Elegant Simplicity, Obnoxious Communication & Other Takeaways From Day 2 Of Seahawks Training Camp

Throughout his career, Mike Macdonald has coached defense, and in Seattle he’ll continue to run things on that side of the ball along with defensive coordinator Aden Durde. But as a head coach, Macdonald also has plenty of say in what things look like on offense and special teams as well. Offensive coordinator, Ryan Grubb, of course will have his fingerprints all over Seattle’s offense, but Macdonald will also offer his input, and on Thursday he talked a bit about what he wants to see from an offense.

“I think you go back to the identity of our football team,” Macdonald said. “We want to be physical, we want to dictate terms, we want to be efficient, we want to operate fast for the quarterback and keep it consistent for him. We want to be able to get to a lot of things, elegant simplicity. We’re not just going to run inside zone 70 times a game, we’re going to try to have answers and really attack what defense do.

Asked about that term, elegant simplicity, Macdonald said, “That’s been around for a minute, but I think it paints a pretty good picture of what we’re trying to create.”

When it comes to dictating terms, as Macdonald explained how he hopes to get that done.

“Well first it comes with the mindset in how you want to play and everyone deciding on the style you’re going to play,” he said. “Some of those things that we’re talking about, that’s our language that we’re going to speak in-house, but you talk about schematically having answers and being able to identify certain things what the defense is doing, and being able to get to those things simply and consistently so you’re not just chasing your tail. Also, there is going to be plenty of times when you’re going to want to run your bread-and-butter stuff and be able to do that every defensive look they can give you, so defenses aren’t making you get in and out of stuff based off what they show and you’re really flipping the page around that and those terms.”