MIKE MACDONALD: I think I was just here a couple of minutes. Onto New England. As many football questions as you want to ask, I'm ready to answer them. All other stuff, I'll answer that as well.
Q. When you look at New England, they've been really good at stopping the run the last couple of years. That showed up week 1. Is that more about the scheme, or is it the emphasis that they placed on it, do you think?
MIKE MACDONALD: I think it's that. I think it's both. I think it's the players that they have. Very well coached obviously. But they play tough. They have good players. They play hard.
All the fundamentals, just go right down the list, check, check, check. Play square, get off blocks, what it takes to play really good run defense. The numbers back it up. Tape backs it up.
We've got a great challenge ahead of us.
Q. The last two Super Bowl opponents are the first two opponents this year for the Seahawks. What's your memory of those two Super Bowls?
MIKE MACDONALD: When we won, I was in L.A. with my sister and my nephew, and that was pretty awesome. When we lost, I don't remember.
(Laughter).
But that's a good point. I hadn't thought about that it played out like that.
Q. Obviously you have ties; you're from that area. I know you moved when you were a kid, but what do you remember just as a sports fan and New England as a kid?
MIKE MACDONALD: I moved in '94. They went to the Super Bowl, I think, in '96. My first kind of football memory is really my dad took me to the old Foxboro, when Drew got drafted, and we got like a tour of the stadium and stuff. That was pretty cool. That was a long time ago.
Q. In playing good run defense, without giving all the inside stuff, how important is it obviously to set the edge and get the front push up there?
MIKE MACDONALD: It's the name of the game. Then you've just got to get the guy on the ground. Again, people have different philosophies on how you play the run. I think our philosophy and New England's philosophy is pretty similar, about trying to build a wall, having knock back, staying square, having edges.
Some people kind of opt for the, hey, let's destroy the line kind of on the way to the QB so to speak, and then let the second level and third level kind of clean it up.
It's good. There was a lot of good run defenses that do that. Our philosophies are kind of on that other end of the spectrum.
Q. At the end of the day, just how important in the run defense to tackle? You talked a little bit last game about needing to clean up a little bit of that. How much of that has gone into --
MIKE MACDONALD: It's been space and angles. You have to understand the angle that you need to take, especially with the runners that New England has, and it's about getting multiple hats to the party because they're big, physical backs that fall forward.
There's a huge difference between making contact a yard or two past the line of scrimmage and falling forward for four versus making contact there and now there's multiple guys at the party. New England does a good job of kind of getting a hat for a hat. So there's a lot of one-on-one matchups that are going to be happening that we're going to have to win in order to have success.
Q. What was yesterday like, sort of first time after a regular season game, bringing the guys in, kind of going through the sort of first process of breaking down the film and looking at what happened?
MIKE MACDONALD: I thought it was a great day. The first part of the day is about you're coming in with a fresh mind. You had a day off. Emotions kind of going down, which is nice. It's a little bit more of a surgical approach.
Kind of debrief on the game, and then we take a break, and then we flip the page and move forward to the next opponent. So we focused on New England the latter part of those meetings.
Then coaches are back to going to work, and onward we go.
Q. What did you think of the game that D.K. had and kind of the way they messed up with him with Surtain?
MIKE MACDONALD: I thought D.K. did a lot of great things. There was an opportunity for him to make a play down the field, but found the ball a little bit later in the game. Like I mentioned too, there's a lot of little things that he does that creates success for the rest of the team, and that's big.
So he needs to keep doing those things, and obviously we've got to try to get the ball to him earlier in the game to get him involved and get him rocking and rolling. I'm confident we'll do that. But I thought D.K. played a really good game.
Q. Coach, you used inside zone more than any team in the NFL last week. Stevenson had almost all of his yards after tackle. What kind of challenge do they present running at you?
MIKE MACDONALD: Yeah, like I said, it's kind of a hat for a hat, and there's no fair dodging straight downhill. They have more schemes than just the duo play and things like that. I think some of the front structures that Cincinnati was giving them and the success of that play probably lent to more frequency and led to that.
So it's good by them.
Yeah, they're a sound football team. Everybody knows it. They're all on the same page. Just like on defense, they're square at the point of attack. They're coming right at you.
There's not a lot of secrets to what they're doing, but it's very well designed. It's good football.
Q. Keion White showed up in the stats for New England. How did he show up on tape?
MIKE MACDONALD: Well, Keion's a really good player. He can play inside and out. Just kind of fits the mold of someone that's been in that defense for a long time. He can play inside shade, outside shade, inside rush, outside rush. Plays very hard. He's a big guy.
They move him around to kind of fit where they want him to fit within all the schemes. So, yeah, he's just one of many good players on their side.
Q. You mentioned on Sunday Riq made that play at the end of the game after not getting a lot of action during the game. What's the challenge for a corner when a team is not throwing your way to kind of stay in the game throughout?
MIKE MACDONALD: I've never had that feeling. I can't speak for -- it's mental toughness. I felt like he was involved throughout the whole game. Like you felt Riq throughout the whole game. It didn't feel like he hasn't -- like some lone soldier out there just kind of hanging out.
You felt him in the run game, felt him getting to the ball in the zones, and he was active with the guys that he was asked to guard.
So I thought he did a great job.
Q. Any updates on George Fant, Ken Walker, and Uchenna Nwosu?
MIKE MACDONALD: We'll see how those guys play out. Chen Na will be out this week, but the rest of the guys coming out after the last game, we'll take it day by day with reports, but, yeah, 'Chenna will be out.
Q. Will they practice today, Walker and Fant?
MIKE MACDONALD: We'll see.
Q. You mentioned similarities in how you want to play defense and how the Patriots play defense. I don't know if you call it a chess match or just an all-out matchup against a great defensive scheme?
MIKE MACDONALD: The players are out there playing, and they have really good players with sound, good fundamental schemes, good change-ups. I know we have really good players with what I believe are sound schemes and change-ups.
We're going to have to see how each team is trying to attack each other throughout the game. This is going to be a four quarter old school football game. Like it's going to come down to who makes the plays at the end. That was the message to the team today. It's going to be a great game.
Q. Bill Belichick's not with the Patriots anymore, but he's obviously had a ton of success on the defensive side of the ball. What have you picked up studying him over the years?
MIKE MACDONALD: I mean, he's -- the record speaks for itself. He's probably the best coach to ever do it, someone that I've watched coming up through my coaching career. I don't know how you could have any more respect for a coach.
I would say the first thing I'm thinking about is toughness and preparation. Just a thorough understanding of the game and how to put your players in position to succeed, how to stay ahead situationally, how to win football games without giving anything up cheap.
In a way, just like along with some other great football coaches of our generation and generations past, kind of evolving the game and molding it over the course of his career. So his fingerprints are all over this team still, and I know Coach Mayo has a ton of respect for him, and he worked for him for a long time, played under him, and all that.
I mean, it's a New England Patriot football team that you're used to seeing.
Q. Have you crossed paths with Mayo much over your career?
MIKE MACDONALD: No, I just met him at an owners meeting one time, and that was it.
Q. You and him are two of the three youngest coaches in the league this year. Do you have any thought about why maybe younger coaches are getting more opportunities to be head coaches sort of in this era of the league?
MIKE MACDONALD: I don't know. I don't really want to speculate on it. I think Coach Mayo and I would agree that this game is not about us. It's not. It's about our guys going out and playing and making the plays that it's going to take to win the game. Our age really has nothing to do with what's about to happen on Sunday.
Q. When you got here traveling in from West to East Coast, are you just inheriting what the team has done, or are you studying?
MIKE MACDONALD: Well, we've had a lot of success going east, and there's been some research into it too. A lot of it actually is in relation to sleep, believe it or not. We talked about it to the team today. We had sleep specialists come in and try to be thorough in that approach.
A lot of it's what we've done here in the past. We've built off of that.
Q. In general, keep them on their schedule as if they're still on the West Coast?
MIKE MACDONALD: Yeah, keep them West Coast time. We're going to go out on Friday. There's some other things going on too, but the main gist of it's going to stay the same.
Q. What's been the messaging from week 1 to week 2, that improvement? I know the players want to improve too, but what's your approach with that message?
MIKE MACDONALD: I have a hard time changing up themes and stuff, so stuff I've told you guys is what I've told the team. A lot of great things happened in the first game, which is great to see, talking about effort and composure, all those things.
But you have to build on those things and take the next step. You could rattle on moving on to the next week, but there's a lot of things we need to clean up that we can build off of. It's one week. It's a great win, but now it's time to turn the page.
We've got to focus on our preparation. I think our weekly practices can take a step up. Really that's the only thing we can focus on today is just having a great Wednesday so that we can have a great -- you can't have a great Thursday until you have a great Wednesday. So that's kind of the thought right now.
Q. What was your thought on A.J. Barner and the way he played jumping out with Ferrell last week? And a quick thought on Ferrell too?
MIKE MACDONALD: I thought A.J. played really well. He can do a lot of things at tight end for us and move around. Excited to see his growth moving forward.
Ferrell, I know with the connection to the New England stuff, he really wants to play. We'll see with where Ferrell ends up by the end of the week.
Q. You guys had Jaren Hall last week as a third quarterback. Have you gotten much of a sense of what you might have with him and kind of where he fits in?
MIKE MACDONALD: He's someone, I think, that has a little bit of history with we've done a lot of homework on him as he was coming out before I was hired. So we respect him as a player.
I've never had a defense go against him, so I'm not like foremost expert on his game. But he's come in, he's done a great job, he's got a great attitude. He's learning the scheme. The vocabulary is a little bit different than he's used to, so there's a little bit of a learning curve there. He'll pick it up in a hurry.
Q. Back to schedules, what do you like about structuring your week so the players' off day is Monday as opposed to Tuesday?
MIKE MACDONALD: The main thing is really just to take a deep breath after the game and then be able to move on. That's the main thing. Take the emotion out of it, be able to kind of digest, understand why you won or lost, where you need to improve.
The guys get it the next day, and then you're able -- once they come in, you're kind of in next week's mode. There's no like break. Hey, this is what happened. Let's move on. Now it's like an extended week on that next opponent.
Q. What do you like about the packages that have K'Von in there with Julian and Rayshawn?
MIKE MACDONALD: It's an opportunity to get a really good player on the field in K'Von, opportunity to get Jenks closer to the ball. I don't think you're going to just see that combination all the time with those guys, but for that specific game, we felt like it gave us a good chance to get K'Von on the field, get spoon some reps at corner.
But K'Von's earned the opportunity to have reps. He's had a great camp. That was really the thought behind it.
Q. You hadn't seen Dre'Mont Jones much in training camp. How do you feel like he played Sunday?
MIKE MACDONALD: Dre'Mont, he had a solid start. There's so much more that he can do. He knows that. It's all positive. Let's keep ramping him up. We went in with a little bit tighter of a game plan with him than we probably would come week 10 or so.
The goal right now is just keep finding those things he does really well, get him to do those things more, and we'll build it here over the next several weeks.
Q. Jacoby Brissett's been around the AFC for a while. What have you seen from him?
MIKE MACDONALD: Jacoby is a really good quarterback. He's highly intelligent. He's underratedly mobile. If you let him run, he can move going forward. I think he delivers an accurate ball. He plays efficiently. He definitely has a very strong grasp of what they're asking him in terms of executing their system.
They're playing clean football right now. It doesn't look like the new age, like sexy offenses that you're seeing these days, but I'll tell you what, it's really, really effective.
It comes down to how you move the football, and they're doing that effectively right now.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports