The Seahawks opened up their season with a win over the New England Patriots on Wednesday and left the game feeling good about the poise and confidence displayed, while also knowing they have some aspects of their game they know they will have to go back to work on.
"I just have a lot of respect for our guys," head coach Mike Macdonald said. "I think the rest of our coaching staff feels the same way and it shows up on tape. I think you felt it throughout the course of the game. I like the poise. I think there's a confidence behind that we're going to find a play and then we're going to try to find another play. I think the guys, if you really keep it that simple and the things that you can control throughout a game, that way you won't get caught up in all the other stuff. But there's an emotional side too that you want to pick Sam (Darnold) up and you also want to be there for Drew (Lock) as well. So I thought that was really cool to see the guys come to Drew's side and have their back, especially on defense. I thought that was awesome."
Along with that, here are four takeaways:
The Seahawks are hoping to have a better idea of Sam Darnold's injury on Monday.
Seahawks quarterback Sam Darnold left Wednesday's game after the first offensive drive and did not return because he was dealing with a hip injury. After Wednesday's game Macdonald said the outlook was positive and tests on Thursday morning confirmed the hip is not broken but rather a "muscle thing."
"Right now, I think we're just working through the extent of the injury and then putting a plan in place to get back rocking and rolling," Macdonald said. "So it is a silver lining as we have some extra time here. We'll kind of get things back up and running on Monday… So hopefully by then we'll have a really accurate picture of plan of attack and what we'll do that week."
Quarterback Drew Lock played in place of an injured Darnold and threw for 187 yards and 1 touchdown.
"Thought Drew played great," Macdonald said. "It's just awesome, man. Ball was never in jeopardy. He was aggressive when he needed it to be. Operationally, we'll make some strides, but that's really on everybody and he did a great job."
Macdonald later added, "He operates like a starter does in terms of preparation, but I think the chemistry and the personality of our quarterback room is one that it's very supportive of each other and also trying to bring out the best in one another. And Drew provides a cool confidence, loosened focused-ness to the whole equation, which you need. You need that. And on top of that, since he's got here, I just feel like he's just played really great football and practice and in the preseason. So we saw what he could do last night and if he has to play again, then we expect the same moving forward."
Penalties will be something Seattle addresses.
Last night, the Seahawks committed 10 penalties which cost them 98 yards, including three false starts, and made life tough for the offense. Macdonald said the penalties are already something he and the coaching staff have talked about and laid out a plan for.
"I don't know if it's good or bad, but it's kind of multiple reasons," Macdonald said about the penalties. "So if it was just one thing, we could hit the one thing button and attack that. But I think it's kind of everything right now. So not a bad way. It's just like one thing here, one thing there. So let's go back to the fundamentals, go back to the basics, how we practice, how we get all the calls in, how we motion and shift, all that type of stuff. It's not panic, but it's definitely something that we want to attack and address."
Rookie Jadarian Price had some "really good runs" in NFL debut.
Wednesday was rookie Jadarian Price's first NFL game, after most of the starters sat out of all the preseason games. Price showed that he could be explosive, gaining 52 yards on 10 carries.
"I thought Jadarian Price had some really good runs for first NFL action in a setting like that," Macdonald said.
Running backs George Holani and Emanuel Wilson both played, gaining 29 yards on eight carries and three yards on two carries, respectively.
"I'm really excited about our run game," Macdonald said. "I think there's things we want to. We can hit our targets a little bit better, maybe to get to some different things operationally, but I though our guys ran off the ball. I think they tried to finish runs. I think our runners were decisive and got square and kept the ball moving forward. We eliminated some negative runs, which is always a positive. So I think we got off to a really good start and I expect us to get even better."
Offensive coordinator Brian Fleury had a good first test.
In offensive coordinator Brian Fleury's first regular-season game as Seattle's offensive play caller, Fleury was met with as good of a test as he could have been with Darnold leaving the game and Lock stepping in at quarterback.
Although Fleury didn't have the quarterback he was expecting going into the game, Macdonald was happy with how the offense performed as a whole.
"We have an expectation about how we want to play and I thought you saw a lot of that last night," he said. "I know we didn't light the scoreboard up, but I think our offensive line had a really good game. I though they played physical, though our tight ends played physical. Receivers were decisive, made some big plays when we needed it, and there's a lot of room for growth too. So it's like what's better than coming out of a game and being happy on style of play, but also understanding there's a lot of details and a lot of things we can improve to really take our offensive unit to another level."
