Seahawks head coach Mike Macdonald called the team’s seven personal fouls in last Sunday’s win over the Chargers “unacceptable at any level” and his players didn’t wait to go to work on cleaning things up this week.
Defensive tackle Jarran Reed told reporters at a Wednesday press conference that some of the defensive leaders organized a meeting in order to address the issue early this week. Reed said “it wasn’t like a panic moment, but it was a moment of realization” that the team can’t afford to hurt itself with penalties that extend drives for opponents if they hope to keep winning games.
“We basically got together as a defense on Monday, just players only, we just had a real meeting, a real honest meeting with each other about what we expect, what we want to go through,” Reed said. “We hit it head on because that was way too many penalties for us as a team.”
The Seahawks had 14 overall accepted penalties last Sunday and Reed said there will always be some fouls in the normal course of doing business. The Seahawks want to cut down on the more avoidable ones as they move toward this week’s meeting with the 49ers.