DETROIT—Simply put, the Seahawks weren't good enough on Monday night, and the result was their first loss of the season.

Yes, there were mitigating circumstances, particularly on defense where the Seahawks were severely short-handed due to injuries, but regardless of any reasons for a subpar performance, Seahawks coach Mike Macdonald saw in Monday night's 42-29 loss to the Lions a team that still has some work to do to reach its potential.

"Just not a good enough performance on our front," Macdonald said. "Got to give Detroit a lot of credit. I thought they had a great plan offensively… They just outplayed us on the defensive side of the ball for us."

After a 3-0 start, the Seahawks came to Detroit knowing they were facing their biggest test of the season, a Lions squad that reached the NFC championship game a year ago, and that features the most well-balanced offensive attack Seattle has faced thus far.

And unwilling to use injuries that sidelined Uchenna Nwosu, Boye Mafe, Byron Murphy II and Leonard Williams—and for the second half, Julian Love—as excuse for a tough loss, Macdonald sees this loss as a sign of the work the Seahawks need to do to improve.

"It just shows us we're not the team that we need to be at this point," he said. "That's what it is. Just wasn't good enough. They did what they did to win the game, they did a great job, they had a great plan, and we came up short. So it's, how do we move forward right now as a football team and take the next step, because we've got a short week coming up and there's urgency—I mean, there's always an urgency, but we've got to go to work here over the next few days and make this right."

There were still things to like in the loss, including a big day for Geno Smith and the offense, but more than anything, Macdonald was proud of the way his team fought to stay in the game for four quarters after falling behind 14-0 early.

"I will tell you this, our guys fought the heck out of that game," Macdonald said. "They went down to the last second and that's what I'm most proud of right now and we're going to hold onto that and that's a foundation that we've built here that we're going to push forward with. We're four weeks into the season and, look, the message all week has been that we're on the foundation of our football team and where we want to be and it's obvious, we're not the team that we want to be yet, and we shouldn't be the team that we're going to be. We have time to grow as a football team, we have a short week, we have to have a sense of urgency about it, and we need to take the next step. But just wasn't good enough, especially on the defensive side of the ball today. So, we've got to make it right and move forward."

Monday's game was an exciting one that featured a ton of big plays by both teams, a common theme when these teams have faced off in recent years. And playing at anything close to full strength, then Seahawks might come up with a few more stops to give them a chance to win it. With Seattle and Detroit off to 3-1 starts, both figure to be playoff contenders, but for now the Seahawks have to get a little bit better to get to where they want to go.

"Detroit's a great team, they've shown it, they've proven it, they proved it again tonight, "And we want to be a great team, so we have to become a great team. We want to become the team that we believe that we can become, and so that's our focus."

Added quarterback Geno Smith, who threw for a career-high 395 yards, "We're 3-1, that's what it says, and now we've got to get on to the next one. That's just football, that's NFL football. I think the only team that went undefeated was the '72 Dolphins, so we're just trying to go out there and win every game we can. Today we didn't get it done, but that's why we've got next week, so we're going to improve and get back on it and get ready for next week."

The Seahawks will try to take the next step towards being the team they believe they're capable of being when they return home to face the Giants, then a Thursday night showdown with the 49ers follows in Week 6. There will be more ups and downs as the season progresses, but even in this loss, Macdonald sees an important trait developing in his team that should help them throughout the year.

"There's a feeling that you see in the guys' eyes where no one's hanging their heads, everyone's just laser-focused, poised, just like we've talked about throughout the Denver game," he said. "That's a characteristic of our team that we've had throughout the season, so proud of that. It's easy to start looking around and woe is me type of idea, but that's not our guys."

Players on both sides of the ball notices the same thing as their head coach.

"I think we showed resilience," defensive tackle Jarran Reed said. "Nobody got down during the game. We all had belief that we could win at any point of the game, we just had to get a stop, but that didn't happen."

Added running back Kenneth Walker, "We kept fighting. That's it, we kept fighting, that's the positive."

When the Seahawks fell behind 14-0 after a turnover, Smith rallied his teammates, making sure everyone's mind was in the right place, and he liked the response he saw out of the team the rest of the way.

"We're all in this thing together," Smith said. "We don't expect things to be easy. Adversity is a good thing, especially early in the season. And so, for us to come out the way that we did in the second half, and you can see the fight that we have on this team, the resiliency we have on this team, and just the type of men in that locker room, the way that they all fight for one another. We got ourselves back in the game, and gave ourselves a shot at the end, and that's really all you can ask for when you start out like that.

"We're just a group of bad MF-ers, man, that's just the type of guys we got on this team, and no one had any doubt, and that's the thing that you could see. When we walked out there on that field, we were down 14, but there was no doubt that we were going to give ourselves the chance to win. Unfortunately, we didn't do enough, I didn't do enough, to get that done. But it's one game, move on, go to next week."