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Mike Macdonald: "We Have A Great Challenge Ahead Of Us" · Seahawks Press Pass

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: I think I was just here a couple of minutes ago. Yeah,
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: But on on to New England. We can as many
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: football questions as you guys want to ask. I'm ready
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: to answer them. All the other stuff, I'll answer those
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: as well.
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: When you look at New England, they've been really good
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: at stopping the run in the last couple of years.
• 0:22
  Speaker 3: That showed up Week one.
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: Is that more about the scheme or is it the
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: emphasis that they placed on it?
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: Do you think I think it's that. I think it's both.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: I think it's the players that they have very very
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: well coached, obviously, but they play tough, they have good players,
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: they play hard.
• 0:41
  Speaker 4: All the fundamentals just go right down the list.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: Check check, check, play square, get off blocks, what it
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: takes to play really good run defense.
• 0:51
  Speaker 4: Numbers back it up, tape backs it up.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: So we had a great challenge ahead of us.
• 0:57
  Speaker 5: Works out. The last two Super Bowl punts are the
• 0:59
  Speaker 5: first two opponents this year for the Seahawk.
• 1:01
  Speaker 4: H Yeah, that's right.
• 1:02
  Speaker 5: What's your memory of those two Super Bowls?
• 1:06
  Speaker 4: Oh Man?
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: When we won, I was in LA with my sister
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: and my nephew, and that was pretty awesome. When we lost,
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: I don't remember. But that's a good point.
• 1:23
  Speaker 4: I hadn't thought about that that played out like that, Mike.
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: You always have ties that you're from that area. Just
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: I know you moved when you were a kid. But
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: what do you remember just from a sports fan in
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: New England.
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I moved in ninety four, so that was before
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: they you know, they went to the Super Bowl. I
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: think in ninety six. My first kind of football memory
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: is really my dad took me.
• 1:47
  Speaker 4: To the Fox.
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: It's the old Foxborough when Drew gutt drafted me. Got
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: like a tour of the stadium and stuff, and that
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: was pretty cool.
• 1:59
  Speaker 4: But it's a long time ago.
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: Like in playing good run defense without giving all the
• 2:04
  Speaker 3: inside stuff, how important is it obviously to set the
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: edge and get the front push up there.
• 2:10
  Speaker 4: And it's the name of the game.
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: Then you just got to get the guy on the
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: ground again, people do People have different philosophies on how
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: you play the run. I think our philosophy in New
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: England's philosophy is pretty similar about you know, trying to
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: build a wall, having knock back stand square, having edges.
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: Some people kind of opt for the hey, let's destroy
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: the line on the kind of on the way to
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: the QB sort of speak and then let the second
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: level and third level kind of clean it up. We
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: just we're just it's good. There's a lot of good
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: run defenses that do that. We just we our philosophies
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: are kind of on that other end of the spectrum.
• 2:46
  Speaker 3: At the end of the day. Just how important in
• 2:48
  Speaker 3: the run defense to tackle. You talked a little bit
• 2:50
  Speaker 3: about last game that did clean up a little bit
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: of that, So how much is.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: That going into Well, it's about I mean, it's about
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: space and angles. Uh, you know, see how to understand
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: you know, the angle that you need to take, especially
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: with you know, with the runners that New England has,
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: and it's about getting multiple hats of the party because
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: you know they're big, physical backs that fall forward and
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: there's a huge difference between making contact you know, a
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: yard or two pass lina scrimmage and falling forward for
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: four versus making contact there. And now there's multiple guys
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: at the party in New England does a good job
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: of kind of getting.
• 3:22
  Speaker 4: A hat for the hat.
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: So there's a lot of one on one matchups that
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: are going to be happening that we're gonna have to
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: win in order to have success, Like.
• 3:30
  Speaker 4: What was what was yesterday?
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: Like sort of first time after after a regular season game,
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: bringing the guys in, kind of going through the sort
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: of first process of breaking down the.
• 3:40
  Speaker 4: Film and looking at what I thought it was. I
• 3:42
  Speaker 4: thought it was a great day. You know.
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: The first part of the day is about, uh, you know,
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: you're coming in with a fresh mind. You had a
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: day off, the emotions kind of going down, which is nice.
• 3:53
  Speaker 4: It's a little bit more of a surgical approach kind
• 3:57
  Speaker 4: of debrief on the game.
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: And then you know, we take a break and then
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: you know, we flipped the page and when we move forward, uh,
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: to the next opponent. So we focused on New England
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: the latter part of those meetings and and then we're
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: coaches were back to going to work and on where
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: we go.
• 4:12
  Speaker 6: Did you think of the game? But the DK had
• 4:14
  Speaker 6: and kind of the way they messed up with him
• 4:16
  Speaker 6: with their team.
• 4:18
  Speaker 4: I thought DK did a lot of great things.
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: I mean there there was an opportunity for him to
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: have make a play down the field, but found the
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: ball you know later in the game. Like I like
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: I mentioned to you that there's a lot of little
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: things that he does that creates success for the rest
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: of the team and that's big. So when he needs
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: to keep doing those things, and obviously we got to
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: try to get the ball to him earlier in the
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: game to you know, get him involved and get him
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: rocking and rolling. And I'm confident we'll do that. But
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: I thought DK played a really good game.
• 4:49
  Speaker 5: Coach ran inside zone more than any team in the
• 4:51
  Speaker 5: NFL last week. Marmondre Stevenson had almost all his yards
• 4:54
  Speaker 5: after contact. What kind of challenges did they present unner
• 4:57
  Speaker 5: right at you?
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: Well, like I said, there's hat for a hat, and
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: you know, there's kind of no fair dodging straight downhill.
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: I've you know, they have more schemes than just the
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: duo play and things like that. I think some of
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: the front structures at Cincinnati was giving them and the
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: success they had with that play probably lent to more
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: frequency and led to that. So it's good job by them.
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: But uh yeah, I mean they just they're a sound
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: football team.
• 5:25
  Speaker 4: Everybody knows what.
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: They're all on the same page, just like they're on
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: defense there square at the point of attack, they're coming
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: right at you. So you know, there's not a lot
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: of secrets to what they're doing. But it's very well designed.
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: It's just uh it's good football.
• 5:41
  Speaker 6: And white the stats for New England.
• 5:43
  Speaker 3: How did he show up on tape?
• 5:45
  Speaker 4: Uh?
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: Well, Keon is a really good player. I mean, you
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: can play inside and out. Just kind of fits the
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: mold of someone that's been in that defense for a
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: long time. You can play inside, shade, outside shade, inside rush,
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: outside rush, plays very hard. He's you know, he's a
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: big guy, you know, so you know they move him
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: around to kind of fit where they want him to
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: fit within all the schemes. So yeah, it's just one
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: of one of many good players on there on their
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: on their side.
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: You mentioned on Sunday Reek made that play at the
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: end of the game after not getting a lot of
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: action his way during the game. What's the challenge for
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: a corner when a team's not throwing your way to
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: kind of stay in the game throughout.
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: I've never had that feeling, you know, so I can't
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: speak for he's got its mental toughness. I felt like
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: he was involved throughout the whole game, like you you
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: felt Reek throughout the whole game. It didn't feel like
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: he wasn't like there's some like lone soldier out there
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: just kind of hanging out, like he felt him in
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: the run game, felt him getting too the ball in
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: the zones, and he was active, you know, with the
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: guys that he was asked to guard.
• 6:59
  Speaker 4: So I thought did a great job.
• 7:01
  Speaker 6: Updates on George Fan, Ken Walker, and Reach.
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we're gonna we're gonna see how those guys play out.
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: Channel will be out this week. But the rest of
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: the guys coming off the last game, you know, we'll
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: kind of take it day by day here with the
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: reports and everything.
• 7:15
  Speaker 4: But yeah, Channel will be out.
• 7:18
  Speaker 3: Will they practice today?
• 7:19
  Speaker 4: Walker and Fan, we'll see.
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: You mentioned that there's.
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: Some similarities and how you want to play defense and
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: how the Patriots played defense you liked about I don't
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: know if you would call it a chess match or
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: just like in an all out match up against a
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: great defensive steam. Yeah.
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: I like the players are out there playing, and they
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: have really good players with sound, good fundamental schemes and
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: change ups. I know we have really good players and
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: with with what I believe are sound schemes and change ups.
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: So you know, there's we're gonna have to see how
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: each team's trying to attack each other throughout the game,
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: and you know, this is gonna be.
• 8:00
  Speaker 4: A four quarter.
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: Old school football game, Like it's gonna come down to
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: who makes the plays at the end. That was the
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: message to the team today, And it's gonna be a
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: great game.
• 8:13
  Speaker 5: Bill Belichick's not with the Patriots anymore, but he's obviously
• 8:16
  Speaker 5: had a ton of success on the defense side of
• 8:17
  Speaker 5: the ball. What have you picked up studying him over
• 8:20
  Speaker 5: the years.
• 8:22
  Speaker 4: Man, I mean, he's.
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: The record speaks for itself, means probably the best coach
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: to to ever do it, someone that I've watched, you know,
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: coming up through my coaching career.
• 8:40
  Speaker 4: So just I mean, I don't know he can have
• 8:41
  Speaker 4: any more respect for a coach.
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: I'd say it's like the first time I'm thinking about
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: is like toughness and preparation, you know, just a thorough
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: understanding of the game and how to put your players
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: in positions to succede, how to stay ahead situationally, how
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: to win football games without you know, giving anything up
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: cheap all like, you know, in a way, just like
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: along with some of the other great you know, football
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: coaches of our generation and generations past, kind of molding
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: the game and you know, evolving it over the course
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: of his career, so you know, his fingerprints are all
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: over this this team still. And I know Coach Mayo
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: is a ton of respect for him, and he worked
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: for him for a long time, played under him and
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: all that. So I mean, it's a it's a New
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: England Patriot football team that you're used to seeing.
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: You cross paths with Mayo much over your career.
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: No, No, I just met him at an owner's meetings
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: at the one time and that was it.
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: You and him were two of the three youngest coaches
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: in the league this year.
• 9:40
  Speaker 3: Do you have any thought about why.
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: Maybe younger coaches are getting more opportunities to be head
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: coaches sort of.
• 9:46
  Speaker 4: In this era of the league. Yeah, I mean, I
• 9:49
  Speaker 4: don't know.
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: I don't really want to like speculate on it, but
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: I mean I think I think Coach Mayo and I
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: would agree that this game is not about us.
• 9:58
  Speaker 4: It's not.
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: It's it's about our guys going out and playing and
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: making the plays that are going to take to win
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: the game. It's really our age really has nothing to
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: do with with what's about to happen on Sunday.
• 10:10
  Speaker 3: Mike and you guys here traveling from west to East coast.
• 10:14
  Speaker 4: Yeah, you're just inheriting what the team has done.
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: Or well, we've had a lot of success going east,
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: and there's been some research into it too, so a
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: lot of it.
• 10:22
  Speaker 4: A lot of it actually is relation to sleep, believe
• 10:28
  Speaker 4: it or not. So we talked about team today.
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: We had sleep specialists come in, trying to really be
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: thorough in that approach. But a lot of it's uh
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: with what we've done here over the past, We've built
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: off of that.
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: In general, it's just keep them on their schedules and
• 10:43
  Speaker 3: figure swing on the West Coast time.
• 10:45
  Speaker 4: Yeah, like keeping West coast time.
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: We're gonna go out on Friday, and some other things
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: going on too, But yeah, the main gist of it's
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: going to stay the same.
• 10:55
  Speaker 3: Mike, what's been the messaging from week one to week
• 10:57
  Speaker 3: two that improved me? I mean, I know they wanted
• 10:59
  Speaker 3: to play, don't improved too?
• 11:01
  Speaker 4: Yeah?
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I have a hard time kind of
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: changing up themes and stuff. So the stuff I've told
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: you guys is what I've what I've told the team.
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: A lot of great things happened in the first game,
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: which is great to see, like talking about effort and composure,
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: all those things, but you have to build on those
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: things and take the next step.
• 11:21
  Speaker 4: You know. It's you know, you could rattle out.
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: Moving on to the next next week, but there's a
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: lot of things we need to clean up that we
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: can build off of. I mean, it's one week. It's
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: a great win, but now it's time to turn the page.
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: We got to focus on our preparation. I think our
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: weekly practices can take a step up. And really, I mean,
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: that's the only thing we can focus on today is
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: just having a great Wednesday. So you know, so that
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: we can have a great you can have a great
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: Thursday and say have a great Wednesday.
• 11:44
  Speaker 4: So that's that's kind of the thought right now.
• 11:46
  Speaker 5: Mike, what was your thought on a j Barner and
• 11:48
  Speaker 5: the way he kind of played jumping in there with
• 11:49
  Speaker 5: Pharaoh out last week and got a quick update on
• 11:51
  Speaker 5: Pharaoh too.
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I thought I thought Aj played really well, can
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: do a lot of things at tight end for us
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: and move around.
• 11:59
  Speaker 4: Excited to see his growth moving forward.
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: And uh, you know Pharaoh, I know, with the connection
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: New England stuff, he really wants to play. So you know,
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: we'll see with with where Pharaoh ends up.
• 12:10
  Speaker 4: But by the end of the week.
• 12:12
  Speaker 6: You guys said Jared Hall last week as a third quarterback.
• 12:14
  Speaker 6: Have you gotten much of a sense of what you
• 12:16
  Speaker 6: might have with him and kind of where he fits in.
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: Well, he's someone that I think that has a little
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: bit of history with you know, we've done a lot
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: of homework on him as he was coming out before
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: before I was hired, so, uh, you know, we respect
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: him as a player. I've never play had a defense
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: go against him, so I'm not like foremost expert on
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: his game. But he's coming He's into a great job.
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: He's got a great attitude. He's learning the scheme a
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: little bit. The vocabu is a little different than he's
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: used to, so there's a little bit of learning curve there,
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: but he'll pick it up in a in a hurry.
• 12:47
  Speaker 6: Back to the topic of schedules, what do you like
• 12:49
  Speaker 6: about structuring your week so that the players off days
• 12:52
  Speaker 6: Monday as opposed to Tuesday.
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: I'd say the main thing is to really just be
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: able to take a deep breath after the game and
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: then be able to move on, you know, that's the
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: main thing. Take the emotion out of it, be able
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: to kind of digest understand why you want or lost
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: where you need to improve.
• 13:11
  Speaker 4: The guys get it the.
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: Next day and then you're you know, you're once they
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: come in, you're kind of in next week's mode. There's
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: no there's no like break. You know, Hey, this is
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: what happened.
• 13:21
  Speaker 4: Let's move on.
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: Okay, now it's like an extended week on that next opponent.
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: What do you like about the packages that have Kavon
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: in there with Julian and Rachean.
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: Well, it's an opportunity to get a really good player
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: on the field in Caveon, opportunity to get Janks closer.
• 13:38
  Speaker 4: To the ball.
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: Uh, you know we'll be moving like I don't think
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: you're going to just see that combination all the time
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: with those guys. But for that specific game, we felt
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: like it gave us a good chance to get Kavan
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: on the field, get Spoon some reps at corner. But
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: Keavon's are on the opportunity to have reps He's had,
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: Grace had a great camp and uh, that was really
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: the thought behind it.
• 14:02
  Speaker 6: And you hadn't seen Draamond Jones much, I guess in
• 14:04
  Speaker 6: training camp. How did you feel like he played that
• 14:05
  Speaker 6: played side day?
• 14:06
  Speaker 4: What do you ask for you know dream and I
• 14:08
  Speaker 4: guess solid start.
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: Uh, there's so much more that that he can do
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: and he knows that. I mean, it's but it's all positive,
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: you know. It's just let's keep ramping them up. I
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: mean we went him with a little bit of a
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: tighter game plan with him than we probably would, you know,
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: come week.
• 14:21
  Speaker 4: Ten or so.
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: So the goal right now is to keep finding those
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: things that he does really well, get him doing those
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: things more and uh, and we'll build it here over
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: the next you know, several weeks.
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: Kobe's been around the AFC for a while. Where do
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: you see him when your guns him at.
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: J Kobe's A he's a really he's a really good quarterback.
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: I mean, this guy's really He's highly intelligent. He's underratedly mobile.
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: I mean if you if you let him run, you
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: can he can move going forward. I think he delives
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: an accurate ball, he plays efficiently. He's definitely has a
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: very very strong grasp of what they're asking him in
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: terms of executing their system. So they're playing clean football
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: right now and it doesn't doesn't look you know, like
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: the new age like sexy offenses of you know that
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: you're seeing these days but i'll tell you what it's.
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: It's really really effective and it comes down to how
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: you move the football and they're doing that effectively.
• 15:16
  Speaker 4: Right now, it goes okay, thanks guys,