What Seahawks players are saying about Macdonald’s defense

Under new head coach Mike Macdonald, the Seattle Seahawks are at the forefront of a cutting-edge defensive scheme that has the potential to make waves across the NFL.

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The 36-year-old Macdonald had immense success with his scheme as the defensive coordinator the past two seasons in Baltimore, where he quickly developed a reputation as one of the league’s brightest defensive minds. Last year, Macdonald’s top-ranked Ravens defense became the first in NFL history to lead the league in points allowed, sacks and takeaways.

As Ted Nguyen of The Athletic detailed in an article this spring, Macdonald’s scheme centers around a unique level of positional versatility and interchangeability. That allows him to constantly mix his fronts and pressures, which leaves opposing offenses struggling to determine where exactly the pressure will be coming from. It also enables him to adapt and cater his defensive scheme to each opponent.

Macdonald is now busy implementing his defense in Seattle, but the Seahawks won’t be the only team running his scheme this fall. Four of Macdonald’s previous assistant coaches became NFL defensive coordinators this offseason, which means Macdonald’s defense could begin taking root across the league.

What stands out most about Macdonald’s scheme? What makes it unique? Since training camp began last week, a number of Seahawks players have been interviewed on Seattle Sports shows. Here are some highlights from their responses when asked about the new defense.

• Veteran edge rusher Uchenna Nwosu spoke about the versatility of Macdonald’s defense:

“This defense is really versatile. We’ve got a lot of guys playing a lot of different positions that kind of throws the offense off. They don’t know what’s coming. They don’t know what to expect. You’ve gotta make them try to figure out what we’re doing every single time. And that’s a luxury when you have that option and you have the players to be able to do that. So we’re just excited to put it all together and can’t wait to see it on Sundays.”

• Third-year edge rusher Boye Mafe elaborated on the scheme’s flexibility:

“The biggest thing that I love about this defense is you can do so many different things in one spot. It doesn’t matter where you are on the field, your assignment can always move and your responsibility can always be different. So to me, I think that’s the beauty of it is that you’re not doing one job and one job only. There’s so many ways you can be moved around, different positions. Just because you’re in one spot doesn’t mean you have to do that job. However coach wants to use us, he can really just move us around and manipulate and make different pictures for the quarterback.”

• Mafe then explained how creating different looks could benefit the pass rush by making reads more complicated for opposing quarterbacks:

“Ultimately, that’s gonna help, especially in pass rush, having different pictures for the quarterback and making sure that as a (pass rusher) you have more time. That’s one of the most frustrating things as a pass rusher is you get off the edge, you have a great move and then you reach out and the ball’s gone. But with the way that our defense is going now, I feel like we’re just gonna make quarterbacks (hold) the ball (longer) – make us get a little bit more time in that standpoint.”

• Veteran inside linebacker Jerome Baker, who spent the past seven seasons with the Miami Dolphins, spoke about the attacking nature of Macdonald’s defense:

“A lot of defenses are more of just like, they react to what the offense does. … We’re gonna attack you. We’re gonna attack you from different ways – linebackers, safeties, corners. That’s the fun part about playing defense in this defense is you truly don’t know. The offense is on their toes. And that’s where it gets fun for a defense. It’s not just third-and-long when we get after the quarterback. It’s first down, we’re throw in a little something different. And second down, you think we’re gonna rush the passer, we’re not, we’re gonna drop everybody. So I think that’s the fun part of being in this defense – every down is different, and it’s a lot of different disguises, a lot of different blitzes.”

• Baker also said Macdonald’s success in Baltimore was a big factor in him signing with the Seahawks in March:

“That was a big decision in me coming here. I wanted to play under his defense. He does a lot of different things with the linebackers. So for me, it was kind of a no-brainer.”

• Sixth-year defensive lineman Dre’Mont Jones described how Macdonald and his coaching staff are teaching the scheme:

“Mike and his crew have done a great job of coaching us up and just breaking things down on a simplistic level, so we can understand exactly what’s going on.”

• Mafe said that despite the NFL being a copycat league, Macdonald’s scheme isn’t something that can easily be replicated:

“You have to have everybody on the same accord. And it’s not something, if it’s not your defense, you can’t just implement it. A lot of people say like, it’s a copycat league and people try to do what other people do, but if you don’t know the philosophy, if you don’t know how it’s taught and how to really get everybody on the same accord, it won’t work out in the same way. If I look at when we started this defense day one to where we are now, that’s not something that somebody could just come and copy.”

Here are links to the Seattle Sports interviews featuring the players mentioned above: Uchenna Nwosu, Boye Mafe, Jerome Baker and Dre’Mont Jones.

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