The Seahawks earned a big road win on Sunday, beating the 49ers in Santa Clara to improve to 5-5 coming out of their bye week. There was plenty to like about the performance, ranging from a clutch finish by Geno Smith and the offense, to another strong performance by the defense, to the way the team responded to some adversity leading up to the game.

For more on all of that, here are five things we learned from Seahawks coach Mike Macdonald's Monday press conference.

1. Macdonald is proud of the mentality his team demonstrated last week and in Sunday's game.

The Seahawks showed they can overcome in-game adversity on Sunday, trailing for most of the game, before coming back to win in the final seconds of the game. But just as important as the resilience the team showed during Sunday's game is the mentality players have throughout the week, including a week that could have provided distractions to players had their focus not been in the right place.

The Seahawks came out of their bye week having lost five of their previous six games, but they didn't let the pressure of those recent losses get them down, nor did they allow a couple of unexpected and significant changes to the roster knock them off course. Early in the week, the Seahawks decided to make rookie Tyrice Knight their starting weakside linebacker, and with that decision, they also elected to waive Tyrel Dodson, who started the first nine games of the season and was the team's leading tackler. Then, later in the week, center Connor Williams surprised the team by deciding to retire, leading to Olu Oluwatimi taking over that spot. And after all of that, all the Seahawks did was go out and beat the 49ers on the road, ending a six-game losing streak against their NFC West rivals.

"Our guys, they are steadfast, man," Macdonald said. "I'm just really proud of our mentality, the leaders in our locker room. Even the young guys, just showing up to work, handling their business, sticking together. And the leaders understanding like, hey, we've got a lot of good stuff of a foundation that we're building here, and having faith in the process, seeing stuff happen on the practice field, understanding the things going on in the meetings, all the conversations and stuff. So I'm just really proud of our mentality that we've had. We've shown this mentality throughout the course of the season, face some adversity, and it's just great to get some returns on all of the work that we're putting in."

2. Ernest Jones IV and Tyrice Knight had a good first game together.

With Knight taking over a staring job, he and Ernest Jones IV, a midseason trade addition who was in just his third game with the team, were playing together as Seattle's starting inside linebacker duo for the first time. And in their first game starting together, Jones and Knight combined for 23 tackles—13 for Jones and 10 for Knight—while helping lead a strong overall performance by the defense, which was drastically better against the 49ers than in the previous meeting in Week 6.

"I thought both guys played a pretty dang good game," Macdonald said. "They ended up with 23 tackles between the both of them, there's some chemistry they're starting to build, which is cool. It just felt like it was sharp, we were on it, kind of ahead of plays sort of thing. You've got to give T-Knight a lot of credit for just getting up to speed, being sharp with the game plan and his responsibilities. I think he had only one (missed assignment). It's a lunching point for those two guys, and happy with the way those two guys played."

Asked more about Jones, who now has 37 tackles in three games since joining the Seahawks, Macdonald said, " This guy, the game is slow for him, so there's a poise there, a confidence in how to play blocks, how to pace the ball. He's seen all these things before. To take the next step for him is just to understand how our guys play the blocks in front of him and where the ball's going to end up based off of what structures that we're in and the schemes we're seeing, and that will just come with reps. He'll pick that up easy."

And as for Jones' future—he's in the final year of the rookie deal he signed with the Rams in 2021—Macdonald doesn't know how things will work out, timing wise, but he hopes to keep Jones around long term.

"John (Schneider) and I are talking every day about our team, the direction we want to go short and long term, so I can tell you that we're really excited about Ernest, and I hope there's an opportunity for him to be here for an extended period of time. But when that opportunity pops up, if and when, not sure right now, but he's definitely one of our type of guys, so we're excited to have him. Hopefully he's here for a while."

3. Geno Smith's poise "shows up every week."

After Geno Smith threw an interception on the first possession of the second half, he bounced back in a big way leading a touchdown drive on Seattle's next possession to give Seattle the lead, then leading the Seahawks on a game-winning drive in the final minutes of the game after San Francisco had retaken the lead.

That was Smith's 10^th game-winning drive in the fourth quarter or overtime since he became Seattle's starter in 2022, and his ability to come through in big moments is no surprise to his coach.

"It just shows up every week," Macdonald said. "That's who he is… Geno, he's a perfectionist. This guy wants to be right all the time, as you want your quarterback to be. And so just having that mental toughness to say, 'OK, hey look, it didn't go the way that I wanted, but there's nothing I can do about it now, I'm going to go make it right.' And then the poise that he has that he's continued to show his whole career late in the fourth quarter on some of these comeback wins, the guy's just a stone-cold assassin late in games. So, happy he's with us."

4. Olu Oluwatimi and Abraham Lucas both played well in their first starts of the season.

Smith called center Olu Oluwatimi and right tackle Abraham Lucas the unsung heroes in Sunday's win, with both players starting for the first time this season. Oluwatimi found out Wednesday that he was starting after Williams' retired, while Lucas was back for his first game following offseason knee surgery. Both players didn't just make it through the game, but played well in what was an improved performance by the line.

"With Olu, this guy's on his Ps and Qs, details, how we're making our calls, coming out fast, making sure we're all on the same page offensively, especially up front," Macdonald said. "That's one of Olu's superpowers. He was sturdy in pass protection. Run game, we're still chasing it, our run game numbers we still want to improve significantly."

On Lucas, Macdonald said, "Having Abe out there, proud to see the process that he's gone through to put himself in position to go play winning football for us. I haven't talked to Abe yet about what he thought of his performance yet, but I'm sure he's pretty sore today, and I'm sure there's some plays he wants to improve on, but I thought he got off to a great start."

5. It was a good game for the cornerbacks.

While 49ers receiver Jauan Jennings had a good game, catching 10 passes for 91 yards, the 49ers weren't able to do much else in the passing game on Sunday. Brock Purdy was held to just 159 yards with one touchdown and one interception, and the 49ers, who had several big passing plays in the previous meeting, including a 76-yard touchdown, managed just one play over 20 yards in the game, a 22-yard Jennings reception.

And while it took strong play at all three levels of the defense to make that happen, one of the keys was the play of cornerbacks Devon Witherspoon, Riq Woolen and Josh Jobe, who were playing together for the third straight game.

"It's all three levels how it works together," Macdonald said. "I will say continuity really helps, being able to stack reps from a week to week basis, And I think schematically, we're starting to find out what we're good at, and the answers to the riddles that we need to be able to solve earlier in the weeks, we're able to get some of those reps throughout the week that guys can see so they can go play with confidence."

"Then Josh deserves a lot of credit too. This guy just keeps stacking great days on top of each other, and we've got a lot of confidence in him right now. I thought he played a tremendous game. Devon Witherspoon got one of the game balls after the game, I thought he played one of his best games of the season. And Riq Woolen, in my opinion, played one of his best football games of the year as well. Just the focus, the attention to detail, the snap-to-snap locked-in-ness on what we're asking him to do was some pretty high-powered stuff. The challenge, let's go do it again, stack it, can we do it two weeks in a row for the first time in the last month or so."