As Seahawks coach Mike Macdonald spoke with reporters following Thursday's practice, players exiting the field seemed to be big fans of what their coach had to say.
"Yeah Mike!" one player yelled.
"Well said, Coach, well said!" another player added. "Good (stuff), Mike!"
"Mike, yes!" hollered a third.
Eventually Macdonald grinned and clarified, saying, "They're happy because we cancelled meetings, not because they liked me."
With meetings cancelled, Seahawks players were free to start what will be their longest break until their Week 11 bye, some well-earned time off ahead of next week's regular-season opener against Denver.
"Good practice today, had a great week," Macdonald said. "We're going into a few days off here, get refreshed, clear our minds and get ready to go play an NFL football game. Exciting times."
With the Seahawks heading into a weekend off, here are six things we learned from Macdonald's press conference following Thursday's press conference:
1. Establishing a 53-man roster, another first for Macdonald with John Schneider, "was smooth."
Since February Macdonald has been experiencing a lot of "firsts" as a head coach. His first draft, his first preseason and now his first time putting a roster together with general manager and president of football operations John Schneider.
"The first time is your first time with everything, so we worked through it and we move forward from here and have a little better understanding of how everything goes," Macdonald said. "That's kind of been par for the course with just about everything we've done, every day, from February 1 'til now.
"Kind of getting used to doing the first things, but it was smooth. Open communication, thorough, we were on the same page the whole way through. It was a good process."
2. Still no decision on right guard, or at least not one Macdonald wants to make public.
When the Seahawks were heading into their third preseason game against the Browns, head coach Mike Macdonald said there was a “great battle” going at right guard.
Anthony Bradford and rookie Christian Haynes competed throughout camp, with Bradford adding last week, "I feel like I'm a great player. Competition is always good for anybody, and I'm looking forward to competing, so I don't look at it as a bad thing."
Haynes, the Seahawks second pick in the 2024 NFL draft, out of UConn, said, "Just coming out there and competing every day. We're professionals and we're going to go out there and do our business, but at the end of the day we are teammates so we're trying to help each other out on and off the field."
And while Macdonald didn't give a clear answer on who will be the starter come Week 1, he said he and the coaching staff have a plan in place.
"We have a pretty good feel for how we're going to line up next week," Macdonald said. "At this point it's kind of keeping it under wraps and let (Denver) figure it out first snap of the game."
3. Kenneth Walker III heads into the 2024 season with "a great opportunity in front of him."
Given the physical nature of the position he plays, running back Kenneth Walker III was the only healthy offensive starter not to at least see brief playing time in the preseason. But while Walker has been in the public eye very much so far this summer, make no mistake about the fact that the team is really excited about what the third-year back will bring to Ryan Grubb's offense.
"Ken's in a great spot," Macdonald said. "He just picked that offense up really quickly, everybody's excited, coaches, players. I think he's in a great spot mentally. He's been a fun guy who's just been a joy to be around. I'm excited for him, he's worked his tail off. He's got a great opportunity in front of him. I just can't wait for him to suit up for the first time. It'll be fun."
4. There's still some mystery about what the kick return will look like in regular-season games.
The NFL drastically altered the kickoff for 2024 in hopes of getting more returns while also making the play safer, and in the preseason at least, it worked, with return rates going way up. Whether that continues in the regular season, however, remains to be seen, and Macdonald speculated that team might just kick the ball out of the end zone for touchbacks more often, even with that giving the offense the ball at the 30 instead of the 25-yard line.
"It's such a volatile play," Macdonald said. "The distributions of returns and average starting yard line, I think it's a little skewed because teams are trying to get the ball in play in preseason for evaluation purposes. Obviously, teams are holding some schemes back that they don't want to show. I'm not sure how many kick (returns) you'll see in games early in the season. Now as the weather changes and things like that, you might see more, but definitely not as many as you saw in the preseason. I think teams will kick more touchbacks than you've seen, but we'll be ready if teams kick it to us."
When the Seahawks are returning kicks, expect Dee Williams, one of two undrafted rookies to make the team, to be back for return duty along with Laviska Shenault Jr. Williams also is expected to handle punt returns.
"He's a natural catcher," Macdonald said. "I like that he gets north in the punt return game. He hasn't had that many opportunities in the kick return game, but I think you'll see the same thing."
5. The Seahawks will have game captains this year instead of season-long captains.
In the past, trimming the roster to 53 players has been followed by the announcement of captains for the season. This season, however, the Seahawks will do game captains on a week-to-week basis, Macdonald said.
"We'll do game captains week by week, a bunch of different guys, just like we did in the preseason," he said.
6. Some limited injury updates.
With the opener just around the corner and with teams not required to put out injury reports until next week, Macdonald was, as is his prerogative, not too eager to give injury updates, though he was still courteous in his answers even if they were a little light on details.
On linebacker Jerome Baker, who has been able to practice this week after missing time with a hamstring injury, Macdonald said, "If Bake's good to go, he'll be good to go mentally. He's a pro, he's a great player, so if he's out there, we'll be excited to have him; if not, (Tyrice) Knight will be rolling."
On cornerback Artie Burns, who as Schneider noted Wednesday, has a toe injury, Macdonald said, "We'll see next week."
Receiver Tyler Lockett is "doing good" Macdonald said after missing some practice time of late and not playing with the rest of the starters in the preseason finale.
Asked if Lockett will play Week 1, Macdonald said, "I mean, I hope so… I don't want to be like, 'He took X amount of reps' or whatever, but we're looking optimistic. You'll be enlightened next week with practice status and all that."
Asked about outside linebacker Dre'Mont Jones, Macdonald said, "Guys, the injury ones are tough. We're in game week now. We'll give you as much as we can, but right now it's just, we'll see next week."
Additionally, Macdonald said center Connor Williams, who is coming back from a torn ACL while with the Dolphins last season, is progressing well, but didn't say if Williams will be ready to play Week 1.
"He looks good," Macdonald said. "We'll see next week where we're at."
