The Seahawks improved to 2-0 on Sunday while coming out of the game feeling like they still have a lot of room for growth.
FOXBOROUGH—In the standings, the Mike Macdonald era is off to a perfect start, with the Seahawks sitting atop the NFC West with a 2-0 record.
Those two victories, however impressive, have also included a decent amount of adversity for the Seahawks to overcome while learning under a new coaching staff, and though it is still early in a long season, Macdonald's team has been showing it can find ways to win even when things aren't going exactly according to plan.
"What a heck of a football game," Macdonald said after his team's 23-20 overtime win over the Patriots. "We knew the game was going to come down to the fourth quarter. Didn't expect to come down to fifth quarter, but whatever it takes. Just proud of the fight, the resiliency, just the confidence, the support, the togetherness of our football team."
In their season opener, the Seahawks beat the Broncos despite a disastrous first half for the offense, which had a turnover and two safeties, because the defense was outstanding all day, and because the offense bounced back in the second half. Against the Patriots Sunday, the Seahawks threw the ball well, led by huge games from Geno Smith, DK Metcalf and Jaxon Smith-Njigba, but their running game, minus Kenneth Walker III, couldn't get on track. On the other side of the ball, Seattle's defense did plenty of things well, but did allow 185 rushing yards on 36 carries, as well as a career-high 109 receiving yards to tight end Hunter Henry.
"That's a really good football team we just played," Macdonald said. "Tough. Obviously they ran the ball really well. They stopped the run, but our guys came through in the end. Then just proud of our guys. When we need to do make a play seems like on all three phases, the guys made plays without inventing techniques or whatever. Just kind of played through the scheme, played through the fundamentals, and we closed it out in the end. So just a great, great football game. Excited to get back home."
As Macdonald noted, it took all three phases for the Seahawks to pull out a tight win. Smith and the offense delivered game-tying and game-winning drives, the defense got two critical stops to set up those drives, with Leonard Williams and Byron Murphy II teaming up for a third-down sack to end a drive late in the fourth quarter, and with Tyrel Dodson and Jarran Reed stuffing a third-and-short in overtime to get the ball back in Smith's hands.
"That was huge," Williams said of the run stop. "They were running the ball on us quite a bit today. That was a short-yardage situation with a big, heavy back. "(Rhamondre Stevenson) is really good at falling forward, he's a really good back, and T-Dot came through big in that short-yardage situation."
On special teams, Julian Love provided one of the biggest plays of the game, blocking a field goal attempt after that fourth-quarter sack, putting the offense in a position to tie the game with a field goal instead of needing to score a touchdown. Kicker Jason Myers, meanwhile, was perfect for the second week in a row, including clutch kicks to end regulation and overtime. And special teams play provided a couple of key moments that weren't as obvious, including rookie Dee Williams sure-handed fair catch in overtime with a teammate being blocked into him, as well as Michael Dickson's punt late in the first half to pin New England inside the 10-yard line, leading to the Seahawks getting the ball back with good field position to get a field goal to end the half.
"It just felt good to win," said Metcalf, who had 10 catches for 129 yards, including a 56-yard touchdown. "The past two weeks, we've really shown how close of a team we are when battling adversity. We're only going to get stronger and only going to play better throughout the season.
As Love noted, the performance of the defense, "wasn't to our standard. We needed more energy, we needed more juice." But the fact that the defense, playing below its standard, was able to help the team win, while the offense and special teams also did their part, bodes well for the team moving forward as it learns these valuable lessons early while still winning the first two games.
"That's huge," Love said. "It's an ugly win. We're trying to set the tone defensively, we're trying to create turnovers, we're trying to stop the run, eliminate explosives, and some of those areas we didn't hit today. But in the moments that mattered most, especially the overtime three-and-out, and (the stop) at the end that led to that block. They hit a big run, and we bowed up and let our offense have a chance to win the game or tie the game, and they did. We have those little finishing details, we're locked into those, but now it's just constancy, making sure when guys are subbed in and out, they're playing at the high level that we need."
