Mike Macdonald: 'I Have To Do Better With Our Defensive Game Plan'

The Seattle defense that has stood out through four games, found themselves struggling in Sunday’s 38-35 loss to Tampa Bay.

Oct 05, 2025 at 07:06 PM

Ari Horton

Seahawks.com Writer

Seattle Seahawks head coach Mike Macdonald looks on in the fourth quarter against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers during an NFL football game Sunday, Oct. 5, 2025, in Seattle. (AP Photo/Kevin Ng)

The Seahawks had not allowed a rushing touchdown yet this season until the third quarter of Sunday's 38-35 loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. That rushing touchdown, along with "way too many tackles," missed and pressure coverage that was "very weak," all added up for a defensive performance that was uncharacteristic-like for what Seattle had shown through the first four games.

After the game, head coach Mike Macdonald put the loss on his shoulders and his shoulders only.

"I have to do better with our defensive game plan and our execution and how we call it," he said. "When you put up a performance like that, it means that I didn't prepare them well enough. So it hurts. It stings. It should because our guys work extremely hard and they care. But we're going to use this to move forward and that's the only thing we can do. So, we're going to take it on the chin and move forward tomorrow and learn from it and grow and go get ready to play our best game against Jacksonville. It's really that simple."

The defense was without key players in Devon Witherspoon, Julian Love, DeMarcus Lawrence and then during the game Derick Hall and Riq Woolen were both ruled out with an oblique injury and concussion, respectively. Nehemiah Pritchett who played in place of Woolen briefly left the game, as well as Nick Emmanwori.

Macdonald said, "Injuries happen in the NFL. I have to design better plays and put our guys in better positions consistently for us to play better on defense."

With those injuries the team on the other side of the ball knew they would have an opportunity to use those injuries to their advantage.

Quarterback Baker Mayfield said, "Obviously you always track the injury reports. Tracking No. 3, Nick Emmanwori, just tracking his health status, but obviously with Witherspoon and Love out, it's just a little different. Guys moving parts. You look at it as, 'Okay, we might have some advantages somewhere', but obviously it still comes down to us just executing. We don't know what kind of strategy they might have, and our guys did that, did the little things right today."

Despite a handful of defensive players being injured, Seattle is a team that prides itself on their "full 70," and having players that can step in without missing a beat.

"When you lose star guys, it definitely is difficult," safety Ty Okada said. "But it's up to everybody, we talk about this roster, the full 70 and everybody has to step up and do their part and we didn't execute the way that we wanted to today. We'll continue to grow and learn from that."

Safety Coby Bryant said, "It can be tough, but at the end of the day it's, like I said earlier, it's the next man mentality who's ever out there. We all got to be on the same page and like I said, we just didn't do that today."

On Sunday, the Seahawks had one quarterback hit and sack.

"Our pressures have to be more locked in," Macdonald said.

Even though Seattle was without Lawrence and Hall, Macdonald said, "The expectation is the same no matter who's out there," he said. "But again, we got to design better things… We got to call them at better times. All those things. Our pressure coverage was very weak today. And that's something we need to look at."

On the pressures, he later added, "We wanted to pressure this game, and we didn't do it well enough. And so like I said, it wasn't designed well enough and didn't call it in the right spots and we didn't get it done. But you're right, against this team it's kind of pick your poison at a certain point."

Seattle also allowed 56 rushing yards and 379 yards through the air, including 204 yards after the catch, highlighting one of Seattle's defensive woes on Sunday, missed tackles.

"Diving on the ground, not doing the things that we're trained to do," Macdonald said. "Look, when it doesn't come to life on the field -- I'm responsible for what comes to life on the field, and it doesn't come to life to do so it's my responsibility. But we will definitely be looking at that. We missed way too many tackles."

The defensive performance is not on one player or one position group, and Seattle knows that.

"As a collective, we just have to do a better job on defense," Pritchett said. "Whether it's the D-line containing the quarterback or DBs covering receivers, we just have to be better one body on body.

The Seahawks travel to Jacksonville next week and hope to use this loss as, "motivation to go out next week and perform better," Byrant said." In practice we have to fix the things that we struggled in today and it'll show up."