Mike Macdonald on the #Seahawks Week 12 Win at Titans | Mike Macdonald Show | #SeattleSports

Mike Macdonald on the #Seahawks Week 12 Win at Titans | Mike Macdonald Show | #SeattleSports

Hey, shout out to our twelves because that was one of the most incredible things I’ve ever seen. People were coming from Arizona and the plane was filled with twelves. You know, they’re going see, you know, in on the plane way to Nashville. I mean, I’ve never heard anything like that before. Coach, another win yesterday. Thanks for uh coming in this morning and chatting about it. Um what impressed you yesterday? What impressed you with your team? Uh, wow. A few things. Just finished watching the tape here about an hour ago. Uh, I’ll tell you what, our guys played really hard. Um, you got like you had a feeling, you know, it’s a tough it’s tough. It was noon. It’s kind of a weird time because it’s central. Um, you know, you’re traveling. It’s a long, you know, like we can’t take these like travel days for granted. Like it’s it’s a pretty big undertaking and takes a lot for the guys to get going. And, uh, and I thought the guys played hard. You know, I didn’t think we’re we weren’t like sluggish. The guys are trying. were trying their tails off and we fought and um and we did a lot of good things like I think in each a little bit more like into like individually and there’s some there’s some really great I think like we’re going to show the team today there’s some great you know like series of events that are really complimentary and that let us you know step on the gas and then there’s some series of events that um weren’t as complimentary and we were acting a little bit independent of one another and I think that’s how you you end up in with the score that ended up being so and it’s a tribute to the uh Titans, too. I mean, they they kept battling and the quarterback made a lot of plays down the stretch where um uh you know, some off schedule plays that that uh he made some throws and so you know, they deserve some credit, too. I’ve heard scouts use the term Mike stopping power when it comes to tackling as a safety, as a linebacker. Like, when this guy hits, does what he hit from an inertia standpoint stop and then go backwards? Man, it felt like yesterday. Whether it was Drake, whether it was Tai, whether it was Patio, whether it was Daw, man, there were halfozen double-digit numbers where it was just hit and that thing absolutely stops and goes backwards. How do you evaluate that? Do you look at that in that term of stopping power or is it a measurement that you guys use? Well, it’s a it’s a it’s a great point. I thought our guys tackled really well yesterday, even in space. I mean, like I know we missed the one on fourth down, but uh Reek had some other ones that were in open field that he made some good plays as well. So, uh obviously we want to make that play, but um you’re right, you know, we we take we take a lot of pride and like we want runners going backwards, you know, on offensively we want to finish going forwards. Defensively, we want runners going backwards and it normally it takes more than one guy, you know, so that is really like a 12 as one type of idea of let’s get to the ball, let’s knock it back. And um we knew this, we had a really good feeling going into the game that it was going to be an eat game really in all three phases. So um when we talk about eat, it’s really how you finish plays, you know, some a lot of those hidden yardages uh that we needed to go in our favor. And defensively, we did that uh a good bit to get them to second and long. Offensively, I thought we finished runs going forward, which is a positive. There’s a couple we got to get cleaned up. And special teams, I thought we played a great game up, you know, in exception for the the punt return. You can’t live like that. you know, you can’t live with, you know, living in the exception world, but um so overall, I thought it was positive and but you’re also leaving it saying, “Hey, look, you know, we got to we got to play better in some of these other areas.” We got a ton of questions about your team that we’ll get to in a moment. But it’s twice now I’ve heard you talk about Cam Ward and it sounds like you were pretty impressed with what you saw Brock talking about him all morning like he Yeah, I was. Yeah, I was. He um he uh he’s slippery. He like there’s a strength and a slipperiness to his game and um it’s he’s a hard tough tough guy to get on the ground, you know, like going into the game they were taking a lot of sacks and um and I thought I thought you keep seeing him improve I guess is my point and uh so it’s you know hats off to him and um he’ll continue to get improvement and the arm talent is there. I mean he’s threw a couple balls and some windows where we nor don’t normally see and um and was able to move the sticks that way. So, we got to we got to be, you know, get cleaned up on that front. But, um, it’s Yeah, it’s it’s interesting. So, I didn’t mention McNair, but having played McNair a couple times back in the day in the division with him. There is just a just a sturdiness to to him and then that elusiveness that you’re like, man, he shouldn’t be able to get out of DOT’s grip or some of these guys, but he did. Hey, can you tell me what eat is eat an acronym as well when you said this was an eat game or is that just Yeah, it’s funny. I mean, it all started with, you know, effort, angles, and tackling. And then we moved it to offense. And then we actually, you know, CP is really the guy, Chris Bartcher is really the guy came up with it. And we actually came up this week, like, hey, what does the A stand for? And CP’s like, I don’t even remember. It’s just a way, it’s just a way of life, you know, it’s just how we operate. So, it’s really just like it’s really just our our kind of uh, you know, our just rallying cry of how we want to finish plays um, as a team and and having respect for the game that that like the hidden yardage stuff matters. you know, how you finish players on the sideline, how you finish tackles, um you know, how you finish on the right angles of blocks and where the ball is and um how you split double teams, all those things, you know, that adds up. There’s a huge difference in this in our league between second and seven, second and six. It’s just it’s a huge difference. So, um you know, we we understand that those things add up over the course of a game. Can I answer that black out there? Yeah, both. Hey, um I wasn’t going to ask you about this, but it does lead to this and I don’t want to get you fined. So, um so please don’t get fined on this, but is there ever going to be a hip drop tackle called? Like when JSN I think broke the record actually that reception that ended up breaking the record, you know, and it’s hard to tackle guys and he’s really hard with his center of gravity. But if there was ever a textbook, I’m going to go high, I’m going to drop down, I’m going to go right to the ank like if is is that just out the window now? Is that not something that’s ever going to be called in the game? Um I you know it’s it’s I think it is one of the penalties one I think it’s hard to call in real time because there’s a lot of criteria that goes to it. Um so a lot of a lot of the way that they the league has been enforcing it is through fines. Um that’s how it’s been showing up. Oh, okay. All right. Yeah. So that makes sense. I’m not So even fines for plays that aren’t called on the field. Yeah. I mean it happens all the time. It’s just you know it’s the it’s the way it goes, you know, as they review the the tape and all that type of stuff. But and I I honestly Brock, I I didn’t I didn’t watch it through that lens of seeing like did he hit all three criteria of the hip drop? It didn’t look great by any stretch, but sometimes there’s some tackles that look really bad that by the letter of law aren’t illegal, you know. So, got um I can’t tell you whether whether it hit all the criteria or not, but it will pro probably probably be a play that we turn in one get some clarification. So, we’ll see. I’m going to ask you in advance for a little grace on this question because I’m not entirely sure how to ask it and it’s a little outside of you know what what we’re capable of knowing from our position but it has to do with some of the personality of this team. We’re not in the locker room every day. We don’t get a chance to know them the way you do. It strikes me and Brock and I have talked about it a little bit over the last few weeks that from the outside they seem almost funloving. There seems to be a joy that they play with. Some teams play the disrespect card all the time and are angry and tough guys and and emotional and this team seems at least from the outside to be almost fun-loving. Is that a fair description of them? Uh yeah, I well first of all I understand the I get I get I get this similar feeling from the guys. Um and it’s funny when we were like describing what we want our team to be like fun fun like kept like they kept asking me like what about fun you like what does fun mean? And I’m like, nah, it’s not fun. You know, there’s like we’re not having fun. We’re, you know, we’re working it. But it’s like, you think about like, well, having fun is like doing the process with the with the guys, you know, with with with your your boys, you know, like, and then it’s like doing high-powered stuff and realizing like how it all plays off another and understanding like the power of that. And um, to me, that’s like that’s that’s fun, you know? It’s not just like fun and games. It’s just like it’s no, it’s doing some great stuff with with the guys that you have a lot of respect for and you love and um and you’re trying to do something really special together like that to me that’s that’s fun. Um but our guys have been like like the spirit we’re trying to create of like loose and focused I think is definitely you know on its way. I mean the guys are shadow boxing all the time. I mean they’re and they’re having a great time and then and you know laughing and competing and doing all you know just enjoying each other’s company but then when it’s time to you know do what we need to do to you know get our work done. They do a great job of kind of clicking in and then um we knock it out. It’s not like okay hey it’s time to work and all of a sudden we’re like super now we’re back to focus. We’re trying to get something done and let’s keep it moving forward which is uh really cool. If you play the emotion card like to me it’s like how many times can you play that card? you know, it kind of goes against our, you know, what we’re trying every time we go out on the field, we’re trying to uphold a certain standard type of philosophy rather than like, okay, like with this game, we’re going to be emotional. This game we’re not, you know, and or this is a practice where we can take it easy and this is just a walk through like it it lends itself to some of that thinking which you’re trying to eliminate. We know you were a dual sport star in high school. We saw your swings there at T-Mobile at batting practice. I said to Sulk earlier in the show that now every time Sam lets the ball go and it’s uh JSN on the other end. It feels like Cal Raleigh. Every time Cal Raleigh hit the ball in the air, you’re like, “Oh, this is going to be fun. This is going to this going to end well.” Uh do you find yourself knowing the play call that’s coming in and seeing the different looks and if you get a one-on-one and the minute Sam releases it, are you finding yourself with that same I’ll play that fun card again or kind of what goes through your mind as that ball’s in the air heading 11’s way? Well, I wish I would be a little bit more on it a little more frequently, you know. Um, sometimes I’m thinking about what’s going on next on defense. So, sometimes my mind’s in it like what’s going right there and those plays. Sometimes I’m locked into exactly what the offense is doing, just to be 100% honest. Yeah. Um, but when it does when it does like the uh, you know, we had the the touchdown to Jacks in the end zone, that was a hairy that was a hairy thing that Sam did a great job of getting us lined up. We were we were behind on the play count or the play clock. Um the earlier explosive to Jacks was was cool. You know, you see how the play kind of comes together and you understand that like you know his protection takes a lot of time to take some time to you know let him get down the field. So you know how the protection holds up all that type of stuff. What’s there what are they doing on defense? You know I was trying to like call out in my mind what Dinard was calling you know because there a lot of similar stuff. Um yeah so there’s a lot going on in your mind I guess is what I’m getting at. Um but yeah it’s uh it’s exciting. He Brock and I were talking about him earlier unsurprisingly given the record and given the game he had yesterday. And Brock was sort of referring to him as almost a quiet wide receiver. Not on the field, not with his play, but compared to a lot of the top wide receivers in the game who can be noisy, who can be demanding, who want the ball, who can just be a challenge at times uh for the team around him to deal with? How valuable is it to have a guy who’s a number one wide receiver that doesn’t create a lot of extra noise? Um, look, I mean, I if you like I don’t want the answer to say like that it does that it discounts like Jax’s competitiveness. like by all accounts he is a really at every level that he’s been at what every what all of his teammates and all of his coaches have said this guy is just an absolute dog and how he competes and um I felt that at Michigan when we played him you know and then we felt it since we walked in the door I mean um what are the stats of that Ohio State game he must have gone for like one what was it like can somebody look that up quickly it’s like 150 game no and uh the snow game 21 Ohio State I mean, will get right on there. He caught a lot of balls for a lot of yards, let’s put it that way. And um and some like high leverage situations, too. Um but look, I can just speak to Jax and the type of guy he is. He’s just um I think he’s I think he’s very determined to become the player that he’s becoming, which is really great. And talk about having a player that has a vision for himself that’s aligned with the way the organization sees him, which is really cool. Shows you the power behind that. Um and and the power of being a great teammate too. You know I’m thinking of like you’re talking in Cooper Cup like I mean this guy is Hall of Fame receiver who’s a triple crown winner and you know what he’s poured into JS as well you know to try to build his teammates up. I mean that that’s really cool. I think that rubs off on the rest of the team including Jax. And then um that just shows you what type of guy he is. He’s just a great dude. He’s a great dude that’s really competitive and he loves his team. He loves his teammates and he and he wants to win and and one like one of the best ways for us to win is to get him the ball as many times as we can, but it’s also, you know, to have success on offense and play complimentary, you know, football on all three f all that type of stuff matters. And so, uh, he’s bought in on all that, which is which is awesome. It shows a great example for the rest of the guys. Okay. So, what’s your guess? We got the numbers. I know you football guys, you never forget some of these things. What’s your what’s your guess in that? Okay. I’m going to say I want to either say it was nine or 11 catches for like 143. Close. 11 for 127. That’s pretty good. Yep. Yep. You’re right there. That was in the snow. Four years ago. Yeah. By the way, in the snow in that game, but you never you never forget that went the way the Wolverines, I believe, though, did it not? Yeah, we we won despite Yes, you did. him not being covered. Hey, I’m going to ask you about a guy that I’ve never asked about before. Jason Myers and not about his field goals. We’re gonna talk we got to talk about the kickoffs. So, we were almost comparing it to a a golf deal where you now with the kickoffs have to have some distance control in terms of how deep you’re kicking the ball and trying to get it to land in this landing area. What has made him so effective at it? Well, I mean, he’s a really talented guy and then it takes a lot of work to do, you know, like it looks simple in what he’s doing, but I mean to your point, I mean, it’s very measured in how long the ball is going and the and the direction where it’s going, how he’s hitting the ball is is also, you know, like a really really cool skill. And uh I haven’t talked to Jay about it, but it does feel like we made like he made the adjustment like they were catching some of those dirty balls on the fly like um you know further down the field and he made an adjustment. Okay, now we’re going to kick it to the back end line. And uh that really helped us. Um and it’s such a great, you know, it’s such a high, it’s a high leverage play now is the kickoff. You know, I mean, teams are scoring touchdowns. Uh if you screw it up, you could get they could get the ball, you know, at the 40 yard line or at the 35. Uh, and if you do it right, you’re you’re starting drives at the 20 25 yard line and that’s a that’s a tremendous outs expected points, but like if you if you start a drive at the let’s just say you started drive at the 25 versus the 35, that’s basically like a point like one point for the Seahawks, you know, so uh like the one that the guy, you know, dropped out of bounds, you I haven’t seen what the expected points on there, but it’s probably around, you know, a point and a half to two points for us in just in one play. So, that’s some um it’s been some big time stuff that really helps us. All right. Uh we can nerd out a little more because I enjoyed some of the football conversation last week. We talk about simulated pressures. You’ll hear analysts talking about that, broadcasters talking about all of these different simulated pre pressures. Uh Mike, years ago I did a Rocky Long uh the old disciple of the double eagle and Rocky and then his tree like their guys would find and and one of the guys I said frankly how many different ways can you get to double eagle at the snap and he said we figured 42 somewhere between like 42 and 44 different iterations with their all their personnel that on the snap you kind of get to that front that they want to get to. Right. Y when it comes to your simulated pressures, look, have you ever counted how many of them you’ve got in your volumus playbook? Um, I’m going to disappoint you guys. We do not run a lot of simulated pressures. Oh, people say we do, but we really don’t. Um, we have them. What do you call them? What do you or how do you No, that’s what we call them. If we bring one, drop one, bring two, drop two. Like, the way I the way we define simulated pressures is like you’re rushing four. you’re just bringing a guy an unaccounted for guy and dropping an accounted for guy, you know. Y but um we’ve gone and we’ve we just don’t run a lot. I think we called four yesterday and none of them worked. So uh well, you kind of got four other dudes that are pretty good at getting quarterback. You know, we got to execute them better and I got to not call them in crappy situations. So three three of those are on mine and on me and I’d say one of them are on us. But um we have them. We have them, Brock, and it’s a great tool, you know, it’s a great tool, and uh Tennessee ran, you know, a few of them yesterday that were that were good for them. Um, but we just we just don’t do we we put a lot of guys on the line of scrimmage and to try to manipulate protections and set up other pressures, which is probably what people are talking about, like we we put five on the line and and drop a guy, but a lot of the times it is like the off the- ball player that is the guy dropping. Um, what do you call that if it’s not a simulated pressure? Just a just a fourman rush. Just a four-man rush, but with a complication, you know, some Yeah, we call it with some sauce. You know, put some sauce on it. So, between simulations and sauce, you can present quite a few different looks to the to a cool because like for us just it’s uh it’s what we try to do. We try to make some simple things look more complicated to our opponent and um to our guys credit they can make that come to life uh pretty simply. I love your quote after the game last night uh talking about the depth on the team and some of the guys who have stepped in and you said you were quote excited to see them play. Yeah. I I mean where does that come from? A true excitement to see the next guy up actually come in and play the game. Well, it comes from seeing it in practice. Uh it’s really that simple. This is something that is really important to us here is you know is and we’ve had this it kind of like clicked you know earlier in my career like you see when guy like young guys get a chance and you’re sometimes oh crap so and so’s got to play or or like that’s a huge different difference than oh so and so gets to play you know that’s what we want it to feel like and that’s that’s how and so that that’s critical to building depth I mean all those things you know but one of the things that I think that’s important in our league is you have to get great reps and stack those over the course of the spring and the summer. Otherwise, guys don’t develop as much. You know, if they’re if you’re just running card team looks all day and you’re just stacking non, you know, non-significant reps, well, you’re not getting any better. So, you know, some people like, well, you can’t you can’t take that many reps throughout the season. Well, yeah, what kind of reps? You know, and um who’s taking the reps? Is it young? Like, there’s time and a place for young guys to get reps and u and allows them to and oh, how do you how do you structure your scout team? like do you let them go play football or do you tell them you put them in a box and tell them to go bang their head against the wall, you know, or you know, jump double moves and that kind of crap, which which we we don’t subscribe to that. We want our guys to go play and compete and take care of one another, but you know, they’re working on their game as well. And a lot of times we want them to running our our our calls. So, but it’s coming from practice, you know, like Patty O is just a guy that um we got an ongoing joke here is like, you know, when we block him, you know, he’s the mic, we got to block the mic. It’s pretty hilarious. That’s a really funny joke. What? Patio. It’s a running joke. We’ve got to block the mic. Yeah. It’s just like you’re showing tape like, “Hey, we got to block the guy in the middle right there.” He’s pretty good. He’s pretty good. He was pretty good yesterday. Hey, I got a fun perception reality. We have Thanksgiving this week. So, I have one Thanksgiving question. So, you may have injury questions. Good luck on those. Uh, but I have one perception reality question. Uh, and that is when you grew up in the Northeast and down in Georgia and you coached in the Northeast and in Michigan and you looked from a perception from afar at the Seattle football fan, these twelves and maybe you watched games and certainly you played the Seahawks or whatever that came to you, but like just growing up and you had this perception in football of like, okay, this is who the twelves are and then the reality of living it as the head coach for the last year and a half plus, Mike, what’s the perception versus the reality? Well, let me let me I’m I made a mistake. I I asked Dave and Dave didn’t remind me, so I I dropped the ball on this, but like I I wanted to lead yesterday’s press conference. I want to lead this thing. And so, I’m going to lead today’s later press conference with a shout out to our 12elves because that was one of the most incredible things I’ve ever seen. Them traveling all, you know, from all over the everyone that I I must had multiple people tell me that whatever that people were coming from Arizona and the plane was filled with twelves. people were that’s crazy, right? Like um you know John was saying that his his plane they came down early to scout their whole plan was filled with twelves and they’re like we’re you know they’re going see you know in on the plane on the way to Nashville. I mean I’ve never heard anything like that before and and they were incredible yesterday. Just came out in waves. I mean we we almost anticipated them having to be on silent count um on offense. They didn’t have to be, but I mean what a what an absolute just incredible showing by by the twelves, man. So just so much. Thank you. You know, that was big time. That was awesome. And our guys loved it. You know, they were talking about it. So that was uh that was really cool. But perception Brock is like, “Look, I don’t like we don’t we don’t want to go over there, you know, we don’t want we don’t want to go to Seattle. Like why do we don’t, you know, like and that’s because of the environment that they create.” So, and then reality is it’s real, you know, it’s real and and um and they’re and they’re hungry for a great team and for a team that I think um brings energy and like and is representative of of of the things that are important to them, you know, sticking together and being tough, you know, resilient, you know, and playing great defense, which is what we’re trying to do. Between hungry and eat, you’ve kind of led perfectly like a radio host to Thanksgiving. Top three top three top three items on the Thanksgiving table. Top three have toss. Uh it is it is stuffing by the way. It’s not what it’s not dressing. Dressing. Yeah. No, I’m with you. Yeah. Stuffing. And then like just like pie, you know. Got to have like all the different types. Uh pecan. It’s pecan, not pecan. Pecan pie. There’s a spot for pumpkin pie. Apple pie. Definitely with ice cream. Probably shows you where my uh priorities lie, which is not a good thing. Curve guy. Carve guy somewhere. Spoon is listening to this and just he’s gonna give me crap later because I enjoy ice cream on Saturday night. But turkeyy’s okay. Turkeyy’s okay. Ham not as okay. No. You ever put the uh cheddar cheese on apple pie? No. It’s like a New Hampshire Vermont thing or something. Yeah. It’s definitely not a Boston thing. You never tried that? No. All right. What else is there? I’m not like stuffing is by far and away the best. Yeah, you got to simulate some of those uh things on the table, Brock. Just uh some simulated sides this year. You got you got to take one side and you know, put one side on, take one side off, right there you go, coach. Uh congrats. Uh nice win home game finally this week, which is nice after a couple on the road. Uh you get to see Sam’s old team, which should be fun as well as the Vikings come to town. have a good Thanksgiving and uh we’ll talk to you next. All right, you too, guys. Thanks. All right, there you go. There goes Coach McDonald.

The Seattle Seahawks won 30-24 on Sunday at the Tennessee Titans and head Coach Mike Macdonald sits down with Brock Huard & Mike Salk (Brock & Salk – Weekdays 6-10AM) on Seattle Sports to detail the game.

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0:00 – What impressed Coach from the win
1:15 – Solid and impactful tackling
3:02 – What makes Cam Ward hard to defend
4:07 – E.A.T principles
5:08 – Hip-drop tackling
6:45 – How the team is having “fun”
8:50 – JSN’s mentality in his record-breaking season
13:15 – Jason Myers’ impact on kickoffs
15:00 – Simulated pressure usage
17:30 – Next man up mentality and building depth
19:30 – The 12s impact at an away game
21:50 – Top 3 Thanksgiving food

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Listen to The Brock & Salk Show weekday mornings on Seattle Sports 710 AM and the Seattle Sports App, or on-demand wherever you listen to podcasts.
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📲: Catch up every episode of The Mike Macdonald Show here:
https://sports.mynorthwest.com/category/podcast_results/?i=1684&n=The+Mike+Macdonald+Show+on+Seattle+Sports

🎧: More info on The Brock & Salk Show here:
https://sports.mynorthwest.com/category/brock-and-salk/

📰: More Seattle Seahawks coverage from SeattleSports.com:
https://sports.mynorthwest.com/category/seahawks/

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