Ernest Jones loves ‘Death Zone’ for surging Seahawks D. Geno Smith? He’s lived in urgency
The Seahawks trying to get to the playoffs?
Their rookie coach has had them in urgent, “playoff mode” for a month now.
“Desperate times required desperate measures,” Mike Macdonald said this week of his Seahawks’ turnaround from last place to first since he cracked a whip on them in mid-November.
“And I wouldn’t say it was desperate, but we had to start stringing wins together. Otherwise, our fate wasn’t going to be in our hands come this time of the year.”
Now it is. The Seahawks have won four in a row since the 37-year-old head coach pressed hard on them in coming out of their bye week last month. They’ve gone from 4-5 to 8-5 and into first place in the NFC West. They have four games remaining to win the division. The first is Sunday night at Lumen Field against the 9-4 Green Bay Packers (5:20 p.m., KING-5 television).
Players across Seattle’s locker room have talked in the last week how Macdonald demanded and how they’ve responded.
Geno Smith? He isn’t making a big deal out of this urgent mode the Seahawks are grinding through
“I’ve been in ‘playoff mode’ my whole life,” Seattle’s 34-year-old quarterback said before practice Thursday.
“Nothing is going to change for me. Every day I live and die by it.”
Why has he been in ‘playoff mode’ his whole life?
“Man, born in Miami, Florida. A Black man in this world. Come on now. Simple,” Smith, raised in south Florida by his mother Tracey Sellers and grandmother Joann Smith, said.
Ernest Jones IV calls it ‘death zone’
Ernest Jones says he and his defense have come up with another name for Macdonald’s playoff push early. And, yes, it was way early, almost three weeks before Thanksgiving, and with eight games remaining in the regular season.
The middle linebacker calls what the Seahawks have been in the last month and will be the next four games “the death zone.” As in, lose one and your playoff hopes are dead.
Jones said that inside State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona, last weekend. He did immediately following Seattle’s fourth consecutive win led by Jones and the defense, at Arizona.
In the day since that 30-18 victory, Seahawks fans are taking Jones’ “death zone” comment and calling the team’s resurgent defense under defensive guru Macdonald the “death zone.” An updated “Legion of Boom”-like nickname, if they dare from Seattle’s league-best, Super Bowl heyday of 10 years ago.
“I love it. I love it. I love it. I love it.,” Jones said Thursday.
Yes, four “love its” for his unit that’s led the NFL in allowing just 15 points per game in regulation the last four weeks to be called “the death zone” defense.
“I want our defense to be remembered,” Jones said. “I want the defense that I’m on and the players on our defensive side to really be remembered.”
He wants the Packers, the Vikings the next week, the Bears entering the Dec. 26 game in Chicago and the Rams to end the regular season to think “when you’re playing Seattle, you’ve got to handle the defense.”
The Rams’ Super Bowl-winning linebacker during his first four NFL seasons for Los Angeles arrived in Seattle in a late-October trade. Macdonald and general manager John Schneider got the just-turned-25-year-old Jones in a trade from Tennessee. He arrived to be the run-stopping middle linebacker Macdonald demanded and for the season’s first two months lacked.
He’s been far more than that.
Jones has been revolutionary. Teams are no longer running at will on Seattle since he’s arrived. Arizona entered their game at Lumen Field averaging 149 yards on the ground per game. Jones, dominant defensive end Leonard Williams and the Seahawks held the Cardinals to 49 yards rushing in Seattle’s 16-6 win.
And last week in throttling the Cardinals again, Jones dropped deep into his hook-curl zone coverage responsibility and intercepted Kyler Murray’s pass as if Murray didn’t see him. That sparked the Seahawks’ 24-point first half in a 30-18 victory.
Packers-Seahawks history
The Packers come into Lumen Field Sunday fifth in the league in rushing offense at more than 144 yards per game. Lead back Josh Jacobs, who romped for 229 yards with the 86-yard touchdown run in overtime to send his then-Raiders over the Seahawks in Seattle in 2022, has 1,053 yards and 11 touchdowns this season. That’s twice the rushing total for the Seahawks’ leading rusher, injured Kenneth Walker.
Walker may miss his second consecutive game Sunday. He has a calf injury.
The Seahawks and Packers have had a high-profile rivalry since Mike Holmgren was coaching Seattle in the early 2000s. They played the Golden Tate “Fail Mary” game in Seattle in 2012. They’ve met four times in the playoff since Jan. 4, 2004. That cold day in Green Bay, Seahawks quarterback Matt Hasselbeck won the overtime coin toss, declared “we want the ball and we’re going to score”—then threw the interception the Packers ran back for the winning touchdown.
In the NFC championship game in January 2015 at Lumen Field, the Seahawks rallied from down 16-0 in the second half on punter Jon Ryan’s fake-punt touchdown pass to tackle Garry Gilliam. Russell Wilson, probably concussed from a hit by Green Bay linebacker Clay Matthews in the second half, threw a touchdown pass in overtime to Jermaine Kearse. Seattle won the NFC title and returned to the Super Bowl for the second consecutive season.
Jones hasn’t even been with the team for two full months. Yet he’s immersed enough already in Seahawks lore to know the history behind this game Sunday night.
“I’m learning. I’m learning this is a big one, not just because it’s the next game, because it’s the Packers, and there’s some rivalry there.” Jones said.
He knows enough about Seahawks history to know they are among his all-time NFL defenses he’s admired.
“I can’t go without saying Legion of Boom. Rightfully so. They were them guys,” Jones said.
“But for me, my favorite player was Ray Lewis (the former Baltimore Ravens middle linebacker and Hall of Famer). So every defense he was a part of, I felt like he had a big way in how they played just because of his energy, the way he played, the way he led those guys. Yeah, it would definitely have to be a lot of Baltimore, for sure.”
Smith likes the nickname that’s growing for the Seahawks’ surging defense.
Even more, the quarterback who led the NFL in interceptions into late November likes Jones and the Seahawks defense controlling games so all he needs to do is avoid interceptions to win the game. That’s been the case in Seattle’s wins at the Jets and Cardinals the last two weeks.
He’s all for the Seahawks’ “Death Zone” defense.
“I like that name. I like that name right there,” Smith said. “I think it fits them well, suits them well.”
This story was originally published December 13, 2024 at 5:00 AM.
