The Seahawks are off to a 3-2 start in Mike Macdonald’s first season as head coach. Before the season, I wrote about my expectations for the season and cautioned Seahawks fans to temper their expectations for year one.
It appears many of them have not listened to my advice. After losing 29-20 to the New York Giants in Seattle on Oct. 6, my X feed was full of Seahawks fans lamenting the hiring of Macdonald, longing for Pete Carroll and complaining about the team’s poor defensive showing in the past two weeks.
While they are not wrong that the defense has not been great, it is a wild overreaction to claim the Seahawks made the wrong choice to hire Macdonald after just five games.
Remember, it was only two weeks ago when Seattle was 3-0 and they are still in first place in the NFC West. Unfortunately, the hot start probably worked against Macdonald. Instead of contextualizing the 3-0 start, and understanding those wins came against a rookie in his first NFL start (Bo Nix), a backup quarterback cosplaying as a starter (Jacoby Brissett) and two more backups for the Dolphins (Skylar Thompson, Tim Boyle) many fans simply assumed that because the Seahawks were 3-0, it made them a great team. That is not how the NFL works.
The Seahawks escaped with close wins against Denver and New England and crushed an injury-depleted Miami team, but they lacked a quality win and never felt like real contenders at 3-0. They have since lost Monday Night Football to the Lions and the Giants at home. Those losses have felt deflating, but should not have come as a surprise.
It is not as if the Seahawks looked terrible in their losses. They scored a season-high 29 points against Detroit and were in position to hit a game-tying field goal against the Giants. They did not get badly outplayed in either game, and when considering the injuries on Seattle’s defense (particularly their defensive line), it makes sense that they have struggled to stop the run.
Obviously, it is hard to watch a backup running back like Tyrone Tracy Jr. rush for over 100 yards, but the Seahawks defensive line was missing multiple starters and were fresh off a beat down from the Lions six days ago.
Teams are 0-4 this year the week after facing the Lions and the Seahawks still fared the best of the four. The Rams lost by 31 to Arizona, the Bucs lost by 19 to the Broncos and the Cardinals lost by 28 to the Commanders. Seattle lost by only nineand the game would have been tied had Jason Myers’ game-tying field goal not been blocked and returned for a touchdown.
The Seahawks are 3-2. They have been fine, borderline good, so far in 2024. Mike Macdonald has not been perfect, but he has done a good job working with what he has got. Geno Smith is playing well and so is the rest of the offense. The defense did its job shutting down bad quarterbacks, but injuries have caught up to them.
I said in the preseason I wanted to see how the team would fight when playing from behind. So far I have liked what I have seen. Against New England, they battled to win in overtime. Against the Lions, they trailed the whole game but responded to the Lions’ scores with four touchdowns of their own. Against the Giants, they very nearly completed a comeback to tie the game after being down by ten with five minutes to go, only falling short due to a special teams mistake.
The schedule does not get any easier from here. With games against the 49ers, Bills and Falcons coming up, Seattle might have a losing record soon if things do not start to go their way. Fans should not panic. This was never supposed to be a year when the Seahawks won ten games. It is Mike Macdonald’s first season, he is figuring things out and he deserves time to grow and learn as a head coach.
