This is who Seahawks hired Mike Macdonald to beat. The keys to beating the Rams
This is why they hired Mike Macdonald.
This is the opponent the Seahawks owners expect Macdonald to beat, the reason last year they made him the NFL’s youngest head coach.
Offensive mastermind Sean McVay’s Los Angeles Rams. Sunday in Inglewood, California. For first place in the NFC West.
Seahawks chair Jody Allen and vice chair Bert Kolde fired Pete Carroll at the end of the 2023 season because their team was no longer winning the West. Seattle was no longer winning the West because it couldn’t beat the Rams and the San Francisco 49ers anymore. Carroll lost both games in 2023 to L.A., and 10 of the previous 14 to the Rams before he got fired. The Seahawks lost five straight to the 49ers before the franchise hired Macdonald away from being the Baltimore Ravens defensive coordinator in February 2024.
So far in his 1-1/2 seasons leading the Seahawks, Macdonald has been mostly marvelous. His team enters the showdown Sunday at the Rams’ SoFi Stadium having won a franchise-record 10 consecutive road games. The Seahawks are 11-1 away from home under Macdonald. Since the 2024 bye, Seattle is 13-4.
Yet Macdonald has yet to beat the Rams. Not when it’s mattered.
The win Seattle got at L.A. in the final game of the 2024 season last January came with the Rams resting their starters. They had already clinched the division title over the Seahawks and secured their home playoff game. The Seahawks last visit to Los Angeles was a JV game. Geno Smith threw to get contract incentives. Seattle won 30-25 on Jan. 5 to end last season 10-7 — but out of the playoffs for the third time in four years.
Earlier last season at Lumen Field, Macdonald’s defense held L.A. to 13 points in regulation. But that game went to overtime because Smith threw an interception in the end zone the Rams returned 105 yards for a touchdown. Los Angeles won in OT.
So far this season Macdonald’s second Seahawks team is 7-2. That’s with wins over the Steelers, Saints, Cardinals twice, Jaguars, Texans and Commanders. Those teams have a combined record of 22-34. The Seahawks haven’t beaten any of the teams in NFC playoff contention.
They lost to the 49ers in Week 1. And, Macdonald, his assistants and his players have been reminded all this week, they’ve yet to play McVay’s Rams (7-2). If they don’t beat the Rams and the 49ers, the Seahawks aren’t reaching their first goal, winning the NFC West for the first time since 2020, and they aren’t having home playoff games for their most likely path to a first Super Bowl since 2014.
Of course Macdonald isn’t acknowledging any of that heading into Los Angeles.
“My job is to help design a plan and coach the heck out of it with our guys, organize it with our staff so they can go play great football, and keep it simple, keep it in our wheelhouse against anybody we play,” he said.
“Sean is a tremendous play caller. He’s a great offensive coordinator. They’ve got a great offense. But the approach is the same every week.”
This is a showdown in the truest sense.
It’s the NFC’s top defense in points allowed (L.A., 17 per game) against the conference’s number-two scoring defense (Seattle, 19.1). The Seahawks have the best pressure rates of any NFL defensive front. The Rams have Byron Young. He has nine sacks in nine games, third-most in the league.
“They’ve got a really good team,” Seahawks offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak said of the Rams.
“Obviously, L.A. is a big problem. There’s a really good defense, and our guys have a big challenge ahead of them.”
It’s the NFC’s second-ranked passing offense (the Rams, 259.9 yards per game) against No. 4 (the Seahawks’ 246.1).
The league’s top quarterback in passes of 10-plus yards, 20-plus yards and yards per pass attempt is Seattle’s Sam Darnold. He is opposing L.A.’s Matthew Stafford: the first QB in NFL history to throw for four-plus touchdowns with zero interceptions in three consecutive games, and counting.
The Seahawks’ Jaxon Smith-Njigba leads the league by a lot with 1,041 yards receiving. Rams wide receiver Davante Adams leads the NFL with nine touchdown catches. L.A.’s Puka Nacua is third in the league with 66 receptions.
The News Tribune’s keys to determining who will be 8-2 and in first place with six games left in the regular season come Sunday night:
1. Sam Darnold atoning
People around the league still judge Darnold by his last game against the Rams.
It was last Jan. 13 in the NFC wild-card playoffs, for Minnesota. Coming off a humbling loss at Detroit in the NFC North title game the week before, the 14-2 Vikings and more specifically Darnold got ransacked by the Rams. They sacked him nine times, tying a record for an NFL postseason game.
Darnold’s season, and time in Minnesota, ended with a thud. Seattle signed him as a free agent two months later, to replace the just-traded Smith.
Darnold has watched film of the Rams defense from that game this week.
Sunday is a test to see if the Seahawks Darnold has learned from the Vikings Darnold.
The TNT asked him Thursday if this game against the Rams was personal.
“No. For us it’s just about going down there. For myself personally, it’s about going down there and taking care of business,” the former USC QB and native of San Clemente just down the coast from L.A. said.
“It’s as simple as that.”
OK, so then what did you take away from that Vikings playoff loss at Los Angeles 10 months ago?
“Just having answers,” Darnold said. “I think that’s the biggest thing. I feel like I had opportunities to get the ball out, and I didn’t in that game.
“I just feel like having answers for certain looks and being able to just go through my progressions, go through my reads and trust my feet and my eyes.”
So Darnold defines the first key to this game: Get his passes out, even if they are for incompletions to really no one, before Young and the Rams can swarm him for negative plays. Again.
2. Affecting Matthew Stafford and his tempo
Stafford at age 37 has thrown only two interceptions in 310 pass attempts this season. He’s an MVP candidate.
He gets the ball out ultra-quickly. Can Leonard Williams, NFC defensive player of the week DeMarcus Lawrence, team sack leader Uchenna Nwosu and the Seahawks’ defensive front continue their season-long trend of stopping the run (third in the NFL in rush defense) and affecting quarterbacks (the league’s top pressure rate with one of its lower blitz rates)? Seattle’s front wants this game to come down to them.
“This is something we’ve been saying since OTAs and camp, that we want to be the tip of the spear,” Williams said. “We want to be the best group on the defense, and we want to be the best group on the team. We want to be the group that puts the team on our back ...
“I think we know that when we stop the run and when we are allowed to pass rush, things turn out well.”
Williams and the Seahawks’ front have spent this week preparing for the fast pace McVay has L.A. offense playing at. The Rams run up the line after one play ends to begin the next one. Center Coleman Shelton is often the last man to the ball, and when he arrives they snap it immediately.
“To me it’s just how fast Matt Stafford gets the ball out,” Williams said. “They also run attack plays and hurry up well, which has been affecting our defense at times throughout the season. We’re aware of that. We’re practicing it, and it’s something we’re trying to clean up and fix. But I think them being a hurry-up offense, staying on track with the way they run their offense is going to be the challenge.”
“If the guard is already in their stance, the tackles are already in the stance, so everybody’s pretty much set, but the center is back here talking to the quarterback and then he walks up with the ball, that’s pretty much the tell,” Williams said.
“Our defense has a lot of communication and checks and things like that, so this is one of those games where when we see them hurrying up, we’re just going to have to line up and go.”
3. Nickel and diming the Rams
The game within the game, the chess match between Macdonald and McVay, is in their substitution packages.
The last four games the Rams have been in “13” personnel (one running back, three tight ends) a whopping 40% of the time. When they’ve been in 13, 93% of the time L.A.’s foes have been in base defense.
But the Seahawks have gone to nickel and dime, five and six defensive backs, an NFL-leading 58% of the time against 13 personnel. It’s 81% nickel and dime for Seattle against 12 personnel (two tight ends).
Macdonald will apparently have starting cornerback Josh Jobe back from a concussion to play Sunday. Pro Bowl cornerback Devon Witherspoon and rookie hybrid safety Nick Emmanwori are healthy playing consecutive games together for the first time this season. Macdonald has blitz options in nickel and, with Riq Woolen and emerging Nehemiah Pritchett, dime with more five and six defensive backs than McVay’s seen all season.
“They’re in giant personnel a lot with the three tight ends,” Williams said.
“But we are studying the film. And we know how to attack it.”
The pick
Middle linebacker and signal caller Ernest Jones plus Jobe returning from injuries to play Sunday are big deals for the defense. They will give McVay and Stafford new looks that will change this game.
Darnold keeps staying poised, learns his lessons of getting the ball out against L.A., and drives Seattle to a final-minute win in a thriller.
Seahawks 20, Rams 17
This story was originally published November 14, 2025 at 8:02 AM.
