Will Lions' revived rushing attack solve Mike Macdonald's Seahawks defense?
Aidan Hutchinson was shocked when he heard Mike Macdonald, his old defensive coordinator at Michigan, was hired as Seattle Seahawks head coach in January — not because Macdonald didn’t deserve to be a head coach in the NFL, but because of a conversation the two had when they were together in Ann Arbor.
“I remember him telling me he never wanted to be a head coach and then I saw he accepted the job and I was like, ‘You little liar,’” the Detroit Lions edge rusher said Thursday. “But no, he deserves it. I mean, they’re 3-0, they’re doing a good job so far. We got our hands full, but I think we got a good shot.”
Macdonald will bring his Seahawks to Ford Field on Monday night to face the Detroit Lions as one of five remaining unbeaten teams in the NFL.
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Geno Smith ranks third in the league in passing, D.K. Metcalf is on pace for nearly 1,500 yards receiving and Macdonald has put his stamp on a Seattle defense that ranks in the top five in nearly every major statistical category.
The Seahawks have given up the fifth fewest points in the league (14.3 per game), lead the NFL in pass defense at 132.2 yards per game and are playing with the same physicality and speed that were staples of Macdonald’s defenses at Michigan in 2021 and with the Baltimore Ravens the past two seasons.
“He’s doing a great job,” Lions coach Dan Campbell said. “He did a great job (in Baltimore), he’s doing a great job now. It’s one of the reasons they’re 3-0. And like I say, there are a number of things that he has taken that he did there with this team, but also, it’s different players. He’s got different players, different areas, different strengths than what they had in Baltimore.”
The Ravens handed the Lions their worst loss of last season, 38-6, when Macdonald seemed to crack the code to their high-scoring offense.
The Lions went three-and-out on their first three possessions of that game, trailed 28-0 before they had a first down and had 97 yards of offense in the first half.
Campbell said that game was such an abomination there’s little the Lions can take from it now as they prepare to face Macdonald’s defense against.
“That was so bad,” Campbell said. “Our gameplan, really in all three phases, you could burn it by 4 minutes into that game. It was a waste of a week. You just chuck it right out of the window and we’re out of our gameplan.”
At their root, Campbell said this year’s Seahawks still resemble the team that was a longtime NFC West power under Pete Carroll.
They return most of the nucleus that beat the Lions last season, 37-31 (in overtime), for the third straight year, and though they run a completely different scheme defensively, Campbell said Carroll’s defensive philosophy “is very much intact.”
“Look, they want to get you in third down and then create issues,” he said. “That’s where they can get you, get you in third down and now they’re causing problems, attacking your protections. They got guys that can cover, they’re sticky. So, that’s — we got to be in third-and-manageable. We got to be very efficient, first, second down, and then honestly, I think we got to win the explosive battle. We got to get some explosive on offense, and we got to shut theirs down.”
The Lions (2-1) have played well at times on offense this season, but haven’t done so on a sustained basis in any of their three games.
They scored 20 points in regulation before overpowering the Los Angeles Rams with their running game in overtime in Week 1, lost to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers when they attempted 56 passes in Week 2, and got back to their rushing roots in last week’s win over the Arizona Cardinals but failed to score in the second half of that game.
The Seahawks, whose wins have come against the Denver Broncos, New England Patriots and a Tua Tagovailoa-less Miami Dolphins team, have shown some vulnerability against the run — they allowed 185 yards rushing in their overtime win against the Patriots. And coming off their best rushing performance of the season, the Lions hope to flex their muscle on the ground again this week.
"We have be able to run the football," Lions assistant head coach Scottie Montgomery said. "There's a tremendous amount of (pride) for us that we do want to go establish ourselves and establish the run."
Dave Birkett is the author of the new book, "Detroit Lions: An Illustrated Timeline." Preorder it now from Reedy Press.
Contact him at dbirkett@freepress.com. Follow him on X and Instagram at @davebirkett.