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SEA Them Rise: Macdonald's Hawks off to Soaring Start

For the Seattle Seahawks, moving on from Pete Carroll was one of the most shocking moves this offseason. He pioneered how NFL defenses played in the 2010s and still has his fingerprint on pleny of players and schemes to this day. Turning the page from him was incredibly risky. He was beloved by every player that played for him and grew to be one of the most charismatic coaches in the league, even as the oldest coach in the league. The Seahawks weren’t just replacing a head coach, they were replacing their entire identity, which made them one of the premier teams in the league and the standard over the last 15 years.

It’s early, but Mike Macdonald is trending toward having a Carroll-level impact on the NFL. Frankly, he already has way more of a footprint on the league than you may realize.

This article from The Athletic's Ted Nguyen, written shortly after Macdonald was hired by Seattle, puts Macdonald’s philosophy and scheme as a whole in amazing detail. The quote I love from this article is, “One coach I spoke with compared Macdonald collecting versatile players and moving them around on defense to what 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan does with Deebo Samuel and Christian McCaffrey on offense.” Macdonald’s defense prioritizes versatile players who can play in different spots around the field. His players get taught up to six different positions, all to set up different blitz packages and stunts to break out when an offense least expects it.

This style of defense isn’t something Macdonald invented, but getting the chance to learn under the Baltimore defensive coordinators, jumping to the college level for a year, and then back to the Ravens opened a lot of eyes in the NFL and turned this style of defense mainstream. Coordinators like Dean Pees and Wink Martindale (among others) laid the foundation for Macdonald and his scheme. These defenses put different people in similar spots but mix up who’s blitzing and stunting often. It’s far from the most complicated defenses out there, which is why I love the comparison to Shanahan’s offense because that isn’t either and it’s still taking over the league.

“This style of defense” isn’t exactly the most groundbreaking analysis I could give, so I’ll try and elaborate as best I can. Macdonald took different parts from Pees and Martindale’s defenses and put his twists on it. Many fans are familiar with Martindale and his non-stop blitzing. Macdonald ranks in the lower half of the league in blitzing but uses similar blitzes and stunts Martindale used. As for Pees’ spin on this defense, every article I’ve read called his defense “unique” and thought of it as very complicated for both the defensive players learning it, and the quarterback trying to beat it. Plenty of rotating coverages and, like Martindale and unlike Macdonald, blitzing a ton. While these are important distinctions from each other, they’re one and the same schematically speaking. A majority of two-high safeties, playing cover two, cover four and cover six out of those two-high structures, and rotating those safeties pre-and-post snap to go into a single high coverage, mostly cover one. None of these coverages are complicated stuff and this Seahawks defense hasn’t even really unlocked their funky blitz packages quite yet, and they’re still one of the best defenses in the league.

Every metric you look at has Seattle as an elite defense, especially the pass defense. Number two in EPA per play, number one in success rate per play, top two in dropback EPA, 10th in rushing EPA and 11th in rushing success rate. The pass defense stats jump out, but I’d argue the rush defense is more impressive. Seattle has lived in two-high structures and if you’ve ever heard a coach or quarterback talk about facing those defenses, the first words they’ll say are you have to run the ball. Being almost top 10 in multiple run defense statistics while playing in a defense made to stop the pass is incredible, something only a couple of other teams are doing, but by playing in different styles of defense.

This is a defense that went over not just a schematic turnaround, but a personnel one as well. Seattle brought in brand new linebackers and a new safety to be first-year starters learning a new system, and all of those new players have been playing as well as you could’ve hoped. I especially want to highlight the linebackers Jerome Baker and Tyrel Dodson. They’re a major reason this defense is third in plays giving up 20 yards or more and haven’t given up any plays over 40 yards. These two have been so sound in the run game, firing downhill and filling gaps up and never over-shooting responsibilities. The defensive line has been unbelievable so far and there’s a reason that with so much change on the back seven, Macdonald’s first draft pick was to add an interior defensive lineman. Byron Murphy II has been eating double teams and been immovable so far in his young career, which says a lot since he’s lined up next to Leonard Williams, a guy who’s been dominant for a long time now. (In the first play of the video below, he’s supposed to set up a stunt for 91 but wins so fast off the line of scrimmage he ends up getting pressure.) The defensive ends are Derrick Hall and Derrick Boye Mafe, who are fifth and sixth in run-stop win rate, according to ESPN Next Gen Stats.

This defense has the luxury to sit in two-high looks and rotate into a multitude of coverages in large part due to their defensive line mauling offenses in the run game and the linebackers filling in behind and playing sound and technical football, which is a massive testament to Macdonald being able to do this in year one, with many new pieces. The passing defense has been just as ruthless all while blitzing 19.2% of the time, eighth in the league. Mafe is fifth in pass rush win rate, but other than him it’s been a collective effort of stunting and creating leverages on blitzes, faking a blitz and bringing pressure from different sides of the field, which changes from play to play. They’re top five in average depth of the target, yards after catch, QB knockdowns, sacks and QB pressures. Not only are they not giving up big plays through the air or YAC, but they’re also getting immense pressure on quarterbacks while they do so.

Week four will be unquestionably their biggest test as they head to Detroit to play the Lions on Monday Night Football. Much of the talk will be about the Lions and their high-powered offense, and rightfully so. But as the game goes on, watch for how the safeties move around before the snap, all to try and trick Jared Goff into forcing a throw to someone he didn’t realize had moved. Watch for guys like Murphy and Johnathan Hankins creating gaps for the linebackers to shoot in the run game and how they take on multiple blocks as stunting pass rushers to create gaps for the athletic monsters like Mafe and Hall flying around the field. This is a defense that’s as well coached as any in the league with tons of fast and smart players that make offense a nightmare for quarterbacks and coaches, such a nightmare that some analysts (Mel Kiper, horrible take brother) have said they should ban split-safety defenses! This defense and coaching staff deserve your respect as one of the best in the league and what’s scary is that they’re only getting started.

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