FOXBORO, Mass. — As rap music bounced off the walls inside the visiting locker room at Gillette Stadium, Seattle Seahawks linebacker Tyrel Dodson sat tucked away in the back corner holding a keepsake unique to his new head coach, Mike Macdonald.
“I got a game ball, man,” Dodson said with a smile.
More specifically, he received a “closer” ball, something Macdonald has introduced in Seattle. It’s a reward for a player who delivers a game-changing play in the final moments of a victory. Two games into his coaching career, Macdonald already has given out of pair of them.
The first went to veteran receiver Tyler Lockett in Week 1; the second went to Dodson, whose one-on-one tackle against Rhamondre Stevenson in overtime forced the punt that allowed Seattle’s offense to orchestrate a game-winning drive. It did, capped by Jason Myers’ 31-yard field goal to secure a 23-20 victory over the New England Patriots.
The mindset Seattle’s defense had to begin overtime also represents the attitude Macdonald wants. Despite giving up a combined 121 yards and a go-ahead touchdown run to Stevenson and Antonio Gibson in the second half, Seattle’s defense was fine with quarterback Geno Smith losing the coin toss to put it on field first.
The Seahawks aspire to be the best in the world on defense. Before the opening drive of overtime, veterans Jarran Reed, Julian Love and Rayshawn Jenkins reinforced that message. The gist, according to Jenkins: “If we’re gonna be the guys we think we are, we gotta live in these moments right here.”
Facing third-and-1 from the 39-yard line, Dodson anticipated a run his way, stepped into the C-gap and stonewalled the 227-pound Stevenson for no gain. The veteran free-agent signee earned the offense a chance to end the game — and earned even more respect from his teammates, who saw him spend most of the week in the training room because of a shoulder injury. That same injury limited him during Sunday’s game against a run-heavy team with a bruiser at running back.
“It was a hell of a play, man,” Jenkins said. “I know he got a shoulder (injury) right now, but he decided to just lay everything on the line.”
Equally deserving of a “closer” ball Sunday was Smith, who put the offense on his shoulders. Seattle was without Ken Walker III (oblique), and its run game was nonexistent. The offensive line was down its third-string right tackle, and the right guards rotated throughout the game.
Despite that, and excluding his spike at the end of the first half, Smith completed 33 of 43 passes for 327 yards. He would have put up even better numbers had five of his attempts not been dropped. Both DK Metcalf (129 yards) and Jaxon Smith-Njigba (117) topped 100 yards receiving, the latter doing so for the first time in his career.
WIDE OPEN @dkm14 🤯 pic.twitter.com/rHIeaVSkOL
— Seattle Seahawks (@Seahawks) September 15, 2024
“Shout out to my family, honestly — a lot of people were texting me (Sunday) saying, ‘You’re going to have a big day today,’” Smith-Njigba said. “I appreciate that.”
Trailing 20-17 with 3:54 left in regulation, Smith completed 4 of 5 passes (with a drop by tight end by Noah Fant) on a drive that put Seattle in the red zone and set up a game-tying field goal. In overtime, Smith completed passes to Smith-Njigba and Metcalf for a total of 15 yards, then got 20 more when Lockett drew a defensive pass interference penalty on the Patriots.
Smith and Smith-Njigba hooked up again for 4 yards but couldn’t connect on a second-down deep shot against man coverage. On a crucial third-and-6 at the New England 45, offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb called a man-coverage beater, in anticipation of the Patriots running a Cover 0 blitz with heat coming from Smith’s right.
In the first quarter, the Seahawks had shown a look that forced New England to check out of a Cover 0 blitz, which led to a miscommunication on defense and a 56-yard touchdown from Smith to a wide-open Metcalf. Smith and Grubb, though, knew the Patriots would come back to Cover 0 in a gotta-have-it situation. On the overtime play, Zach Charbonnet leaked to the left, caught the ball in the flat and flipped over a defender for a first down to the 38.
“Grubb was on it,” Smith said.
Needing another big play to make the field goal easier for Myers, who also received a “closer” game ball Sunday, Smith went to his Week 1 closer. New England blanketed a designed rollout to the right, so Smith reversed course and floated a ball to Lockett, who beat cornerback Jonathan Jones (also the guilty party on the aforementioned pass interference) for 16 yards.
Those were some well-earned game balls today.
Go inside the locker room postgame with Coach Macdonald. pic.twitter.com/7tEmVAtNVs
— Seattle Seahawks (@Seahawks) September 16, 2024
“I wouldn’t advise that to young quarterbacks watching — if you sprint right, you usually don’t cut and reverse field,” Smith said, laughing. “But in dire times, you’ve got to make a play. I felt like that was a situation where we needed it. Just happy it worked out the way it did.”
Both clubs entered this game wanting to establish a presence on the ground, but only the home team completed that mission. Charbonnet rushed for just 38 yards on 14 carries. His longest run of the day was a 9-yard carry in overtime to set up the game-winning kick. He also had a 1-yard touchdown run in the first half.
Even though Seattle’s offense was one-dimensional, and its pass catchers were having issues, Smith consistently remained positive on the sideline, pushing a “killer mindset” that teammates say provided much-needed energy in a road game that kicked off at 10 a.m. PT.
“The whole game on the sideline, he was bringing juice,” Love said. “People feed off that. Offense, they go with him. Defensively, we try to fuel him up, as well. He’s special, and I’m grateful to have him.”
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On the flip side, Love said, Seattle’s defense didn’t have enough juice. Perhaps that’s why the sound tackling the team displayed in Week 1 didn’t carry over into Week 2. Seattle knew New England would have a run-heavy gameplan, yet Stevenson and Gibson still combined for 177 yards on 32 attempts, an average of 5.5 per rush.
“Every dog has his day, you know,” Dodson said. “You ain’t gonna have a perfect day. We’ve got to get back on the drawing board, see where we can get better and have honest criticism with each other, be honest with each other, look each other in the face and be like, ‘We’ve gotta get better,’ and then move on.”
Seattle also knew it needed to be better at getting the quarterback on the ground. The Seahawks led the league in pressure rate in Week 1 but recorded just two sacks — and both of those came on scrambles out of bounds behind the line of scrimmage. Sunday, the Seahawks often moved Patriots quarterback Jacoby Brissett off his spot, but he consistently eluded pressure, particularly during a first half in which he was only sacked once.
“He’s a big quarterback, bruh,” rookie defensive tackle Byron Murphy II said. “I don’t know how he do it, he just stay up and get rid of the ball. He was tough at first, but we just kept rushing, kept going and finally got him down.”
Murphy, Seattle’s first-round pick, logged his first career sack — split with Leonard Williams — in the fourth quarter. With Seattle trailing 20-17 and only 4:44 left on the clock, Murphy beat his one-on-one block against a guard for a loss of 9 on third-and-6 from the Seahawks’ 21. That play pushed New England’s ensuing field goal attempt back and led to what Seattle anticipated would be a kick of a lower trajectory.
Love took advantage, knifed through the line and got a hand on it.
“I knew we had ’em,” Smith said. “When he blocked the kick, I feel like it turned the momentum. You could see they put their heads down a little bit. Their defense was like, ‘Aw, man, we’ve gotta stop these guys.’ That’s when we put our foot on the pedal. We started really going after them and made some big plays.”
BLOCKED BY J LOVE! pic.twitter.com/ej3rNNUFG6
— Seattle Seahawks (@Seahawks) September 15, 2024
The Seahawks have begun the Macdonald era with a pair of one-score wins against two teams in rebuilding mode. Their issues stopping the run and getting production out of their own ground game feel familiar. As the Seahawks fly back home Sunday evening, those topics will undoubtedly be atop their minds.
At the same time, they delivered clutch plays in all three phases and earned a tough road win Sunday. Now, Seattle also has the luxury of working out the kinks while unbeaten and atop the NFC West standings.
That’s why Macdonald’s introduction of the “closer” game ball feels notable. Macdonald knows the margins in the NFL are thin, and every clutch win is going to require a big-time moment from someone — even if they’re battling injuries, like Lockett (who missed nearly all camp with a thigh injury) and Dodson were before earning their respective honors.
“It was (an) ugly win,” Dodson said. “There’s things I can get better at communication-wise, run-game wise, but a win is a win. It’s hard to get a win in this league, so I’ll take it.”
(Photo of Tyler Lockett: Fred Kfoury III / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
