The Seahawks beat the Vikings 26-0 on Sunday, their first shutout since the 2015 season, and are now 9-3 heading into the final stretch of the season. A day later, Seahawks coach Mike Macdonald met with the media to discuss Sunday's win and provide some injury updates.

Here are five takeaways from Monday's press conference:

1. Injury updates.

The Seahawks came out of Sunday's game without appearing to have suffered any new significant injury. Right guard Anthony Bradford exited the game with an elbow injury and cornerback Josh Jobe was evaluated for a concussion, but both players are expected back this week.

"AB should be good to go on Wednesday," Macdonald said.

On Jobe, Macdonald said, "Josh to my knowledge cleared the concussion protocol during the game, so we expect him to be good to go."

The Seahawks have a chance to get some players back as soon as this week with defensive tackle Jarran Reed eligible to return from injured reserve. Safety Julian Love and tight end Eric Saubert were also eligible to return as of last week but did not return to practice yet.

"It's a possibility with all those guys, we'll see," Macdonald said when asked about those players returning from IR.

On Reed, who had surgery for a wrist and thumb injury, Macdonald said, "He's doing good. We'll see how he does throughout the rest of the week, but he looks good."

2. Leonard Williams is playing at an elite level.

A year ago, Leonard Williams was one of the league's best interior lineman, but he still missed out on All-Pro honors and was initially a Pro-Bowl alternate before later being added to the roster.

Williams is off to another great start with seven sacks, 18 quarterback hits and 47 total tackles, and Macdonald hopes one of his team's best players isn't snubbed again this year.

"Turn the tape on and show me players that are playing better than him," Macdonald said. "I'd be willing to watch that tape; it wouldn't be a long tape."

And while Williams' production alone should put him in the conversation for postseason honors, what he does to help the rest of the defense thrive is what really stands out to Macdonald.

"One thing I can say about Leo is, the amount that he sets his teammates up for success is understated," Macdonald said. "There are so many plays where he's setting somebody else up, whether it's getting doubled in the pass rush, or he's running a stunt to free someone else up, or in the run game, he's making the ball go a certain direction. There's at least a dozen a plays every game where not a lot of people in the world can make those type of plays. So he deserves that recognition."

3. How Jaxon Smith-Njigba handled a season-low game for receiving yards and receptions.

In Seattle's win against the Vikings, Jaxon Smith-Njigba was held to a season-low 23 yards on two receptions, and up until Sunday, he had at least 79 yards and four catches in every game.

Along with Minnesota dialing up a lot of pressure, after the game Smith-Njigba said, "Coach (Brian) Flores does a great job mixing up looks, and we're taking what they give us, and Sam (Darnold) made the best decisions for the team and Zach (Charbonnet) and K9 (Kenneth Walker III) doing their thing. It was one of those days."

So while his catches and yards were both season lows, Smith-Njigba didn't seem to show worry and neither did Macdonald.

"Our guys were great," Macdonald said. "I'm not on the offensive sideline while we're playing defense, but the feeling you have on our sideline and from what the guys are telling me is, everybody's all in trying to get the mission accomplished and trying to go win the game or whatever it takes to win. Now every competitor's going to want to be a play a positive part of being an asset of the team so they can go win. I'm sure Jax, of course he wants to ball. Everybody wants the ball more. I want the ball more, but they don't need to give it to me. But we've talked about this all the time, one of the things that makes Jax so special is that the day to day, how he practices, how he brings it every day, how he supports his teammates. It makes him a really cool teammate."

4. Sam Darnold 'Stuck With Our Plan'

For the better part of Sunday's game, Minnesota's pass rush was making it difficult for quarterback Sam Darnold and the offense to get much going. Darnold finished 14 of 26 and threw for 128 yards and was sacked a season-high four times. Seattle was able to build enough of a lead thanks to a perfect day from Jason Myers who went 4/4 on field goals, and a defensive touchdown by Ernest Jones IV, that eventually they turned to running the ball. Macdonald said Darnold stuck with the plan throughout the game.

"The way the game declared, we didn't we didn't need him to drop back and chuck it around the yard 40 times," Macdonald said. "So we knew we needed to stick with our plan to kind of ground it out there in the second half and we executed that. I thought we played way better in the second half, to help us win the game."

Macdonald did note that Darnold did make a handful of good plays when faced with pressure.

"Andrew Van Ginkel made a great anticipatory play and Sam just played football in that moment," he said. "Held it, got to the second window and off we went, getting out of the backed up situation. So there's straight outs to it, but things we can probably put ourselves in some better situations sometimes, credit to them on a couple of those designs that they got the better of us in those situations."

5. Macdonald is in uncharted territory with a player as versatile as Nick Emmanwori.

At one point in the second quarter of Sunday's game, rookie safety Nick Emmanwori found himself matched up with Vikings receiver Justin Jefferson on third-and-five. Emmanwori was sticky in coverage on one of the NFL's best receivers, and undercut Max Brosmer's pass, nearly intercepting it on the sideline. It would have been a great play for any NFL cornerback tasked with guarding the All-Pro receiver, but it was even more impressive for a 6-foot-3, 220-pound safety who has spent much of his rookie season playing in the box.

"There were a lot of great plays he put out there, and again, we're asking him to do a lot," Macdonald said. He helped us go win that football game."

Emmanwori's role continues to grow as the season goes along, and the rookie's combination of speed, size and power allows Macdonald to get creative with his defense.

"He's shown the ability to do it, so if you show the ability to do something, we're going to let you go do it," Macdonald said of Emmanwori's expanding role. "It's really that simple. It's pretty cool. He allows us to do some things in the back end that we've really never been able to do. So that's a great opportunity for us.

"We had him at 9-technique, 5-technique, he's playing the slot. We're putting a lot on his plate. That's part of my message to him, 'You've got a lot on your plate, there's a lot of expectations, and rightfully so, you've earned those opportunities. Go prepare your tail off so you can play the brand of ball you want to play. Then go let it rip, and if something happens throughout the game, we'll fix it or we'll put you out of that situation, but just go to the next one and keep rolling.'"

Macdonald later admitted with a chuckle that Emmanwori's rare positional flexibility has the defensive coaching staff figuring things out on the fly.

"We're working through that," he said. "We've never really had a player like him, so we are kind of making it up as we go to a certain extent. I hate to admit that, but we kind of are."