Salk: With players-only meeting, Seahawks stay true to ‘M.O.B’ mantra

We spent the whole week upset at the Seattle Seahawks for committing all of those penalties and taking 150 yards in penalty yardage.

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Most of them were dumb and selfish and after the whistle and just things that need to be cleaned up. You knew Mike Macdonald wasn’t going to stand for it. You knew he would hold them accountable – a word that, yes, we used a lot over the course of the last six months while we were talking baseball.

But he also knows to treat his players like men. And you know what they did? They stepped up and acted like adults, like men.

Jarran Reed, Leonard Williams, Ernest Jones IV and Julian Love, those four guys, those four captains, they got the entire defense together, had a players-only meeting and said: Enough, this goes against M.O.B – mission over bull. The mission needs to come before the bull after the whistle.

I think the fact that it was those four guys is very important. Yes, players-only meetings can be overrated and overdone, and when you have them to try to turn around a sinking season, they don’t always work. But that’s not what this is. The message here is, hey, we’re great, but we’ve got to clean up this one thing and we need to make that our mission instead of paying attention to the bull.

I think it matters that you’ve got four guys who are great communicators, who are clear leaders, who have been around the block. They are the veterans. This was not Nick Emmanwori or Devon Witherspoon or Byron Murphy or any of the young guys.

This was the vets getting everyone together and saying, this is not going to work for us, and it’s sure not going to work as you take on San Francisco, a group that’s going to be out for blood after what you did to them in the playoffs last year. So don’t fall for it. Don’t get caught up in it. Make sure you stay true to the mission and you can avoid all the bull.

This article is a transcript of the video at the top of the post. It is edited for clarity. Catch Mike Salk weekdays from 6-10 a.m. on Seattle Sports’ Brock and Salk.

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