Using huge Brandon Pili on kickoff more of why the Seahawks love their coaches
Jay Harbaugh had an idea.
A large — a 6-foot-3, 344-pound man-on-the-loose — idea.
Let’s put back-up nose tackle Brandon Pili among the little sprinters on the Seahawks’ kickoff team. That’s what Seattle’s special-teams coach told his boss, head coach Mike Macdonald, and Pili this past week.
What could go wrong?
Everything. For the Washington Commanders.
Harbaugh’s unorthodox move — and Pili’s flying, punch-out tackle of Washington’s kickoff returner in the second quarter — decisively changed the Seahawks’ game Sunday night in suburban D.C. into a rout of the Commanders.
“John (Benton, Seahawks offensive line coach) and I were just laughing when Jay said, ‘Well, now we can play Brandon Pili on the kickoff team,’” Macdonald said early Monday morning, before his 6-2 leaders of the NFC West flew happily back home.
“I kind of took a deep breath — and tried to figure out what the heck was going on.”
Jaylin Lane tried to do the same thing.
The Commanders’ return man fielded Jason Myers’ kickoff at his own goal line a moment after the Seahawks had taken a 14-0 lead 6 minutes into the second quarter Monday night. Lane was minding his own business running straight up the field, then ... WHACK! The massive Pili, the largest player of the 22 on the field for the play, swooped down onto Lane from the side like a condor. Pili jumped and attacked Lane over the return man’s left shoulder. Lane didn’t know what, or who, hit him. Pili dropped an anvil. His punch with a closed fist came down from the Maryland night sky, directly onto the football Lane was holding in his left arm. Pili’s punch knocked the ball free. Seattle’s Connor O’Toole recovered the fumble at the Washington 26-yard line.
On the next play, Sam Darnold threw his second touchdown pass in 11 seconds, and third of the first half. The 26-yard strike to rookie tight end Elijah Arroyo was the home-run shot off a sudden change Macdonald has the Seahawks practice regularly.
Just like that, 21-0 Seahawks. Game over.
“I mean, who puts a defensive tackle on the kickoff team? And who’s bought into the role, and then goes out, and it’s kind of like, ball-finds-energy-type of thing?” Macdonald said, marveling at Harbaugh’s chutzpah.
“You go out, you have a great attitude. You prepare the right way, do your job to the 100% of your ability. And it’s funny how things work out like that ...
“Happy for Brandon.”
In another bumpin’, joyous Seahawks locker room following their sixth win in seven games, Pili laughed at The News Tribune asking him the last time he’d been on a kickoff team.
“I wanna say ... middle school?” back home in Anchorage, Alaska, Pili said. He had a huge grin. “I was surprised. And I didn’t mind it,” he said. Harbaugh’s thinking, however unconventional: Pili wouldn’t have to run as far as kickoff guys used to have to run to cover kicks.
The NFL’s new rules for kickoffs place the one-line coverage unit along the receiving team’s 40-yard line, 5-10 yards from the one line of receiving-team blockers. The kicker is back at his own 35, like previous kickoffs. He sends the ball over the lines targeting the zone between the goal line and 20-yard line.
By new rules, kickoffs that land there force a return. By the time the kick-coverage line reaches the receiver on his return, the runner is typically around the 20- to 25-yard line. So Pili ran about 15 yards, instead of 50-plus yards guys used to sprint to cover kickoffs under old rules. Harbaugh’s logic was to put the more physical, less-movable Pili to exploit some weaknesses he saw studying the Commanders return team’s blocking line.
It worked. It turned a two-score game into a three-score runaway. The Seahawks went on to a 38-14 victory.
After the game Macdonald wouldn’t get into the specifics of why Pili proved perfect on kickoffs against the Commanders.
“Hey, I’m not going to share the tactic behind it,” the head coach said. “But, there were some things on why we wanted to, and that’s a shout-out to Jay and ‘Fitz’ (assistant special teams coach Devin Fitzsimmons) on how they strategize and use our whole roster. “So, they think out of the box, and they’re always trying to find ways to give us an edge.”
Seahawks players praising coaches
Harbaugh isn’t the only Seahawks coach players and fellow coaches are lauding. Yes, it’s easy to do when they are winning; the Seahawks are tied with the Eagles, Buccaneers and Rams for the NFC’s best record roughly midway into the 17-game regular season. But Seattle’s players have been publicly praising their coaches since the first offseason practices this year, back in April.
Following the latest win Sunday night, Pro Bowl cornerback Devon Witherspoon and safety Ty Okada were shouting over each other “Coach Les!” across the cramped, loud locker room in Landover, Maryland.
“Coach Les” is Leslie Frazier. The 66-year-old Seahawks assistant head coach is Macdonald’s right-hand man. Frazier won the Super Bowl as a defensive back on the 1985 Chicago Bears. He’s a former head coach of the Minnesota Vikings. He’s been coaching since 1988.
Witherspoon and Okada, their lockers next to each other in Washington, said following the win Frazier drills them specifically on the play they made early in the second quarter Sunday night. Witherspoon, playing for the first time in more than a month following a knee injury, blitzed in free. He pressured Washington’s Jayden Daniels into a poor throw on third down high over and wide of his intended receiver. Okada leaped to catch the ball above the receiver. Then he deftly dropped the tips of both feet just inside the boundary of the Seahawks sideline for an impressive interception.
“Hey, ‘Spoon, what do we call it? The ‘Coach Les’ School of Ball Drills,” Okada said to Witherspoon. “Hell, yeah,” Witherspoon bellowed. “Shout out to ‘Coach Les’! O.G. (Old Gangster) holding it down!’”
Okada said: “Every day after practice we are working on different interceptions. You never know when your opportunity is going to come up, or how it’s going to come up. “Shout-out to Coach Les working day in and day out on that.”
The offense turned that turnover into a 14-0 lead on Sam Darnold’s second of two touchdown passes to rookie Tory Horton in the first half. Then Pili did his pro-wrestling move on the Commanders kickoff returner to create another TD.
Almost every week, Pro Bowl defensive end Leonard Williams lauds Macdonald and his staff in their second season leading Seattle for the culture they’ve instilled, a togetherness inside the locker room. Williams talks of “the brotherhood” the coaches have forged, of players going extra lengths to support and help each other.
Seattle’s ‘Ready Squad’
The players point to that brotherhood as the reason reserves such as Okada, wide receiver Cody White cornerback Nehemiah Pritchett and linebacker Tyrice Knight all shined Sunday night while pressed into service.
Okada got the first interception of his three-year career, in the former practice-squad player’s and Montana State Bobcat’s fourth start for injured Pro Bowl veteran Julian Love.
White is another player who’s been on and off Seattle’s practice squad. He got elevated from it Saturday to play Sunday night. That was because veteran wide receivers Cooper Kupp, Dareke Young and Jake Bobo were out injured. White caught the first touchdown pass of his six-year NFL career against the Commanders, a 60-yard catch and sprint down the sidelines about 4 minutes after Pili’s forced fumble. White’s score gave the Seahawks a 28-0 lead. He brought the ball from his score with him to the sideline. As his teammates mobbed White and roared to celebrate, he had an equipment person store it for him to keep. Pritchett, the 2024 draft pick, entered as an extra defensive back Sunday night after cornerback Josh Jobe was concussed in the second quarter.
Knight, benched because former special-teams player and 2023 waiver claim Drake Thomas earned his starting inside-linebacker job with how he practiced this summer, entered later in the second quarter at Washington. That was when Ernest Jones injured his knee.
Thomas then took over Jones’ defensive play calling. On Monday, Macdonald praised Thomas and Knight for seamlessly interchanging middle and weakside-inside linebacker roles in the second half at Washington.
Williams cited Knight for bailing out the defense after it lost its leader. Macdonald and his assistant coaches have made their mantra of having a “70-man roster,” 53 on the active one and the 17 on the practice squad Macdonald renamed “the Ready Squad,” more than just words.
“I think people talk a lot about that ‘next-man-up’ mentality. You hear it a lot in the league because injuries happen, obviously,” Williams, an 11th-year veteran, said. “It’s hard to put into words, but this is, like...you can truly feel that next-man-up mentality come to life. It’s just really helpful that we can do that. “It’s huge. Trust is involved in that. A big part of it is having identity with the team. Even when we have a new player come into the team, the new player is realizing the type of mentality, the type of team that we have.”
Told Monday his players were praising him for the culture of brotherhood he’s built in Seattle, Macdonald said that “reflects our staff is aligned.”
“It’s great to hear that they believe in us,” Macdonald said. “And I know I sure as heck hope that they can feel that we believe in them.
“I think that’s what happens, that you can take some of these chances about using personnel a little bit unconventionally. And sometimes things aren’t going to work, but I can definitely tell you that we can look our players in the face and tell them it’s coming from a good place.”
They know.
Okada said of the coaches: “It’s just a testament to their belief and faith in us. ... “The coaches have the utmost faith in you.” Even in a 344-pound backup defensive tackle on kickoff. “Wherever the team needs me,” Pili said, smiling again, “I’m happy to do whatever I can.”
This story was originally published November 3, 2025 at 5:04 PM.
