It's time to talk that talk, and we talk it like no one else. This is the Stinking Truth. Now, here's your host, Mark Schlereth. Hey, welcome to the Stinking Truth podcast. Alongside Mike Evans, I am Mark Schlereth. This is the Leftovers edition from my game, Arizona and Seattle, and we're going to focus on the Seattle Seahawks because they are legit. Mike, how are you, buddy? I'm good, and I know you're really eager to talk about Seattle, and I can tell whenever you talk about Seattle and the way they're built and the way they're coached, there's a lot there that you admire.
I really do, man. If you want to start off with just organizational philosophy, and I was talking to their GM, John Schneider, and he's been a buddy of mine for a while, and I was just like, hey, man, why Mike McDonald? You interviewed these folks. Why Mike McDonald? What was it about Mike McDonald that you looked at and said, yeah, this is my guy? And here's what he said to me. He goes, humility, I've got the text, humility, strength, intelligence, and clarity of philosophy. I know what I want to be.
I know what I want us to be. And it's funny because I was talking to Rob Leonard, the defense coordinator of the Raiders. And I was like, what was it about John Harbaugh that resonated with you when you coached for him in Baltimore? And he said the same thing. Philosophical approach throughout the entirety of the organization. I know what we're going to be. I have a vision for what we're going to be. And that's Mike McDonald. And when you look at them, it's funny. I was talking to Nathaniel Hackett.
And he's the offensive coordinator in Arizona. He goes, man, this is the most unselfish defense I have watched play. Every guy, hey, man, if you're supposed to set an edge and spill the run, you set an edge and spill the run. Like, if you're supposed to do this, that's what they do. And everybody is bought in to what their role is offensively and defensively. They play to their strengths. And they're so good on the defensive side of the ball. Offensively, you can sit there and say, hey, our game plan is this. Don't take any chances with the football. Protect the football. And guess what?
Do your thing correctly. And eventually, you know, we're going to win this. We're going to win. And eventually, we're going to wear them out. And in the third and fourth quarter, that's when we're going to ramp it up. And that's when we'll be productive. You think about Mike McDonald. Get this. Now, they're 16-2 on the road since he took over. 16-2 on the road since he took over in 2024. And when they win the turnover battle going into yesterday's game, they were 14-0 when they won the turnover battle.
14-0. So you want to talk about organizational philosophy, but here's what I liked. Week one, I was talking to Mike McDonald about this. Week one, I saw so many teams defensively not tackle well. I saw so many teams not play the proper leverage in certain coverages. I saw so many teams bust.
coverages and leave wide open receivers in the middle of football field or down the edges of the football field. When I put on the Seattle film, man, the most tied together defense in football, everybody plays on a string. So if, Hey, if this guy, like, let's say this dude is blitzing off the edge, right? And you've got a cover for him. You're a linebacker. You walked up into the A gap. Here comes this blitzer off the edge. I got to go. They're like, tied on a string, tied on a string. All of a sudden, tied on a string. Everybody is. And they've got probably four guys. Ernest Jones, their middle linebacker told me our superpower is our versatility.
So when you start looking at them, there's a dude, Drake Thomas. Like if you saw him walking through the mall, you probably think he sells clothes at Nordstrom. He's a linebacker. He's 5'11", 220, 225. Flies around. He's super smart. Plays with great leverage. Tough as nails. And he is a guy that plays. He makes it hard to identify. So he's number 32. Plays linebacker. But all of a sudden you'll see him and the second highest paid corner in the league switch positions. So now all of a sudden you see.
Drake Thomas roll out to the nickel spot and play the nickel over a slot receiver. And you see Devin Witherspoon come over and play linebacker. Right. And you're like, wait, wait a minute. How can you be the second highest paid corner in football? And you're playing linebacker. And then you're playing nickel. And then you're playing, you know, you're playing safety. And Drake Thomas, one minute you're on the edge. You're a defensive end. Next minute you're a linebacker. Next minute you're a nickelback. Eman Worry. Yesterday, Eman Worry.
the DB who was all pro last year as a rookie, coming off an injury hamstring, do you know what he was playing in the third and fourth quarter? Defensive end. They had him playing defensive end. Eman Worry is 6'3", 220. Playing defensive end. Playing defensive end with a number three on his jersey. Dude, they have this versatility and this ability. Julian Love. Julian Love will play nickel. He'll play down and dime. He'll play safety, middle of the field post. They have four or five guys that can play anywhere. And Mike McDonald said, you know, we got a bunch of guys who don't look like they should be playing the positions they play. And they're just phenomenal. They're just great. So what I'm hearing as you describe all this is that there's so much unselfishness on this football team.
In a time, maybe in a league, where it's hard to find that. So what's the secret sauce there? How are they able to create that there that can be so difficult to find and replicate in other places? Yeah, well, I mean, it's amazing, and I said this on the broadcast, it's amazing what you can accomplish when nobody cares who gets the credit. Great things happen. They've got great players all over the place. Don't get me wrong. Leonard Williams is a great player. Murphy's a great player. DeMarcus Lawrence has been a great player for a very long time. Ernest Jones is phenomenal tying the whole thing together. But they are just an unselfish, great, not good, but great football team. And they play philosophically to their strength. They're going to lean on their defense because they know their defense is going to keep them in games. And so you can have a Drew Locke come in and play quarterback for you. You can have a backup quarterback come in and play great because you're saying to him, listen, man, and I know this is a derogatory term for most people.
Manage the game. People hate that. You know, people hate it. Quarterbacks hate that. They hate it because you know what? It's not about them. But this is that team in general. We talk about culture. We talk about building culture. Everybody talks about changing culture and we've got to have this culture. Very few people are willing to do the work to make that a reality. And the reality is, man, they got a bunch of unselfish dudes on their football team. And I'm going to tell you right now, like do the dirty work stuff. But Drew Locke came in. They were real slow. It was a 7-7 game at the half.
And it was a defensive struggle. And turnover, you know, all of a sudden they get a big play. All of a sudden, you know, Drew Locke throws another one to Smith and Jigba, and the route is on. And then all of a sudden, you know, they get a 10-point lead, and then it just becomes, let's beat these guys into submission now. Let's run the football. And it was like clockwork. And at the end of the day, you look at the score, it's 31-7. You go, wow, that was a blowout. But it was a tight game through the third quarter.
Drew Locke, it's a great story. And, you know, you and I are both doing this here from Denver. And so we saw Drew Locke when he was drafted here and watched him early on in his career. And there was a lot of immaturity to his game and just to him. I mean, I think he'd probably agree with that. I'm just kind of curious, having had a chance to sit and talk to him. Why right now is he the perfect guy, it seems, for Seattle at this moment playing without Sam Darnold?
One, his maturity level is incredible. And we wouldn't have said that when he was a young player here, right? But watching him grow up, watching him handle his business, he comes off the bench after five plays in the week one matchup against New England and is flawless. Executes perfectly. And then in this game, I think the first pass of the game was an 82-yard strike on a busted coverage to Smith and Jigba. And it's on. And he has just such confidence, throws the ball with such confidence. But understands, Mike, as long as I don't put the ball in harm's way with our defense.
We're going to be in every game. And so I can throw one away or I can check the ball down on third down and not get a first down and still be OK. I know this. And I was I was texting with Brian Fleury after the game, who is their offense coordinator. He says, man, we just have we know our philosophical approach. Like Mike McDonald makes it very obvious. Like, here's the deal. We're going to be in these games. Just don't kind of screw it up, you know. And that's kind of the way it goes. But talking to talking to Drew Locke, like his his story, you know, and what he's been through and trying to grow up in this league and having Sam Darnold there, who is.
Kind of in the same boat just a couple of years ahead from the standpoint of what he went through. And all of a sudden you see him being a Super Bowl champion. And I talked to him about this, what it means to have Sam Darnold in that journey. And you being on this journey yourself when you got drafted to Denver out of Missouri. And, you know, I had one coach that I really respect tell me, man, Missouri's offense was just a joke. And so there was no way he was going to come in right off the bat and be successful because you're going to have to learn NFL offense. You're going to have to learn the entirety of the offense. And you've never been in anything like it. And so.
to watch Drew do it and to talk to him about Sam's journey and guys like, you know, guys like Baker Mayfield and to kind of start off slow and have these struggles. And at one point I told him, man, I was doing a game and I was in Carolina where Baker Mayfield is actually running scout team defensive end. Like that's how far he sunk. And Drew's very aware of, man, if I play well and, you know, things go well, man, I could parlay this in an opportunity to go somewhere and start. And by the way, you know, I was told that.
Sam Darnold, you know, this injury, he's going to be fine. They feel like he's going to play this coming week. So they feel like he'll be back on, depending on how practice goes and stuff. And I think the overall kind of consensus or thought was, if this would have been a playoff game, Sam Darnold would have played. But they're taking, they just want to make sure he's okay. Jackson Smith and Jigba. He is the best receiver in football.
Right now, yeah. Based on being around Seattle over the last few days, what's this guy's secret sauce? What's this guy's superpower? Why is he the best receiver in football? Because he is. Again, he is very much like the rest of this team, completely unselfish. He'll run for the love of the game or else to get other guys open. That doesn't bother him. I think the big thing that I took away from this game was...
their offensive staff talking about, listen, last year, most of his big plays and he led the league in total reception yards at 1700 plus, but most of it was over the top stuff. Most of it was the big plays, you know, and they're like the one untapped aspect of him, quickness in and out of breaks, explosiveness and his ability to run after the catch. And so, yeah, we still want the big plays over the top. We still going to do all those things, but we want to get him the ball underneath in space and let him do his thing. Let him run after the catch. And so that's going to be the next kind of.
progression of this offense. And you saw it starting yesterday. He was great with a couple underneath things. You actually saw it on the fourth down and one against the New England Patriots, where they run a little thing, which I would call like a little snag concept, where he just hooks up, they got a flat, they got somebody deep, and they throw it to him. On fourth down and one, he turns down the seam and makes a bunch of guys, jukes a couple of guys, and it's out the door for 50 or 60 yards, whatever it was. And so they really want to use that as a part of what they're doing offensively. He's an incredible player.
I just can't tell you, man, how impressed I was with the entirety of the team. I can tell. The way they play football. Physical, smart, aggressive. You know, they call themselves the dark side defense. I'll leave you with this. The dark side. Because I was just like, okay. You know, I looked it up on the internet. Like, okay, why the dark side defense? And it said, you know, the dark side defense, you know, is a reference to what they call in Seattle the big dark, which is wintertime.
It's rainy, it's gloomy, and it gets dark early, the big dark. And I was like, big dark, my ass. I grew up in Alaska. You want to talk about big dark, right? So I was talking to Ernest Jones about this, their middle linebacker. He goes, yeah, that's part of it. He goes, but Leo, which is Leonard Williams, really came up with it. And I guess once Leonard Williams kind of stamped it, nobody's going to go, well, maybe we should try this. You're like, OK, it's a big dark. Yeah, that's what it is. We're like, the dark side, that's what we are. OK, the dark side. But he goes, that was part of the big dark in the wintertime stuff. But the other part was, our defense is so good, we just turn the lights out at all offenses. Ooh, I like that. Yeah, and that's where the dark side. And I was like, OK.
Touche. I actually like that. I like the dark side. I thought it was going to be some goofy Star Wars reference, but I'm glad to hear that they're a little bit more high-brow. A little bit more nuanced. Right. I mean, it's Dandy Don Meredith. Turn out the lights. The party's over. Look them up, kids. Yes. Yes. So anyhow, back in Monday night when you used to flip on, and I begged my parents just to let me stay up for the halftime highlights.
Howard Cosell. I just want to watch the Howard Cosell halftime highlights, then I'll go to bed. There you go. Yeah, that was the big deal. Hey, listen, for everybody involved in the Stinky Truth Podcast, thank you so much for making us a part of your day. As we break down the game I did, mostly on the Seattle side, guys, the Seattle Seahawks, they are the defending champions for a good reason, because they are that good. Hey, for everybody involved, for Mike, myself, everybody else, thank you so much for making us a part of your day.