4. If it comes down to it, can the defense finish strong again, and do it at home this time?
The Seahawks have done a lot of things well this season on defense, but one area in which they haven’t always been as good as they’d like to be is the ability to close out games. The 49ers and Buccaneers were both able to drive for what ended up being winning touchdowns late in the fourth quarter, with both games at Lumen Field, while the Cardinals were able to score two fourth-quarter touchdowns to tie the Thursday night game in Arizona before the Seahawks countered with a winning field goal drive.
Last week, however, following that loss to Tampa Bay, Seattle’s defense was able to close out a win in style in Jacksonville. After the Jaguars were able to make it an eight-point game early in the fourth quarter, they got the ball back three more times with a chance to potentially tie the game, and ended up punting all three times, gaining just one first down and 22 yards on those possessions.
“That’s been an emphasis for us,” Macdonald said of the defense’s finish. “We weren’t shying away from it, and our guys were awesome. I think you could sense it on the sideline that they wanted the opportunity to go out there and play, and that’s all you can ask for as a coach. It’s not like—there’s no secret play calls that you hide on your play sheet until the fourth quarter then all of a sudden you just start waving the magic wand. We’re executing our defense and our guys did it at a high level, and that’s what it’s going to take. But I think the mentality was the driving force behind how we finished the game out, and that starts with our leaders on defense, our coaches—AD (defensive coordinator Aden Durde) did a tremendous job all week getting our guys ready to go. It was a fun group to be around as the fourth quarter started to unfold.”
While there is no guarantee that Sunday’s game comes down to the wire, the nature of the NFL suggests that there’s a very good chance the Seahawks will need a key stop or two at some point late in the game, and their defense would love to show that what they did last week is their new normal. Even better, they’d like to do it at home, where the Seahawks are 1-2 this season and 4-8 in the past two years.
While Macdonald and some defensive players have noted that the noise at Lumen Field can make communication difficult at times for the home defense, they welcome that challenge, knowing it’s just as big of a challenge, if not bigger, for opposing offenses. And if the Seahawks are going to get back on track at home, it won’t be about finding some magic formula specific to home games, but rather finding a way to execute better throughout the game, and especially to finish things off, in a way they haven’t always done of late in their home stadium.
“If we knew what exactly worked, we would do it every time, and we’d just hit the button and rinse repeat,” Macdonald said. “If we knew exactly how we could win games every time at home, trust me, we would be mashing that button, as many times as we’d possibly could. But what I can tell you is, we’re chasing it, we’re determined to do it, and our guys are determined to do it, but I really don’t believe you have to change course, take a detour. It’s about if we play our best football, we’re going to have success at home. We’ve just got to play better football when we’re at home.”