Little by little, we’re beginning to know more about new Seahawks head coach Mike Macdonald. While we can only learn so much before watching his scheme in action, Macdonald has willingly shared some of his philosophy about the game. Another defense-first head coach like Pete Carroll, Macdonald’s first challenge will be turning around a unit that has finished in the bottom three each of the last two seasons.
Part of the equation requires a revamp of the linebacker position, where Seattle has exchanged Bobby Wagner and Jordyn Brooks for Tyrel Dodson and Jerome Baker. We now know that Dodson will be taking over Wagner’s former role at middle linebacker and Baker will play WLB. This week Macdonald shared some thoughts about them as well as what he will expect from everyone at this position, per Mike Dugar at the Athletic.
“Two guys that can run. Two intelligent football players. Tough. I thought they were both good tacklers. They’re both good players in space. Those are things we’re asking of our inside ‘backers. Those guys gotta take up a lot of ground, man. They gotta play people out of the backfield, they gotta play all the choice routes on the weakside, which is hard to do… I think we got the right guys for the job. They’ve gotta blitz, play man-to-man. We ask a lot out of our inside ‘backers. It’ll be a great battle, and we’ll see how it comes to life, but I think there’s some opportunity there to have a little more position flexibility than I think maybe you saw in Baltimore.”
Flexibility is the key word and it doesn’t just apply to the off-ball linebackers. One common theme we have seen in the team’s free agent pickups this year has been positional versatility. New safeties Rayshawn Jenkins and K’Von Wallace can line up everywhere on the back end of that defense. We should assume the same will be true about any cornerbacks the team adds in the upcoming draft.
Overall it sounds like Macdonald is going to take a far more modern approach to defense than Carroll did. Even though the scheme changed from season to season and coordinator to coordinator it somehow ended up being predictable every year – from too much zone to too few post-snap shifts. There’s a whole lot more to being head coach than excelling in your one particular fief, but fans should rest assured that Macdonald will get this Seahawks defense finally up to date.
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