire unit. The Seahawks have had good stretches of run defense, then at times have been unable to set edges and tackle, which were the issues against Buffalo’s James Cook. Seattle has at times stood tall in the red zone (Giants, Broncos) and then in other games given up touchdowns on every trip that mattered (Lions, Falcons, Bills).
Third downs have also been a roller coaster. The league average conversion rate allowed is 38.6 percent. The Seahawks were below that number in each of their first three games but have been above 41 percent in each of the last five. Buffalo converted 8 of 14 third downs on Sunday before backup quarterback Mitch Trubisky’s kneeldown at the end of the game.
The Seahawks have shown flashes of solid play in all those areas of the game at certain points but nothing close to the level of consistency they expected entering the season outside of their ability to defend non-play action dropbacks and pressure the quarterback.
The addition of linebacker Ernest Jones IV might end up being an impactful personnel change. He played every defensive snap on Sunday, led the team with 15 tackles and, Macdonald said, “Made some tackles on the perimeter that cleaned some stuff up for us, which was good.”
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