Building A Good Foundation & Other Things We Learned From Seahawks OTAs

While the action on the field Wednesday is starting to resemble football more than earlier phases of the offseason program, with the offense and defense allowed to go against each other, albeit in non-contact scenarios. But what we’re seeing from the Seahawks under a new coaching staff is a long ways from the finished product, with Macdonald noting that he and the defensive staff have only installed 20 percent of the defense so far.

The plan, Macdonald explained, is to build a baseline of fundamentals and concepts for the defense, then to later focus on installing specific plays.

“We’re chasing the baseline, base fundamentals,” he said. “It’s not a huge install, it’s concepts. We’ll get the base concepts in, then we’ll go from there.”

Macdonald said that in addition to taking their time in installing things, he will also be flexible to assure things are progressing at a rate that’s best for the team’s growth.

“We’re still installing,” he said. “We’re going to installing defensively throughout. Install two was today, and we’ll evaluate it as we go. If the guys are slow to make some checks, anticipating things, we’ll make some decisions so it doesn’t pile on, so we don’t get too far behind. I’m not really worried about the pace of how fast we get everything in. We want a really good foundation for when we get into camp. So we have a schedule, but we’ll adjust as we go.

Macdonald added that they’re “chasing execution” and said the pace of installing a defense can vary. For example, he noted that his year as defensive coordinator at Michigan went at a slower pace, as did his first year installing the defense in Baltimore, whereas things moved at a different pace in his second year as the Ravens’ coordinator.

“If you go in with an open mind of, ‘Hey, let’s do what make sense for this group,’ that’s where you end up in the right spot,” he said.

Macdonald later added, “I think we have a pretty clear vision of how we want practice to go. We want to be fast, we want to execute, we want to be loud, we want to get the job done, and we want to get the heck out of here. So there’s not a lot of lollygagging around. You don’t practice to practice, you’re practicing to train to go play the game. So a lot of the decisions that we’re making are inspired by that kind of principle being…