Q. In talking at your news conference about the win in the opener against the Jets last Sunday, you went over some of the things you liked about the performance, some of the things about the performance you said needed to improve, and that there's an expectation for the team to make improvements from game 1 to game 2. How was all of that handled during the days between the opener and today?
A. I don't know that you do anything dramatically different procedurally or during the process of readiness. I just think that the mystique of preparation-to-play is now lost once you've been in a stadium. So there's more teeth in the work that you do during the course of the week. They know where it's going to lead. The same plays that we ran during the week last week we repped in-game, and they got to feel the result of that work. I think you approach the next week with a different spirit, having been through that cycle. And so it's not like we make dramatic adjustments, or the procedure itself is dramatically different. I just think that we all grow from experience, and the mystique is lost once you've been in a stadium, individually and collectively.
Q. In terms of improvement from game 1 to game 2, what might that look like for this team?
A. It better be in the form of general production. The minimizing of negativity, more fluidity in terms of assignments, getting hats on hats in the run game and so forth, coming off blocks and making tackles in the run game on defense. Fluidity is what I would like to feel.
Q. When it comes to individual players' performances, what are some of the things that make regular season football so much different and difficult than what they've just gone through during training camp and the preseason?
A. It's all varsity. There's no third-team in the regular season. There are a lot of third-teamers playing in preseason. You look at NFL depth charts now, there is no third team, and so it's all varsity work. It's good-on-good. The conditioning component of it, particularly in September, is a factor, because obviously the lines are shorter and guys are playing 60 minutes of football for the first time over the course of the next few weeks. They smooth that out and get their in-game conditioning solid. But certainly it's an issue, potentially early on, particularly if you're absorbing a lot of snaps for whatever reason.
Q. You often use the phrase, "It's not checkers. It's chess." Would I be correct in assuming you're referring to a difference in complexity, and if that's correct, how is it more complex?
A. It certainly is more complex. In the preseason, you're trying to evaluate talent, and oftentimes assignments get in the way of talent evaluation. And so it's less about what we do and more about putting these guys in position to see what they're capable of doing. It is a different agenda in the regular season. You have to have enough volume in all three phases to play the strategy game, and certainly, intellect is a component of it, and it's about people's ability to absorb large menus and execute significantly larger menus than the preseason.
Q. As an example, in run defense how complex is an inside linebacker's assignment?
A. In the preseason, we might have two or three base calls in non-situational moments. But in the regular season, based on any game plan, it could be much, much more than that. And so certainly, the more assignments you have, the more complex your job is. In some assignments, in some calls, the assignments are the same, your visual keys are the same. And so it's capable of being repetitive, but it's also capable of not. And so just the sheer volume changes the nature of that discussion.
Q. So the defensive call comes in from the sideline, and that gives the inside linebacker that we were just referring to his assignment. Does that then sometimes change at the snap of the ball. And if it does, what happened to make it change?
A. It could be a myriad of things. We could be making check calls based on offensive formation structure. Situationally, we could alter calls. A lot of it has to do with what we see at the line of scrimmage prior to the snap. But it really varies depending on game plan. Some weeks you want to minimize that as much as possible. Some weeks you're not afforded the opportunity to do so based on the schematics of your opponent. And so it is subject to change, and things that your opponents do have a lot to do with it.
Q. As an NFL head coach, do you find yourself more pleased that the offense was perfect in the red zone and finished with 30-plus points, or annoyed that the defense allowed 182 yards rushing, 4.7 yards per attempt, and 3 touchdowns?
A. Certainly I'm more pleased with the production of the offense. The name of the game is scoring, particularly in the red area, and to check those boxes and be proficient in that area, you've got a chance to win football games.
Q. Mike Macdonald is in his third season as an NFL head coach, and before that he was a defensive assistant with the Ravens from 2015-2020, and then after a year at Michigan as defensive coordinator in 2021, he became the Ravens defensive coordinator in 2022-23. In all of those nine seasons, Macdonald was working for a head coach named Harbaugh. How has the Harbaugh influence shown up in his Seahawks teams?
A. You know, a lot of what they do defensively is very similar to things that the Ravens do, and so it's probably more Dean Pees' influence than actually (John Harbaugh's) from the defensive perspective. And defense is where Pees' experience is, and that's his area of expertise. And so when I view some of those things, I view it more through a Dean Pees lens, but certainly he worked for the Harbaugh brothers and came up in that system, as did Jesse Minter, who I see doing very similar things schematically with the Chargers as their defensive coordinator. But that happens a lot. In the NFL, there are schools or approaches to business. There's a Sean McVay school, or the Kyle Shanahan school of offensive players, and certainly there's a school of guys who play Baltimore style defense, and a lot of that permeates from Dean Pees to guys like Jesse Minter and guys like Mike Macdonald.
Q. In talking about Seahawks running back Kenneth Walker, you referred to his "run posture." What is run posture?
A. He has an awesome forward body lean. He has a small hit surface, if you will. He has good pad level. And guys who run like that, the pile usually falls in their favor. He's got good body lean. He's got a strong, powerful, lower body, and all of those things make him a tough tackle.
Q. What kind of running plays do they use with him?
A. Just general running plays. It's not anything unique from a schematic standpoint. They've got some zone-scheme plays, inside-outside-zone-stretch and some gap scheme stuff as well. Traps, powers. I don't know that there's anything unique about the schematic component of what they do, but they have two really good, complementary runners with different traits that make it a challenge.
Q. Seahawks QB Sam Darnold entered the league as the third overall pick of the 2018 NFL Draft, and now he's in his eighth season and is with his 5th different team. He's 35-39 as a starter, including 1-1 against the Steelers, and in those 2 games he completed 61.2 percent for 408 yards, with 2 touchdowns, 0 interceptions, and a rating of 101.4. What's the book on Sam Darnold?
A. He's been through a lot, but not unlike a lot of guys. Sometimes when it doesn't work out with the team that drafted you, you move around a little bit until you can find some footing. I think he's been an example of that with what he was able to do last year in Minnesota. I think certainly Baker Mayfield is an example of that. And so I don't know if there's a book, per se. I think those guys spend a period of time trying to shake that initial experience off themselves, and if they're mentally tough, they generally have an opportunity to do that. Geno Smith is an example of that. He's playing really good ball in Las Vegas right now, but he played on several teams and moved around after his initial draft experience. I just think it's indicative of how competitive this business is, and particularly at the quarterback position. And that if they're mentally tough and stay in the fight, eventually their talents will show. And certainly (Darnold) is talented enough. That's why he was taken 3rd overall, and in some subsequent stops in recent years, he's proven that to be true.
Q. Five different teams in eight seasons would indicate that a bunch of teams looked at him and didn't think there was enough there to make him worth keeping. Is that accurate?
A. That's not always the case. Sometimes commitments to other players contractually will control whether or not business is short-term business or long-term business. Baker was in Carolina, and Baker was in LA with the Rams, and while I'm sure they probably liked some of the things they saw from him, they had relationships with others – Matt Stafford for example – and I just think that's a component of it. When you have a position available, you want the very best talent that you can acquire, but sometimes you do so knowing that it's short-term business because their long-term futures and opportunities are elsewhere for him because of just that: opportunity. And so the number of stops doesn't necessarily make it an indictment of his talents, or the experience that he had with other teams. He might have been the right guy at the right time to fill the temporary void, and it was good business for all parties involved.
Q. When DeShon Elliott injured a knee and was placed on IR, you signed veteran Jabrill Peppers. When Peppers was coming out for the 2017 NFL Draft, he was being projected as a top 10 pick but he ended up going 25th overall. That 2017 Draft was the one where you picked T.J. Watt 30th overall. What were the pre-draft conversations like about those 2 guys?
A. I don't know that we looked at them as comparables, to be quite honest with you. Jabrill Peppers' draft reads and the speculation was that he was going to get picked much earlier than 25th. We certainly did our due diligence on him, but we didn't get carried away in terms of making comparisons between those two guys. We felt really comfortable about the potential availability of T.J. around our draft position, and so certainly we had more extended conversations about him. I don't remember it as an apples-to-apples like discussion. I certainly was appreciative of Peppers' talents and his career at Michigan, but I don't remember us evaluating it in that way.
Q. OK, so just talking about Peppers, what stood out to you during the pre-draft process about him as an individual?
A. He was a football player first. He did a myriad of things at Michigan. He was a kick returner, a safety, he played linebacker in some circumstances. I think they even messed around with him some on offense during his career there. He was a football player first; his game was not defined by a position. He was good with the ball in his hands, he was a good tackler. Just an overall, really good football player.
Q. How does a kicker like Chris Boswell, with his leg strength and accuracy, impact a game beyond the scoreboard?
A. Certainly it changes schematics. The anticipated field goal line oftentimes dictates strategy, and when you know you're playing against somebody who's good from midfield, it certainly changes how you call defenses, particularly in situational moments. I'm sure that was the case for the Jets on our last offensive possession, because if they had done their homework, they knew that Boz good and capable once you cross the 50-yard line, and he proved it.
Q. What about for your offense when you have a guy like Boswell? How does that change your offensive approach?
A. It doesn't. I think it's less urgent in terms of the change. It can change or it cannot change. It just depends on what mood or level of aggression you're in. From a schematic standpoint, I think more of the analysis of kicker talent and leg strength and so forth becomes a component of defensive strategy.
