The Seattle Seahawks are rolling off a dominating 44-22 win over the Arizona Cardinals this week. Currently sitting atop the NFC West with a 7-2 record, the Seahawks have already positioned themselves as one of the playoff contenders; however, not everyone thinks their approach is solid.

NFL legend and Fox analyst Greg Olsen recently gave his take on the Seahawks’ matchup personnel deployment. When head coach Mike Macdonald was asked to address this, he gave his firm response.

In his latest media interaction, the Seattle Seahawks head coach said he agrees with Greg ‘to a large extent.’ He didn’t dismiss the criticism altogether.

As posted by Michael Shawn of The Athletic, “There’s some nuance to each situation, Mike says, but his philosophy is mostly in alignment with what Greg is saying about personnel deployment.”

Macdonald went on to explain his take on the situation.

“Sometimes there are opportunities to overmatch, sometimes its opportunities to undermatch, sometimes you just want to match, because you feel like that’s the best thing for you for that particular situation.”

When Olsen mentioned that the Seahawks rely too much on formation-based personnel groupings, MacDonald feels that it depends on the situation, and one has to adapt accordingly.

“The driving force to me is what gives you the best chance in that scenario to be able to defend and attack what they do, with that given people on the field and in that given situation,” Macdonald added.

As per Sportsnaut, their defense is ranked number one in the league as of now, and their latest win against the Cardinals proves that. This win is more special because it resolved their one issue: forcing fumbles. Their defense gave them a breakthrough in that as well. Seattle built a 28-point cushion because their defense kept on pressuring the Cardinals.

However, the Seahawks will be facing a tough contest next week when they’ll be competing against the Los Angeles Rams at SoFi Stadium. Both of them are at 7-2; it’ll be interesting to see who will dominate the other team.

As analyst Mark Johnson said, “Seattle’s defense, especially its secondary, is a fantastic matchup for the Rams in Week 11.”

Greg Olsen is pointing out errors in Seahawks play-calling

This entire conversation started when Greg was describing his take on Seattle’s defense strategy and how it differs from the emerging league trends. He credited the Seahawks for their creativity, but he felt that their approach to personnel matching might be predictable.

”If I was running defenses,” Olsen said. ”I would match things more often than not on tendencies of down and distance where. I don’t care if you come out in 12 personnel. If I know you’re a first and 10 pass team, I’m going to play first and 10, two high safeties and I’m going to, if you run it, you run it.”

He also explained the changing trend in the league based on his conversations with other DCs.

As he continues, ”That’s where the league, I think is going from the conversations I have with defensive coordinators, and really smart defensive people. That’s the indications that they’re giving me.”

Hence, he believes the future relies more on data-driven play-calling rather than traditional methods. Whereas Macdonald relies on the traditional aspect, and his decisions are working pretty well for the Seahawks as well.