Seahawks coach Mike Macdonald understands the frustration fans are feeling after his team's most recent loss, their fifth in the last six games. Heck, he feels that frustration probably more than just about anyone else.

But Macdonald also sees better things coming, soon, if he, his coaching staff and his players can take advantage of the upcoming bye week, clean up some of the mistakes that have been costing the team in recent weeks, while at the same time building off some of the positives that have been showing up even in recent losses.

"We're on our way," Macdonald said Monday. "It's not where we want to be. It's not where we expected it to be, but I feel like we're resilient as heck. You can just go week-by-week on the adversity that we faced. A lot of it is self-inflicted adversity and great football teams don't do that. They eliminate drag, they go forward fast together. We're going together, we're just not going fast right now. So it's our job as coaches to really eliminate that drag and make it clear for the guys. And like I said last night, you got to go into these things with the mentality that everything's on the table. You've got to go with an open mind, open your lens up a little bit, and go back to work. But our guys, we'll talk to them here in a minute. We'll meet today and then we'll move forward."

And when it comes to making improvements, as Macdonald noted, just about everything is on the table, from personnel changes to scheme to how he and the coaching staff are running things on a day-to-day basis.

"We have an opportunity here this week to attack the heck out of this bye week," he said. "Our players get a chance to really recover and take care of their bodies and coaches-wise, we got some work on our hands to go attack this thing and really continue to streamline what we're doing, how we're coaching it. We're trying to get done and have a great plan for next week so we can really hit the ground running on Monday and ramp into the second half of the season, which is critical for us. We have to start producing better results. Everybody knows that and onward we go, but we got a big week ahead of us."

Macdonald added that "all of the above" are in play when it comes to possibly making changes to the lineup or scheme or how they do things in practice.

"All of the above," he said. "I think we're doing a lot of good things, but if you go in kind of just with a myopic view of, 'Hey, it's only over here,' then you might miss something. I don't want to miss something. So, let's go through it with a fine-tooth comb and let's be honest and let's go."

From a personnel standpoint, there's only so much that can change in-season, but Macdonald has already shown a willingness to make changes at starting spots, and an extra week could make that even more likely. Macdonald, like all coaches, puts a lot of value in players practice, and has rewarded players with bigger roles when they have done well Monday through Saturday to earn it, including safety Coby Bryant, who has reemerged as a playmaker on defense, cornerback Josh Jobe, who got his shot out of necessity due to injury, but has now created tough decisions for his coaches with his play over the past three games, and receiver Cody White, who after quietly putting in work on the practice squad, had a big impact in last week's game.

"Cody's a guy—similar to what Coby has been doing and what Josh Jobe has been doing on the practice squad—(people are) having a hard time covering this dude," Macdonald said when asked about White, who blocked a punt and had two catches for 44 yards, as well drawing a pass interference penalty. "And just does everything right all the time, plays extremely hard, knows all the spots, had a lot of confidence in him going out there. I know the guys were juiced to go give him an opportunity, and we probably should have won the game because of what Cody was able to do."

For Macdonald, few things in coaching are better than seeing a player earn his shot with his work in practice, then have it pay off in a game, so of course he is going to be willing to let more player push established starters for bigger roles coming out of the bye.

"It's probably the best part of the job when you see guys grow, and what gets you hooked is when guys do stuff one day that they haven't done the day before, to see hard work really pay off," he said. "I mean, these guys, they work extremely hard and a lot of them were working in the shadows to help the rest of the team. We had a crew come visit us last week and one of the people said that they wanted to be a force multiplier for their squad, and I felt like some of these guys that are really working for our teams are force multipliers for us. I think Cody's one of those people."

As for why there is reason to think the Seahawks can get going in the second half of the season, perhaps nothing is more encouraging than the improvement shown by Seattle's defense on Sunday while facing a dangerous Rams offense.

Seattle's run defense, which has struggled so much in recent games, allowed just 68 yards and a 2.8 yards-per-carry average, and in no small part because of that improvement, the Seahawks managed to force seven three-and-outs, tied for the most this season for a Seattle opponent, while holding the Rams to a 3-for-13 conversion rate on third down. With those seven three-and-outs forced in the game, the Seahawks now have 31 this season, per the Elias Sports Bureau, ranking first in the NFL. If you factor in turnovers that limit drives to three or fewer plays, the Seahawks have 39 such defensive possessions, tied for second most behind Cleveland's 40.

Macdonald sees that defensive improvement as "a great opportunity to explain kind of where I feel like our football team is." Adding, "We deserve a lot of the criticism that we've been getting defensively. But you're kind of banging your head against the wall, and some of these things that you're trying to get done schematically and playing together, communication-wise, are all the things, and the tackling. But you keep stringing good weeks and good practices together and all of a sudden, the confidence builds and you start to see some results on Sundays and that's where we're going as a football team. Offensively I don't know if the curve is slanted the same way, but I feel like the approach and the mentality are the same way. Hopefully we kind of break through altogether here, all three phases and it speaks to the guy's resiliency and their mentality of staying the course and believing in what we're doing. And it was good to see us take a step in the right direction last night because the guys deserved it."