The Seattle Seahawks have three more days until their next preseason game, a Sunday night test against the Tennessee Titans that will probably be less consequential to coaches than the joint practice between the two teams on Friday. Said Julian Love about joint practice compared to a preseason game:
"It's a lot of intentional reps," Love said. "You're not just going through a game setting. You're doing one-on-ones against these guys, you're doing third down period, like certain concept periods against them but you're going full go. It's cool where you get intentional work. It's always good to see other ones. You can read and react because me as a defensive back, it's nice when you can play a ball in a different setting against different people, get some different tendencies and stuff. We're going to value it; the whole team is going to take advantage of these reps because they're important."
It’s in that environment that Mike Macdonald will get a better sense of where his starters are at less than three weeks away from the season opener, whereas the game on Sunday will be a second opportunity to evaluate the depth.
Hopefully it will offer coaches more optimism about Seattle’s backups on offense than Saturday’s loss to the Dallas Cowboys. At least we were reminded about what separated the Seahawks from every other Super Bowl hopeful last season:
Defense and Special Teams.
In several new breakdown videos by Coach DC of All-22 Films, a YouTuber who Seaside Joe has had a great relationship with since Macdonald became Seattle’s head coach in 2024 (Coach DC is a Ravens fan who has been converted into a Seahawks content creator), insights into how Seattle plans to repeat as champions were still apparent in that 17-7 loss.
Varied Defensive Coverages
Hidden Intentions with Disguised Pre-Snap Looks
Versatility of Roles by Everyone on Defense
Nickel Defensive Backs Who are Chameleons
Exciting Depth at All Three Levels of Defense
Coach DC’s first breakdowns of the preseason offer insights into Bud Clark, Tyrice Knight, and Rylie Mills, but also of course Mike Macdonald and Aden Durde, the latter of whom called plays against his former team.
Nick Emmanwori won’t be seen in a game until Week 1, at the soonest, but Seattle’s immediate success with backups like D’Anthony Bell show that when the Seahawks get back their breakout star from last season, that’s when they can really take off.
Liev Schrieber “Hard Knocks” voice:
“While the Seahawks player and coaches must show up every season, there are some writers out there covering the team who show up (dramatic pause) every day.”
Today is the 2,727th consecutive day that I’ve posted at least one newsletter about the Seahawks. That’s every day since March 4, 2019. Don’t take it from Liev Schreiber, take it from the thousands of fans subscribed to Seaside Joe and the record-high rate of paid subscribers for a Substack newsletter: This is a good newsletter for Seahawks fans!
If you sign up for a full year today, you will be paid through the 2027 preseason already. Lots of premium content and the only guarantee that no matter what’s happening in your life or mine, I will be here for you to talk about the Seahawks every day:
Now back to Liev Schreiber Coach DC’s coverage of the Seahawks.
All-22 Films: Mike Macdonald
Coach DC starts by looking at Seattle’s defensive gameplan against 21 personnel (2 RB, 1 TE, 2 WR) by the Cowboys. These coverages by Aden Durde on Saturday included:
Nickel 3-4: Maintain a 3-4 front (3 defensive linemen, 2 OLB+2 LB), also known as 5-2, before the snap. The Weakside Linebacker walks up to the line as an edge defender and the nickel defensive back sits in the box on the side of the tight end.
Here’s what that looks like before the snap:
You see seven in the box (5 down linemen, 2 linebackers) and Tyrice Knight moving up as an edge rusher. That other “linebacker” you see to the left of Patrick O’Connell is actually D’Anthony Bell (#23), which is the same as having a nickel on the field
But pre-snap this would not be a “nickel” look because it only leaves two safeties and two cornerbacks in the secondary. Remember, the Seahawks only have to cover two receivers and one tight end because the Cowboys are in 21 personnel.
But at the snap, Knight drops back into coverage and Seattle only rushes four players, while the deep safety (far right of the screenshot) drops into a buzz cover-3 (one deep safety) and Bud Clark (highlighted) moves towards the LOS:
The Cowboys thought they might get a player open against the pre-snap look but then Durde/Macdonald drops seven and Seattle still has a nickel on the field.
Cover 3 Buzz:
A common coverage response is a “buzz” or “insert” Cover 3. The safety (e.g., Bud Clark) rotates down to cover the hash, while the nickel defender pushes to the flat. This creates a flexible structure that allows safeties to impact both the pass and run games.
In a minute, I’ll link All-22’s Knight and Clark-specific breakdown videos from the first preseason game. Yes, there really is that much good stuff.
Nickel 4-3
Later in the video (6:30 mark), All-22 breaks down Seattle’s “nickel 4-3” alignment, which utilizes a 4-3 front (four defensive linemen, three linebackers), leaving the nickel defender in as a run-stopper in the box. It looks like this:
The nickel (circled) is the #7 player against the run and Clark (shown) is the #8 player against the run. So the Seahawks are fully prepared for Dallas’s lead zone run concept.
Surprisingly, the run tackle is actually made by Rodney Thomas II, the deep safety who quickly diagnoses the play and makes the stop after the Cowboys properly blocked everyone else. Clark takes “a little bit of a false step” at the snap, causing him to hesitate just enough for Thomas to make the tackle before he gets there. Clark helps though.
Aggressive Adjustments
Later in the game, #17 Noah Igbinoghene (blurred in this screenshot) makes a tackle for a loss when the Seahawks call a corner blitz, which Coach DC emphasizes is “through the B-gap”, meaning not around the offensive tackle but between the tackle and the guard:
These three defensive plays emphasize the versatility and unpredictably of the nickel player in Mike Macdonald’s defense.
Is he a linebacker? Is he a safety? Is he a cornerback? Is he rushing the passer? Is he attacking the run? Is he dropping or rushing or defending the flats?
In this game, we obviously didn’t see Emmanwori in that role. We saw a variety of players, many of whom we don’t know for sure will make the final 53-man roster, and yet they still were efficient and effective because of the scheme.
This scheme — which keeps the looks varied and dynamic by hiding their intentions pre-snap — helps Macdonald dictate the flow of the game when on defense perhaps more than any other defensive coordinator and/or head coach in the NFL today.
There’s just too much confusion and it causes unforced errors by the offense, which is the side of the ball that’s supposed to dictate the game.
Instead, Macdonald (and in this case Durde) are calling plays that they’re daring the offense to predict and beat, which as we saw last season, they can rarely do.
Rylie Mills
I won’t break down each video today. Instead, if you watch these clips and want to share your thoughts, please drop them in the comments below.
Our friend Alexandre Castro also did a written Rylie Mills breakdown for Field Gulls that I recommend you to read.
Bud Clark
Tyrice Knight
Clark and Knight are two players who did figure to have a major role in the team at some point this season. Maybe sooner that you expect.
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Aidan Hubbard
This is a different channel, but still Seahawks content. To be fair, this same channel said last year that Jared Ivey and Connor O’Toole were “elite” and all that stuff, so take it with a grain of salt. I mean, Ivey and O’Toole are fine, maybe they’ll even be good this season, but this is “overhype” season right now.
I hope he’s right about literally any of them.
Trevon Diggs
Does Diggs fit?
Let me know what you think of these videos, and if you see any others that I missed then drop them in the comments below.