Mike Macdonald brutally honest about Seahawks' last-second loss vs. Buccaneers

The Seattle Seahawks' 38-35 Week 5 loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers was its highest-scoring loss since the 2023 season. Considering they had a chance to put together a game-winning drive with just over a minute left in the game before Sam Darnold's turnover, it's an outcome with plenty of "what ifs."

But its also the second-most points allowed by the Seahawks so far in the Mike Macdonald era (22 games). Seattle hadn't given up more than 20 points in any game this season in what had been a strong defensive start to the 2025 campaign.

In his postgame press conference, Macdonald took the blame for his team's poor defensive performance.

“Obviously very disappointed," Macdonald said. "Our guys played extremely hard, fought all the way to the end. Look, I told the team, ‘This game is my responsibility, okay?’ You’ve got to give Tampa Bay a lot of credit … but I have to be better with our defensive gameplan, our execution and how we call it. When we put up a performance like that, it means that I didn’t prepare them well enough.”

Oct 5, 2025; Seattle, Washington, USA; Tampa Bay Buccaneers wide receiver Emeka Egbuka (2) runs after the catch as Seattle Seahawks cornerback Derion Kendrick (1) defends during the first half at Lumen Field. | Steven Bisig-Imagn Images

Seattle gave up 426 total yards of offense to the Buccaneers, the second-most under Macdonald. Tampa Bay's 370 passing yards are the most the Seahawks have allowed since Week 7 of the 2020 season.

“So, it hurts; it stings. It should, because our guys work extremely hard and they care. But we’re going to use this to move forward, and that’s the only thing we can do.”

While it was a bad performance by the defense, it was also the most short-handed that side of the ball has been in recent memory. The Seahawks were down to just six fully healthy defensive backs by the end of the game, and were without starters Devon Witherspoon, Julian Love, DeMarcus Lawrence, Derick Hall and Riq Woolen by the end of the game.

At a certain point, it's hard to plug all the holes. The backups didn't play well enough, and it showed as the Seahawks' offense tried to keep them in the game.

Seattle has rarely been at full strength on defense so far this season, and has largely been a top-end defense even without all of its starters. The Buccaneers are a very good team, but this feels like a game that will be an outlier on defense by the season's end.

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