NASHVILLE—As has been the case for Seattle's defense for most of the season, they were without a handful of starters in Week 12 but as head coach Mike Macdonald has said since the beginning of the season, "Yeah, it's the same message. It's the 70," he said about the active roster and practice squad.

One week it's Drake Thomas stepping in for an injured Ernest Jones IV, another week it's Ty Okada making plays in place of Julian Love who has been on injured reserve since Week 9. This week it was linebacker Patrick O'Connell getting the call up from the practice squad with both Jones and Tyrice Knight out with injuries.

O'Connell had his first career sack on Sunday and helped a defensive unit keep the Tennessee Titans out of the endzone for offensive touchdowns for almost the entire game. He also had eight tackles, a quarterback hit and a tackle for loss.

On his first sack, O'Connell said, "It was awesome obviously. It just proves that staying ready and being the same person, every single day pays off. Just sticking to who I am and playing hard every single play just makes it happen."

Head Coach Mike Macdonald said, "It's funny, we have an ongoing joke on our ready squad that you can't block Paddy O (Patrick O'Connell) on a daily basis. So I'm glad he had his opportunity today, and happy for him. He went out and played winning football for us and made some great plays, so I'm excited to watch the tape and see what he did."

Macdonald added, "It's that feeling that we talk about throughout the year of when guys have opportunities to go, you're excited to go see them play. These guys have earned opportunities to play for us in critical games, and so I was excited to see these guys play. It's great; it's not like, "Oh, shoot, 'so-and-so' is out." It's like, okay, great, let's roll with Paddy O. Let's play. Let's go."

Derick Hall said "It's huge. A guy like Paddy O, you've seen the same story with Drake (Thomas). Those guys coming in every day, they work. They bust their a** to come out and try to help the team get better every single day, every single week."

Along with Jones, Love and Knight who were out, Jarran Reed is still on injured reserve and nose tackle Brandon Pili has played some snaps up front in his place. During Sunday's game, Ty Okada left during the third quarter with an oblique injury and D'Anthony Bell stepped up in his place. The fact that Seattle is able to call up player after player and they are prepared to play is no coincidence, it's evidence of the way they prepare.

"It's just a testament to what we preach and how we practice and how everyone studies and takes it as a challenge," Devon Witherspoon said. "We always preach you never know what's going to happen in the game and it's always a next man up mentality. So, everyone prepares like they're going to be a starter. We always practice like everyone's a starter because you just never know when your number's going to be called and that's a testament what we built around here."

Byron Murphy II who had 1.0 sack and five tackles said there are no "drop-offs" when it comes to the defense.

"Not too many teams have that, where [if] somebody gets hurt, somebody steps up," he said. "It doesn't even show. Everything looked the exact same. So, to have that, that's a gem. We believe in no drop-offs. So no matter who is on the field, we expect one another, and we trust one another to do that job, no matter who it is."

Hall also had a sack on the day, his first of the season, even though Macdonald said, "It doesn't feel like it."

"I feel like he's been rushing way (more). He deserves more than whatever he has. So happy for him. He should have more. I think we have to finish better on the quarterback. You've got to give their quarterback a lot of credit for how elusive he is, but we had some opportunities there in the third and fourth quarter, and it would be great to capitalize on them, but guys are playing incredibly hard. You can't say it's not because you're fighting or we're not doing anything selfishly. It's just we've just got to do a little bit better, play a little bit better together, finish better together, but happy for D-Hall (Derick Hall) because he's playing really high-level football for us."