What the Seahawks said – 2024 Week 17: Seahawks at Bears

Opening Declaration: “Stayed together the whole way. Faced adversity the whole game. Our defense just deserves a lot of credit, man. They played really hard. Even when they made some unbelievable plays in critical moments, you have to give their quarterback a lot of credit. He made some phenomenal plays under duress so we just kept fighting and then you defended a blade of grass at the end of the day great job.”

On putting nine defenders on the line for the last play:

“How do I answer that without giving away like trade secrets? I just think it’s something we’ve practiced and we haven’t really called it in situations like this. We have versions of blitz that we’ve called, but not The special version. So something that we’ve had and we’ve been preparing for was excited to get to that particular call the season is coming up and it just goes to show, hey, our guys can handle that excited about it, so are we looked forward to it.”

On lightning FS Coby Bryant on the last game:

“Yeah. I mean, again, though — when you blow a bunch of guys and it’s a team blitz mentality, so we’ve got to adjust right, then you got it set up right, then you’ve got the disguises paired with it. Guys have to take proper angles Getting this quarterback on the ground and getting him to go backwards is easier said than done has in our guys that they can get the job done.”

On how long they’ve ‘had the show’:

“A version of it has been around forever. This particular version of it came in a few weeks ago.”

On CB Riq Wool sheep the finally eavesdropping ‘after what happened last week’:

“I was hoping he went down after he caught it. Look, I mean, that’s why we have the right system. You move on and go to the next play. He’s done that, so happy for Riq who’s doing that play. It was a great play.”

On if the defense ‘fed off of’ CB Devon Witherspoon performance:

“Yeah, I mean, this guy is the leader of our — it’s his second year and he’s grown so much as a leader and someone we’re going to depend on for a long time here. We love him and it’s because of the energy and the competitiveness and the person and his love for the game and his love for his teammates talk about a force multiplier.

If he thought they were going to kick the field goal at the end:

“Our line was a little bit tighter than that. You have to be ready for a fourth down call, but you never know if they’re going to try one. We had a call ready on a field goal block as well.”

“I think we took a step in the right direction in terms of the running game and moving the ball, especially early in the game. It was good to get going on the first drive, but I think we’re going, we still have to focus on , hey let’s close out the drives once we get this thing moving let’s finish in the end zone especially to start the game let’s try to -.- we’ve just got to keep chasing and try to get more points. That’s it. we fight after played hard, played physical but you know we get better from this.

“I’ve always said it’s a function of rush and coverage, so to sack them, you’ve got to have the ball, so some sacks were clean, where you win and — it’s a tough quarterback to get on the ground like Well, so it’s good some of them are doing a good job on the back and now you can buy an extra click in your rush to see the tape and show them why we’re in able to create those there passing situations on first down, and it’s all team stats. I’m excited for the guys who got the kicks, but it’ll be fun to show them why and who set them up.”

On the team’s ‘energy and speed’:

“Yeah, go on a short week, on Thursday, and get your bodies to go and play the right way. You have to be able to play the right way to win in this league. I think It’s an opportunity for a shoutout to our support team (vice president of player performance) Sam Ramsden, (head strength and conditioning coach) Ivan Lewis and his crew got those guys – their bodies right on Monday. We needed it. The boys were determined to win here on the road.”

On the fumble returned for one touchdown to was called back:

“At the moment I was really—what was that term you used? Was I worried? Yes. Pretty consistently worried about things.”

On the “load”, this game was for the defense:

“I don’t think your mentality changes. In my mind, we’re playing field position games. If you really want to be critical, we could have done a better job of reversing field position for our offense. They came out of the well too many times in this game. We fought an offensive battle, but around the midfield, so they were able to beat them down deep. You are critical there, but those are the things we are chasing, so it is difficult to go 90, 80, 90 yards consistently, putting points on the board, so that’s something we’ll look at. And see what we can do better.”

On LB Uchenna Nwosu sheep his first sack:

“Yeah, he was on. It was amazing. If you just pause time and think about the journey he’s been on, it’s pretty amazing. Pretty cool.”

On ‘the anxiety’ of Aries game is coming up this week:

“Look, I mean, we’re in the process of controlling what we can control. We know what’s coming next week. We’ve got to spend this weekend getting our mind and body and spirit right to play a game. Yes, we are praying that it will be the division championship.”

“He’s doing good. Like a patella or something in his knee. Again, you get me on the medical terms, it’s like how much time, man? How much time? We’ll see. We’ll see how it goes. We are lucky we have a few extra days to treat him.”

On QB Geno Smith’s night:

“I thought he started off strong. Endangering the ball in the red zone, which we want to do a better job of. I’ll tell you what Geno is fighting his tail off right now to keep us together, so we follow his lead I know the guys on offense are excited that we won the game but we’re talking about being 12 and they’re part of the team as well and we won the game than six points but let’s go on work this week and do the best we can to win Thursday night. It’s a short week of tape and go to work and Geno will be right there leading us.”

“He’s meant a ton. I gave (NT Jarran Reed) J-Reed the ball because he really leads us up front with those guys. It’s the edges and the D-line in the same room and really following J Reed’s lead and Leo has done a great job leading them by, I mean, he’s just a phenomenal player, a phenomenal person, I’m glad he’s a Seahawk.

On getting extra rest before the next game:

“Yeah, that’s nice. We have some positive net rest. That’ll be good for us. It’s about time.”

If he will ‘be looking at’ Aries against Cardinals:

“I want to watch every snap. Yes.”

On if he started game planning before this week right after Sunday’s game:

“Well, I did. I mean, yeah, yeah. You have to. I mean, it’s a function of time, and we really felt that if we could give our guys a tight game plan that they knew they could execute at a high level in like – pretty much the entire game plan in one day, so let’s get back to work.