There's still a lot of football to played for the Seahawks and the rest of the teams contending for NFC playoff spots, but the fact that Sunday night's game against the Packers is such a meaningful game says a lot about what the team has been able to accomplish this season under first-year coach Mike Macdonald, particularly over the last month.

Coming out of their bye week and heading into a road game against the 49ers, the Seahawks had a 4-5 record, having lost five of six following a 3-0 start. But less than a month after that game in Santa Clara, the Seahawks have won four straight games to get to 8-5 and take over first-place in the NFC West, which means Sunday's game against the 9-4 Packers has big-time playoff implications for both teams.

"We talked about it this morning, it's the next game, but it's about becoming who we want to become as a team, and where we want to go, and it's the next step," Macdonald said. "It's a big stage, obviously, but that's why you do all the things you do your whole life, and this whole year as a team, and all the steps we've taken to earn this opportunity to have this stage with this amount at stake. You've got to love it."

As Macdonald put it, the Seahawks are still working towards becoming the type of team they want to be. As to Macdonald, the easiest way to describe who he wants the team to be can be summed up in a phrase he used when talking to the team when players first arrived in April, and one that is painted on a mural players walk past on their way to the practice field that reads, "A STYLE NOBODY WANTS TO PLAY."

"It's on that mural over there," Macdonald said, nodding towards said mural. "Trying to not just make it a bunch of words on a wall, but who we are. The stuff we talk about: 12 As One, that visual, that imagery, that vision of what we want to be. We're getting there, but we understand we've got a month of football to play. Some pretty big-time games, starts with this one."

The Seahawks have done a lot of things well to get to 8-5 after that rough patch, the most obvious being the improvements made on defense. But a less measurable part of the turnaround can be found in the way players continued to believe in what they were trying to build even when the results weren't coming for a long stretch.

"Our leaders deserve a lot of credit," Macdonald said. "Man, we love our guys, and I think they've done a great job of staying steadfast in what we're trying to create. I think you just need to be consistent. We weren't getting the results that we wanted, but I felt like the guys believed in the things we were trying to get done, and it felt like there was progress going on. So, those types of things, that kept everybody together. But our players deserve a lot of credit for keeping the faith and staying poised and staying together, and that's why we love them."