It’s week 3 of the NFL season, and the 0-2 Washington Commanders will be facing a 2-0 Seattle Seahawks team at home in Northwest Stadium in Landover, MD this Sunday at 1:00 p.m. ET. Despite losing starting QB Sam Darnold to a glute injury on the first drive of the first game, the Seahawks have managed to beat the Patriots 13-10 in week 1 and beat the Cardinals 31-7 in week 2. It is unclear if Darnold will return to play in week 3, but he has practiced this week.
On offense, the Seahawks are coached
by OC Brian Fleury, former TEs coach and run-game coordinator of the 49ers from 2022 to 2025. A TEs coach has good insight into both the blocking and pass-catching aspects of offense due to TEs being heavily involved in both duties. The fact that Fleury was also the run-game coordinator for the 49ers means he should be well suited to understanding and coaching all aspects of the Shanahan offense (note that Cowboys OC Klayton Adams was formerly a TEs coach for the Colts and OL coach for the Cardinals who designed their prolific run game before moving to Dallas). So far, the Seahawks offense has stayed true to its Shanahan roots, with heavy use of under center, play action passing, and an outside-zone run game. Perhaps to simplify the passing game for a backup QB, the Seahawks have been targeting WR Jaxon Smith-Njigba with an absurd 44% share of targets (last year he led the NFL with a 35.8% target share). It makes sense to simplify things for your backup QB by scheming him to just throw it to his best player.
On defense, the Seahawks are still coached by head coach Mike Macdonald, former DC of the Ravens, and DC Aden Durde, former defensive line coach of the Cowboys. Perhaps unsurprising given that their DC is a former DL coach, the Seahawks defense is anchored around the excellent play of their defensive line. Last year, the Seahawks were able to achieve the 6th-best QB pressure rate despite the 7th-lowest blitz rate, meaning they were able to get pressure rushing four most of the time, and leave more players back in coverage to stop passing plays and explosive plays. The result is a defense that allows the NFL’s fewest passing yards and 9th-fewest rushing yards through two games this year.
I asked John Gilbert of Field Gulls five questions to better understand the state of the Seahawks and what to look for in this game.
1) The Seahawks defense has held their opponents to 10 or fewer points in the last two games. How much of this is personnel, how much is scheme, and what is special about Mike Macdonald’s scheme and playcalling?
Holding both 2026 opponents they have faced to 10 or fewer points really seems to be a continuation of how the Seattle defense finished the 2025 season, which was by holding five of the last nine teams played to 10 or fewer points. Of the games in which the other team has managed to put more than ten points on the board against this defense since Thanksgiving, they were quarterbacked by Philip Rivers (16), Matthew Stafford (37 & 27) and Drake Maye (13), and any team with a quarterback that isn’t in the tier of those named has struggled against the defense.
As for what makes Macdonald’s defense so successful, it’s not one thing in particular. The players are good, but Macdonald makes them better by putting them in a position to succeed by understanding the tendencies of the opponent, while simultaneously giving his players the freedom to operate as needed for success. For example, former undrafted free agent linebacker Drake Thomas changed the defensive front Macdonald had called on a key second and one near midfield early in the game against the Cardinals. Similarly, on the fourth down that effectively clinched the NFC Championship for the Seahawks, DeMarcus Lawrence recognized what the Rams were trying to do and broke off his assignment to prevent Stafford having an easy completion to Kyren Williams for either a first down or score. It’s a rare combination of a scheme that confuses opponents, with players who perform at a high level within the system and have the skills and football IQ to operate with a higher level of freedom, and the experience necessary in the system to play fast without having to think to analyze how to react.
2) On the other side of the ball, how has the Seahawks offense looked? Is it different under new OC Brian Fleury and what changes with Drew Lock vs Sam Darnold at QB?
The season opener did not start off well for anyone hoping for the offense would be as explosive as it was last season, as the team was shutout by the Patriots until after halftime. Certainly a part of that is likely due to the fact that Sam Darnold’s injury meant Drew Lock taking over, as well as some rust overall as the starters had not played during the preseason.
The fact that the backup is in at quarterback means the jury is largely still out as far as a lot of the questions that surrounded the offense heading into the season.
With that said, through the first two games one of the consistent threads that has continued through from 2025 has been the continued usage of two and three tight end packages. Specifically, during the 2025 season the Seahawks used 12- or 13-personnel on a little more than a third of their offensive snaps, while so far in 2026 the usage has been even higher. A big piece of that, of course, is likely that they were up big and running the ball a lot against the Cardinals in the second half of Week 2, so it remains to be seen how much they’ll rely on their tight end heavy packages in more competitive contests.
In addition, Fleury has tweaked how the Seattle offense uses motion through the first two games, and that has made things more difficult for opponents to figure out what’s coming.
3) What is your overall opinion of Seahawks GM John Schneider and has it evolved since the hiring of Mike Macdonald? Did you ever think he should have been sent packing along with Pete Carroll for a completely fresh start?
After coming out of the gates on an absolute scorcher and drafting multiple Hall of Fame caliber players to start his career as a general manager, things went off the rails for several years. From 2017 through 2021 the results of the team’s drafting was not on par with what is necessary for sustained success in the NFL, and that certainly contributed to Carroll’s demise. A big piece of the issues from 2018 on appear to have been reworking the draft board and an over reliance on looking for “maturity” in the wake of the Malik McDowell debacle of 2017. Beginning in 2018 the Seahawks draft classes were consistently among the oldest in the NFL, while many of their biggest hits to come out of those drafts were players like DK Metcalf who were among the younger members of their respective draft class.
Where the wheels truly came off, though, was when the Seahawks made a conscious decision to effectively punt on the 2021 draft as a result of the anticipated uncertainty of the COVID season. Seattle made only three selections in the 2021 draft after trading a first and a third for Jamal Adams, a fifth for Gabe Jackson and a seventh for Carlos Dunlap. Of course, the draft is about uncertainty, and the Loser’s Curse is a concept developed decades ago regarding the uncertainty of the draft.
That all said, since 2022 Schneider has been back on a heater, and the quality of the roster shows. Even after the departure in free agency of Kenneth Walker, Coby Bryant, Boye Mafe and Tariq Woolen, the team is stacked and Schneider has secured his place with the team for years to come, in spite of many calls (including my own) for the team to move on when it moved on from Carroll.
4) Who is one Seahawks player on offense and one player on defense that Washington fans probably don’t know much about, but should?
The aforementioned Drake Thomas on defense is a player Commanders fans may not know, but he will seemingly be everywhere on defense against both the run and in coverage. Thomas came to Seattle as a waiver claim in 2023 during Carroll’s final season, and laid claim to a starting spot at linebacker in 2025, and at this point there appears to be no looking back.
On offense, Commanders fans certainly know JSN, and Tory Horton’s performance against the Commanders during the 2025 season may be etched into the memory of many Washington fans, but A.J. Barner is the name to watch out for. The third-year tight end is a monster as a blocker, and dangerous enough as a receiving threat that the coaches aren’t hesitant to call his number during high leverage situations.
5) How should Washington go about gameplanning this matchup on both sides of the ball?
In the past, the way to gameplan when facing Drew Lock has been to sit back and wait for Lock to make a mistake, but so far this year he has played largely mistake-free football. That makes it likely that the best way to slow down the offense is to focus on stopping the run enough on early downs that Lock is forced to make plays on third and long, which might eventually lead to turnovers or punts. However, so far this season, Lock has not hesitated to push the easy button and just throw it to JSN, so Washington will need to stop, or at least slow down, JSN in order to have a shot.
On the other side of the ball, the defense can be attacked, but it has been savvy veterans or young gunslingers who have found success against Macdonald’s defense, and that’s not how most fans and observers would describe Mariota, so it may be as simple as relying on Mariota to freelance and make things happen with his legs in order for the Commanders to stay in the game.
A companion article to this with my answers to John’s questions will be linked here when it is available.
Thanks again to John Gilbert for taking time out of his day to answer our questions about the Seahawks.
