The Seahawks returned from Jacksonville on Sunday night with another road victory under their belt and a 4-2 record. With a Monday night game coming up next, the Seahawks will push most of their week back by a day, but Monday still brought head coach Mike Macdonald's regular press conference the day after the game.

Here are five takeaways from Macdonald's session with the media:

1. The defense looked forward to late-game opportunities to preserve the lead.

For as good as the Seahawks defense has been this season, one area in which they wanted to improve was the way they were closing out games on that side of the ball. San Francisco and Tampa Bay were both able to drive for late touchdowns that proved to be game winners, while Arizona was able to overcome a two-score lead to tie that game before the Seahawks drove for the winning field goal.

Against Jacksonville, however, the defense finished strong in a one-score game. After the Jaguars scored early in the fourth quarter to make it 20-12, they got the ball back three times with a chance to drive for a potential game tying touchdown and two-point conversion. On those three drives, the Jaguars managed just one first down, gained only 22 yards, and punted all three times. After the final punt, the Seahawks offense was able to run out the clock to secure the win.

"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."

2. Byron Murphy II showed "maturity beyond his years" last week.

Second-year defensive tackle Byron Murphy II's week leading up to Sunday's game included the birth of his daughter, Danee' Azaria, three months premature, weighing just 2 pounds, 5 ounces. That meant daily trips from the Seahawks facility to the NICU to check on his daughter and fiancé, Maya, who Murphy reports are both doing well, noting that Danee' is breathing on her own without the help of a ventilator.

"I was at the hospital pretty much every day this past week," Murphy said after the game. "My daughter, she's doing good, but she's in the NICU right now. She was three months early, but she's breathing on her own, she's doing very well. She's developing pretty fast."

And after going through all of that, Murphy had to leave his fiancé and their newborn daughter to travel to Jacksonville, where he went about having arguably the best game of his career, recording 2.0 sacks, four quarterback hits and, according to NFL Next Gen Stats, seven quarterback pressures.

"He's got a maturity beyond his years. I can't imagine," Macdonald said before trailing off. "… That's just an extremely difficult situation. It's a blessing that his family is healthy, so that's extremely positive, but it's also not easy at the same time. The mental capacity it takes to kind of be in two spots at once, it tells you how great of a guy he is. I know he's extremely happy that his daughter was born and everybody's healthy. Look, you've got to count your blessings, man. It's just great that everyone is healthy in this situation. How he was able to play a game like he did, shoot, I don't know. But he did play a tremendous game and he definitely affected the outcome of that football game."

3. Nick Emmanwori put "some really cool stuff on tape."

It was clear heading into the season that the Seahawks had a big role in mind for rookie safety Nick Emmanwori, but he unfortunately suffered a high-ankle sprain early in Seattle's opener, causing him to miss the rest of that game and the three games that followed. Since returning, Emmanwori has worked his way back into that big role, and on Sunday he played 72 of Seattle's 75 defensive snaps, with the Seahawks using a three-safety "big nickel" package throughout the game. Emmanwori finished the game tied for a team high with nine tackles and had a tackle for loss, and as Macdonald sees it, he should only continue to grow from there.

"There's some really cool stuff on tape from the game where he's trying to play like us," Macdonald said. "I think he's showing that's who he is. He goes, and he's a sure tackler on the edge. There's things we're going to clean up, details here and there in all aspects of his game that are just going to make him go to the next level, and I know he'll have the right mentality to get there with us. I think anybody watching that game could feel the impact that he had on the game, and also the potential impact that he can have on games moving forward."

4. Sam Darnold's continued success is the result of his preparation.

Seahawks quarterback Sam Darnold has been on fire pretty much throughout his first six games with the Seahawks, and has been particularly hot of late, throwing nine touchdowns with only one interception over the past four games, posting a passer rating of 111.4 or better in each of those games.

Darnold was great again on Sunday, throwing for 295 yards and a pair of touchdowns without a turnover against the team that came into the game leading the NFL in takeaways, and to Macdonald, this high level of play is the result of the work he's doing throughout each week.

"It just speaks to Sam's poise, his confidence right now, the preparation that he's doing—you don't just show up on Sunday and these plays come to life," Macdonald said. "You've got to make them happen, we've got to be able to move and shake at the line of scrimmage, we've got to be able to operate at a high level, and Sam's doing that. It's not just going to show up next Monday night, we've got to do all the things throughout the week now so we can be confident going into the game, and I know he will."

5. The Seahawks "still need to improve" when it comes to their running game.

For all the things the Seahawks have done well on their way to a 4-2 start, one area in which they have not been as productive or consistent as they'd like is the running game. It isn't for a lack of effort—the Seahawks rank eighth in the league in rushing attempts—but they are averaging just 3.7 yards per carry, which ranks 27^th, after being held to 60 yards on 26 carries on Sunday.

One reason the Seahawks aren't running as well as they'd like could be the fact that teams are loading the box to stop it, which would also contribute to the Seahawks having one of the NFL's most explosive passing games, with Darnold leading the NFL in both yards per pass attempt and yards per completion. But stacked boxes or not, Macdonald wants to see his team be more effective in the ground game.

"You should be able to run wide zone against loaded boxes," Macdonald said. "That's part of the reasons why it is the way it is. So that's something that we need to improve on in our run game. It's just pretty cut and dry, but we also need to stay committed to it. I told the team today that it's just a function of details, reps and just getting better at what we're doing. Just like our punt return and kick return game, we're a block away here and a block away there, which sounds like an excuse. It's not going to be good enough in the end. We've got to get those things right, but in order to make it happen, you've got to attack the details and stay steadfast in it. The more reps we're going to get, the better we're going to get at it. And then it does force teams to put people on the line of scrimmage. When they do that, it opens up passing lanes. That's how we've been operating, and we expect our run game to get better. Our pass game right now is operating at a high level, and we want to keep that rolling as best we can as well."