The Seahawks returned to Seattle late Sunday night after a tough Week 3 loss in Washington, and on Monday, they were back to work at the Viriginia Mason Athletic Center.
While nobody is happy about the 33-31 loss, which ended a franchise-record 12-game winning streak, Seahawks coach Mike Macdonald sees it as a great learning experience, and is proud of the mentality he saw from players in the building on Monday.
More on that and other takeaways from Macdonald's Monday press conference:

1. Macdonald could "feel the resolve" from his players on Monday.
The Seahawks see every game, win or lose, as an opportunity to learn and improve; that's all part of the process that the team goes through every week, regardless of how well the team did or didn't play in the previous game. But there is a bit of a different feeling when a team that hadn't lost in more than 10 months finally sees that long winning streak come to an end.
And less than 24 hours after that loss, Macdonald liked what he was seeing from his team as they got back to work Monday.
"I think it's a great learning experience for everybody, including reinforcing what our philosophy is on a day-in, day-out basis, on a per-play basis," Macdonald said. "As play-callers, how we gameplan, how do we get to solutions throughout games. How we play play-to-play as players and as a team, going from unit to unit. There's a lot of things to learn. I think if you're not learning from a game like that, you're totally missing the target.
"I'm proud of the mentality that we've had today. You can tell they're upset, which they should be, but you can feel the resolve, you can feel the eagerness to get back at it on Wednesday."
2. There was a lot to like about the defensive effort despite the final score.
At first glance, giving up 33 points might point to a poor performance by the defense, but that isn't what the numbers showed, nor is it what Macdonald saw on film. Yes, the Seahawks gave up more than 20 points for the first time in a regular-season game since Week 16 of last year, but 21 points came after turnovers, including a pick-six, and the Seahawks held the Commanders to 258 total yards and a 4.0 yards-per-play average.
"When you watch the tape, when you talk about a play style, I think our guys played incredibly hard, they played physical," Macdonald said. "I thought we took a lot of shots at the ball, the ball just didn't come out. There were a couple of opportunities in the pass game where maybe we could have made the ball come to life. I know it kind of sounds weird coming off a loss, but our effort—I'm really proud of the way our guys played, our mentality. I really love our group, and they played really hard. It shows you the importance of team football, and also understanding situations, how we can play it better. I think that's why the guys are disappointed, because there were some situations that we probably could have taken better advantage of to put our team in a better position to win the game."

3. Macdonald was really impressed with Jaxon Smith-Njigba's… blocking?
Sunday's game saw Jaxon Smith-Njigba haul in 10 more receptions for 128 yards and two touchdowns, giving him an NFL-leading 405 receiving yards and six touchdowns through three games. Smith-Njigba also put himself in some impressive company with Sunday's performance, joining Hall of Famer Jerry Rice as one of two receivers to have 120-plus yards and a touchdown in each of the first three games of a season, and Hall of Famer Marvin Harrison Sr. as one of two players with 400 receiving yards and six receiving touchdowns through the first three games of a season.
So naturally after that standout performance, Macdonald wanted to talk about… the receiver's blocking? Apparently so, because as Macdonald noted, that was one of Smith-Njigba's best blocking performances in a while, and an example of what the Seahawks are looking to get out of that position in the run game.
"I told him this today, I thought he blocked really well," Macdonald said. "I think we need to improve that from our receiver position right now, getting to the third level and getting guys blocked so we can pop some more runs. That was the best game Jaxon has had blocking in a while. If he keeps doing that, we'll be just fine."

4. Macdonald knows there's room to grow in the run game.

Seattle finished Sunday's game with 18 rushing attempts for 44 yards, including a five-yard scramble for a first down by quarterback Sam Darnold. Part of the reason for low rushing numbers was that for almost the entire game, the Seahawks were playing from behind and found themselves in a lot of passing situations to try to cut the lead. Macdonald also tipped his cap to the Commanders' defense in stopping the run.

"Credit to Washington. Did a great job," he said. "We feel like there's plenty of room to grow. It's a function of in real time execution and also finding solutions as the game goes. Also, the way the game is going of some things we wanted to be able to do, offensively in the pass game and in the screen game. It's a process. We stick to our process and with our whole team right now, the message after the game is we'd feel the same way after the game whether or not we closed it out and found a way to win or the way it shook out. In every tentacle from coming out of the game of, 'Where can we grow? How can we make our process better?' That's been the mentality today."

For the second week in a row, rookie Jadarian Price fumbled, with Sunday's being costly as Washington was able to score following the turnover.

"With JD (Jadarian Price), he understands what's going on, he needs to take care of the ball," Macdonald said. "There's some things fundamentally where we can focus on and we're going to continue to give him the ball, we trust him. We know that he's going to work hard to do his part as well."

5. The Seahawks have a high standard for special teams that they haven't reached yet.

Last season, the Seahawks special teams play was a huge factor in Seattle making it to the Super Bowl and playing well in all three phases of the game is something Macdonald emphasizes. Good special teams play can significantly alter the momentum of a game, as Seattle learned last season and Macdonald knows the Seahawks can be better in that area.

"The standard is higher on special teams here," Macdonald said. "We've proven that, and the guys will get it right, but there's definitely a sense of urgency to make it look like us and play our style of ball on."

On Sunday, Seattle's average drive began on their own 26-yard line, while the Commanders were starting, on average, at their own 37-yard line. This was in part because of kicks returned for decent yardage and missteps, like a kickoff not making it into the landing zone, which is a penalty and allows a team to begin their drive at their own 40-yard line.

"To put it plainly, it's not good enough," Macdonald said on Seattle's special teams play. "There're things process-wise that we can improve on. We've talked about this throughout training camp, and really since we got here, but a Seahawk play needs to look like a Seahawk play. There are plays on tape that we're not doing that."

6. Nick Emmanwori is still ramping back up.

After playing a few snaps in Week 2, Nick Emmanwori played more in Week 3 and had two tackles.

"I thought Nick (Emmanwori) had a good game," Macdonald said. "There were some really great plays, and he'll continue to get better. I think he should be really proud of how he approached last week mentally. I think that's one of the things that's something that we want to discuss as a staff of what the process is every week of how, where and how often he plays, so he can have a really focused game plan. Where he plays really affects the position group around him because he's playing out of really three position groups. That's something we'll continue to think about and make better, but he's done a great job."