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Tyrice Knight Wore the Green Dot and Nobody Else Was Close
Seattle lost its preseason opener 17-7 and spent most of it looking like a team that had never met. One exception. Tyrice Knight started at middle linebacker, made 10 tackles in the first half alone, broke up two passes, and wore the green dot — meaning the defensive calls came through his helmet from coordinator Aden Durde, who ran the defense Saturday instead of Mike Macdonald.
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Tackles by Knight — all of them before halftime, in a game he wasn’t supposed to play much of.
“He was the best player on the field on defense today for sure,” Macdonald said. That is not a sentence a head coach hands out on a night when the operation embarrassed him, and Macdonald was not shy about the rest of it.
What makes this land is where Knight has been. He finished his rookie year as a starter, then lost the weakside job to Drake Thomas last season after a camp knee injury, and spent the back half of the year mostly on special teams. The last time he started, he forced two fumbles that DeMarcus Lawrence carried into the end zone against Arizona. Then the door shut again.
The caveat came attached to the compliment: “We’re a little banged up at inside ‘backer right now, so T-Knight played probably more than we bargained for.” Which is how these things usually go. A guy gets a job back for a night because somebody else’s hamstring said so.
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Depth isn’t a compliment until the day you need it. Then it’s the whole season.
Ernest Jones IV and Drake Thomas aren’t losing their spots over one August half. Nobody’s suggesting it. But a defense that returns basically everybody just found out its third linebacker plays like a second one, and that is worth more in November than it looks in a 17-7 loss to Dallas backups.
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Analysis
Milroe’s Night Was Half Thrilling and Half Fourth-and-Goal
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That single snap is the whole scouting report. A quarterback who can outrun a linebacker in space and then take a sack going backward from the one-yard line, in the same quarter, in front of an HBO camera crew.
Macdonald’s public response, per Pro Football Talk, was four words that manage to be both encouragement and a nudge: “Let’s go take another step.” No panic in it. No parade either.
The wider context isn’t kind to anybody who touched the ball. Seattle managed 156 total yards, 27 of them in the second half on 19 plays, which works out to 1.4 yards per snap. Milroe is QB3 on a roster with a Super Bowl starter and a settled veteran backup ahead of him, so none of this is a referendum on September. It’s a two-year project getting its second August. The good news is he’s finally playing enough of them to tell.
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Seattle’s total offensive yards in the second half, on 19 plays. That’s 1.4 per snap.
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AROUND THE COOP
Around the Coop
Robbie Ouzts is done for the season, but the neck injury that put him on IR is not believed to be career-threatening, and the team framed the IR move as protecting his long-term future. Given the two words “neck” and “IR” in the same sentence, that qualifies as a good weekend. Field Gulls
Jadarian Price is still “on the mend” and hasn’t taken a padded practice rep in over a week. The hope is Friday’s joint practice in Nashville. Somebody drafted 32nd overall is currently losing a competition to soreness. Seattle Times
Second-round safety Bud Clark started and played the first three quarters, used exclusively as a deep safety despite taking Emmanwori-role reps in practice. Nobody hands a rookie the fun assignments in game one. Spokesman-Review
Terrion Arnold’s arrival, which came with eight felony charges attached, got a warm reception from at least one teammate. “That’s my dog,” said Milroe, his Alabama teammate, adding that the job now is showing him how things are done here. The locker room has clearly made its peace faster than the rest of us. SI
Hard Knocks Episode 3 lands Tuesday at 6 p.m. PT, and it covers the Dallas game. Fifty minutes of prestige-television craft applied to 156 total yards. Liev Schreiber is going to have to work for this one. SI
NFC WEST SCHADENFREUDE REPORT
NINERS
San Francisco is down starting defensive ends for the preseason, so Kyle Shanahan spent his week talking about the backups he’d like to see separate themselves. “I like when guys make it so we don’t have to make a tough decision,” he said, before dropping the detail that gives it away: four of the ends they played that day hadn’t even started training camp with the team. That’s not a position battle. That’s a hiring fair.
CARDINALS
Arizona ran its No. 3 overall pick out there for 14 touches in a preseason game, and Jeremiyah Love hurt his ankle on the final play before he came off. He won’t practice this week, won’t play against Dallas, and Mike LaFleur would not commit to him being ready for Week 1. LaFleur spent Sunday defending the workload, noting Love’s confidence went through the roof after the third drive. There should not have been a third drive.
SEACHICKENS TRIVIA
This wide receiver spent eight seasons in Seattle and, in his 12th NFL season, posted career highs with 94 catches and 1,147 yards — the only 1,000-yard year of his career. Who is he?
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Bobby Engram. He also led the 2005 NFC champions in receiving with 67 catches for 778 yards, which tells you plenty about how that offense was built.
THE GOLDEN EGG
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It is a sticker. A quarter-sized decal on the back of one helmet that tells everybody which defender has the radio in his ear. One per defense, ever, by rule. When that guy leaves the field, the dot leaves with him, and somebody else has to know the whole call sheet cold.
Saturday night, with Aden Durde running the defense from the sideline, the dot lived on Tyrice Knight’s helmet. He is not a starter. He was, by the head coach’s own accounting, out there more than anyone bargained for. He also led everybody in tackles and did it in one half.
The dot doesn’t care about your depth chart. It goes where the coaches trust the communication. That’s the whole award.
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Per Defense, By Rule
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Tackles By Its Wearer
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Snaps It Takes Off
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Two preseason games left, and one linebacker who clearly didn't get the memo about August. — The Rooster