Expect defensive starters to play, but not so much on offense.
The Seattle Seahawks make their preseason debut under new coach Mike Macdonald on Saturday against the Los Angeles Chargers. One of the questions concerning this year’s preseason was whether or not we would see more playing time for the starters/projected first-team players than is typical for today’s NFL.
At Thursday’s media scrum, Macdonald outlined his plans for at least the Chargers game, and while Geno Smith and many of the other starters on offense are going to sit this one out, we should see several defensive starters get a few series in.
“A couple things driving the decision is one,” Macdonald said, “the science of getting the exposure obviously with the new systems, new schemes. Guys wanting to knock the rust off so to speak, make sure we’re sharp going into Week 1. There’s two things going on, one, yeah we want to get the starters out there and then also some individual decisions on certain positions, guys we might hold back or don’t put them out there maybe until Week 3 after the Tennessee (Titans) practice, things like that.
“I think defensively you’ll probably see a good amount of starters out there to start the game. We’ll see how long that lasts. Offensively, as of right now, I don’t believe Geno (Smith) is going to go. A couple other starters aren’t going to go as well. It’s all good, by then we’ll sharpen it out, guys will have a great showing and we’ll see where we’re at and move forward.”
As far as Byron Murphy II, the Seahawks’ first-round draft pick and only selection in the top 64? Yeah, he’s playing.
“He’ll be out there, he’ll be rolling,” Macdonald added.
This isn’t to say we won’t see the Seahawks first-team offense get some run in the final two preseason games against the Tennessee Titans and Cleveland Browns, but it’s not surprising that the first-team defense will have an early opportunity to apply what they’ve learned in practice to a preseason game.
Two years ago the Seahawks had considerable first-team reps on defense under Pete Carroll, but that didn’t exactly yield impressive results when the regular season started. This is a completely different system with considerable turnover at linebacker and safety, so Macdonald’s approach is more than understandable.