Mike Macdonald Refuses to Panic After Seahawks Loss to Bears

Seattle Seahawks head coach Mike Macdonald told reporters he is not panicking after his team’s 34-17 loss to the Chicago Bears on Monday night, even as a banged-up roster faces a short week of preparation before Sunday’s game against the Arizona Cardinals, seahawks.com reported.

The defeat was a bitter one for Seattle to digest. The Seahawks never played close to their best football, yet they still found themselves in a 3-point game early in the fourth quarter, meaning a handful of plays could have flipped the outcome. Instead, the Bears pulled away in the second half, and the Seahawks saddled their coach with a “three-phase loss” across offense, defense, and special teams.

“Frustrating’s a good way to put it,” Macdonald said. “Like I said after the game, we lost the game, it was a three-phase Seahawk loss, and that’s a tough pill to swallow.”

That frustration, Macdonald made clear, is not about to turn into overreaction. He told reporters the natural urge is to ask how the team changes things immediately, but he also wants his players to understand how tight the margins are in the NFL.

Head Coach Mike Macdonald Discusses The Week 8 Loss To The Bears | Seattle Seahawks

“The itch is to say, ‘OK, how do we change it? How do we make it better? Where are we going?’ But I think it’s also prudent to say, ‘OK let’s take a deep breath, let’s understand that the margins in our league are very small,'” he said. “It was a 3-point game until the game got out of hand there in the second half with all the things that hadn’t gone our way. Let’s stay the course, let’s go back to work. There are things that we need to improve on and we need to get better at that are in our control, and that’s all you can do. That’s where our focus needs to be.”

A Crowded Injury Report Clouds the Week Ahead

Staying the course will be easier said than done with the Seahawks’ medical situation. According to sports.mynorthwest.com, Macdonald said Tuesday that three-time Pro Bowl defensive lineman Leonard Williams, left tackle Charles Cross, wide receiver Rashid Shaheed, and edge rusher Uchenna Nwosu all have “a chance” to return for next Sunday’s game against Arizona.

Williams exited Monday’s game with a stinger in the third quarter, while Cross, Shaheed, and Nwosu each missed the Bears game entirely. Cross (ankle) and Shaheed (knee) were injured in last week’s win over the Kansas City Chiefs, and Nwosu (ankle) landed on the injury report the week before.

Mike Macdonald on Brock & Salk following the Bears loss last night #Seahawks #GoHawks #NFL pic.twitter.com/PTNSW3Koc8

— https://x.com/12ASONE24/status/2117678256937988281

“I think those guys have a chance to come back this week,” Macdonald said. “So, we’ll see. Now you’re looking at a return-to-play thing where they have to hit certain benchmarks to be able to practice enough to play.”

The returns of running backs Zach Charbonnet and Jadarian Price on Monday night were welcome, but they did little to offset the mounting absences elsewhere. Last week, Seattle had a season-high 20 players on its injury report, and Macdonald stressed that getting his players’ bodies right will be critical with one less day of preparation coming off a Monday night game.

“At this point last year we had our bye,” Macdonald said, referring to Seattle’s Week 8 bye last season. “We still have two more games until our (Week 11) bye, so we’ve gotta get our bodies right and we’ve gotta get our mental right so we can go in on a short week against a good opponent.”

Why This Week Carries Extra Weight

The timing matters. The Seahawks face the Cardinals on Sunday with only a short week to prepare after Monday night’s loss.

Seattle Seahawks Charles Cross looks on 2026 — Photo: sports.mynorthwest.com

Macdonald’s message, delivered the morning after the defeat, was essentially a plea for perspective: the team was in the game late, the league’s margins are razor-thin, and the controllable fixes are internal. Whether Williams, Cross, Shaheed, and Nwosu clear their return-to-play benchmarks will shape how much of that fix-it list Seattle can actually address before kickoff Sunday.

For a Seahawks team that absorbed Monday night’s loss and a crowded injury report, Macdonald is betting on composure rather than panic, urging his team to take a deep breath and stay the course.

Mike Macdonald on the #Seahawks Week 8 Loss vs the Bears | Mike Macdonald Show | Seattle Sports

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"We have to focus on recapturing us… There were too many times throughout that game where that wasn't us."#Seahawks HC Mike Macdonald on what the team needs to learn from after the loss to the Bears. pic.twitter.com/w9AcNC5pEC

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