Rams - 26, Seahawks - 20
MIKE MACDONALD: I'd say disappointed with the lack of being able to take advantage of the opportunities we had to win this football game.
I'll say this, I want to say, first of all, thanks to our fans for showing up and being loud. The place was electric, when we started to make some plays at the end of the half, end of the fourth quarter, taking it to overtime, they were right there with us the whole way.
Promise you, we're doing everything in our power and then some to create a nightmare at home, and right now we're not doing it. So we've got to go to work. So the bye week, it's a big week for us to get better, take a look at what's -- right now we have an idea of the symptoms but what's going on underneath process-wise on why we're not playing complementary football in 60 minutes. That's what we're going to be attacking this week and we'll come back to work and move forward.
But I am proud of our guys' fight. They played their tails off. They played hard to the final second. After facing all the adversity that we either faced or created for ourselves, so I just felt like we didn't flinch and just battled.
So we've got the right guys. We just have to make it come to life. But our backs are against the walls and we've got to go.
Q. The decision in overtime to go for that fourth down and the play call there, take us through that.
MIKE MACDONALD: That was the play call we liked. We liked the look. We've got to be able to get a half yard in two shots. Great football teams convert third and fourth and short, and right now we're not doing that.
There's math -- if you kick the field goal, they're on four downs all the way to field goal range -- I felt like we had a great opportunity to win it with a touchdown right there. We went for it.
Q. Similar vein, the offensive line, you had a number of penalties up front, snap issues today, and not being able to get that half yard, as you mentioned. How do you see up front and what happened there today and where you guys are with that right now?
MIKE MACDONALD: We're not there yet by any stretch of the imagination. I thought the guys played hard. We've been playing hard up front. But that's going to be part of what we're looking at over the next week. I just say it's fair to say in all three phases it's kind of all on the table right now of adjustments, things we need to move and shake and really being evaluating everything. So that will be a big part of it.
Q. What did you make of Geno? A lot of highs and lows.
MIKE MACDONALD: He made some big-time plays for us. It's not easy, didn't have a lot of time back there. They had a good rush plan. We've got to protect him better. And I'm sure he's going to tell you that he's going to take ownership of the three picks. We've got to make smarter decisions in that way. We've got to finish drives. We've got to take care of the football.
You guys see it. We see it. We have to be better if we're going to win.
Q. What did you see on the third one, in particular? It looked like A.J. got held up as he was crossing the formation.
MIKE MACDONALD: Honestly, I've got to watch it. I can't give you a good answer on that one.
Q. What was your message to them in the locker room after the game?
MIKE MACDONALD: Similar to what I told you guys. We've got guys that fought, but we have to go to work and make this right because right now we're doing too many things that it's not winning football, it's not complementary. And just the same mentality we've had every week, we've got to keep that going. And we're going to find the solution at some point. Right now we don't -- I wish I had the solution right now. But we're going to go to work and we're going to figure it out.
Q. You say you have the right guys, not that you don't, but what about them has you convinced you have the right guys?
MIKE MACDONALD: Just felt it today, just the fight from our football team. Just I felt like coming off the last week on how we felt going back to work, the practices we stacked, all the meetings and the conversations that we've had, everybody is bought in and they're committed to becoming a good football team. I really believe that.
Q. The defense seemed to really come up, tie them up get you guys the ball back and things like that, what do you feel about how the defense played?
MIKE MACDONALD: I thought they played extremely well and I thought we played physical and tackled a lot better. The tackling is everything. There's lack of space. We communicated really well. I just felt like it showed some of the progress we've been making kind of off the field and we brought it to the game today with good spirit and good energy. Proud of those guys. Couple of plays away from forcing a really long field goal, maybe getting the ball back.
Q. Was it any schematic adjustments defensively, or was it just kind of executing doing things you needed to do that you hadn't been?
MIKE MACDONALD: Both. Tighten up the plan, just like we said last week. We've had some consistency in who's going out there for us, understanding who's doing what, having a full week with E.J. and T. Dod at linebacker and our secondaries on the same crew has been tout there up front, having the same guys going out there. You're able to stack some of that progress from week-to-week, I think that had something to do with it, too.
It's one game, let's go back, let's look at it. I think we can keep taking it to the next level. Felt like we had some opportunities where the ball's alive tonight and we didn't convert on those things. There's some penalties, some critical penalties we'll look at and see if there were things we could do different technique-wise or just how we're handling those things. Because on the touchdown drives, we gave up a couple -- there were penalties involved. I want to look at that.
Q. What did you think of Jaxson Smith-Njigba?
MIKE MACDONALD: Guy played great. We were in the death zone there at the end. Guy made a hell of a play.
Q. What can you say about the Cody White impact in this game? He's kind of emerged had an opportunity to do what he did today.
MIKE MACDONALD: Love Cody. Scouts every day at practice. Glad that he had an opportunity show what he had to do. Guys were fired up for him. It shows the depth we have on our football team.
Like I said, we have the right guys. Just having an opportunity. This guy plays extremely hard. Love Cody. Happy for him. Wish we would have won the game.
Q. What happened to George Fant?
MIKE MACDONALD: Same deal with his knee.
Q. What about K'Von Wallace?
MIKE MACDONALD: He's got an ankle.
Q. Do you have any idea of how severe it is with either of those guys?
MIKE MACDONALD: No. Severe enough to not come back. So it was pretty clear that we weren't going to have him back, so whatever that means. I'm sure we'll look at it in the morning.
Q. Jones second week, second game with the team.
MIKE MACDONALD: Tough to tell on just his individual performance, but I did feel like he made a couple racing-type tackles when the ball wasn't stopped at the line of scrimmage. That was big for us. Coverage-wise, don't have a great feel. But just excited to have him. Guy does a great job. He's one of us.
Q. You went with Josh Jobe. What went into that and what do you think how that worked out?
MIKE MACDONALD: Trey is still coming back from his injury. So we just felt like he's not quite ready yet to take it on. Josh is still practicing really well. That's what went into it. Pretty simple.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports