Unbeaten Seahawks already up two games in NFC West

After beating the Miami Dolphins 24-3 at Lumen Field on Sunday, the Seattle Seahawks remained unbeaten and improved to 3-0 under new head coach Mike Macdonald.

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They also grabbed a two-game lead in the NFC West with Arizona, Los Angeles and San Francisco all off to 1-2 starts.

But the Seahawks aren’t resting on their laurels.

“I’m glad we won today,” Macdonald said after Sunday’s win. “We got a long way to go. It’s a long season. We got a big game coming up (on Monday Night Football at the Detroit Lions), but we’re not talking about (winning the) division. Our first goal is to win each game, and the next goal is to get in the dance, then the next goal is to win the division. So, we’re a long way away from there. We can help our chances again next week if we go to Detroit and get a win.”

Well, at least the first part of Macdonald’s plan has been achieved thus far. Seattle joined the Minnesota Vikings and Pittsburgh Steelers as the only teams to win their first three games of the season so far. The Kansas City Chiefs (playing Sunday night) and Buffalo Bills (Monday night) could also join that club.

The difference between Macdonald’s Seahawks and the rest of those clubs? Seattle is the only one with a new head coach.

According to John Boyle of Seahawks.com, the first-year coach is the first in Seattle history to win his first three games with the franchise. Macdonald, 37, is also just the fifth coach since 2000 to begin his coaching career 3-0 while being under 40 years old, according to Josh Dubow of the Associated Press. Miami coach Mike McDaniel is one of the others.

It wasn’t always pretty for Seattle in Sunday’s win despite a lopsided final score. The Seahawks jumped on the short-handed Dolphins early as they struggled without starting quarterback Tua Tagavoailoa.

After Seattle gained a 17-3 lead on a 71-yard connection between quarterback Geno Smith and wide receiver DK Metcalf on the final play of the first quarter, the score remained as such into the fourth quarter. Miami had a chance to pull within a score while down to its third-string QB early in the fourth, but the Seahawks came away with the fourth-and-goal stop they needed to set up a 98-yard drive to ice the game.

“All that matters is that we win,” Smith said. “However you get it done, I’m not really particular about that. 3-0, it’s a great start, but we still got more games to play. … We got to lock in and make sure that we put these games behind us – because we already played them – and get ready for the next one.”

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