Mike Macdonald finally has his defense playing the way we all expected. After three pretty dominant weeks against NFC West foes, including a 16-6 clampdown of Arizona in Week 12, that unit looks capable of holding down most offenses the rest of the way and helping the Seahawks make the playoffs.

But the offense is going to have to start doing its part.

Before we get to the offense’s problems, let’s start with the defense’s turnaround, which hopefully has not come too late.

The past three weeks have shown that Macdonald has fixed his defense. As Devon Witherspoon said, he is “in his bag” and “dialing up them calls.”

Leonard Williams was uber-dominant against Arizona, playing easily his best game since coming to Seattle, and he revealed that some team leaders had met after the bye and decided to treat every game as a playoff game if they were to rally from 4-5 to actually make the playoffs. They have won two straight, and Williams said he sees the renewed confidence in teammates’ eyes.

The turnaround really started after the 31-10 embarrassment against the Bills, which capped a horrendous five-week tailspin in which the defense had surrendered 29.2 points, 421 yards and 168 rushing yards per game.

The Hawks have since gone 2-1 against their NFC West foes, and it would have been 3-0 if not for Geno Smith giving away the game against the Rams. In those three games, the defense has given up just 14 points, 314 yards and 83 rushing yards per game. The rushing defense is where it all starts – allowing Williams & Co. to tee off.

“If you allow teams to run the ball, then they’re staying on their terms down the stretch of the drive,” Williams said. “(Now) we’re putting them in backed-up situations, and that’s when we’re allowing Mike to call his plays.”

Asked what had changed over the past three weeks, Macdonald reiterated that they sought to “tighten down the focus about … what we need to do better.”

“We are looking at three weeks now. We’re trying to do this over the long haul and make a run here in the latter part of the season. It’s going to require us to play this way every week. The guys know that, and they’re locked in.”

Unlock the offense?

If only the offense would get dialed in, too. That unit has been stumbling along, even as Olu Oluwatimi and Abe Lucas seemingly have stabilized the line the past two games.

Seattle is still struggling to run the ball, now ranking 28th at 89.1 yards per game and 3.9 yards per carry and 30^th in rushing EPA. Kenneth Walker III also is missing holes because he does not trust the line. He looks for the cutback almost every time, sometimes eschewing a perfectly good running lane.

Despite being held under 70 yards for the fourth time this season, Macdonald thinks the running game is coming.

“I think our run game is still making strides,” he told Seattle Sports 710. “I think we kind of know who we are in the run game and the complements off of it. We’ve just got to keep hammering away. It’s going to come to life. I mean there’s some really cool stuff on tape. I really believe that, and so I’m excited about where we’re going.”

And then there is Smith, who is as polarizing as ever among fans. Some think he is excelling amid trying conditions. Others think he is the one holding the offense back.

The fact is the offense has been out of rhythm for weeks and there is plenty of blame to go around.

In the first four games, Seattle ranked 11^th in EPA per play – meaning it was very productive. Much of that was due to Smith, who was stepping up in the pocket and delivering confident strikes downfield. But then came the terrible 29-20 loss to the Giants in Week 5, when Smith was sacked seven times. Since that game, the offense ranks 23^rd in EPA and Smith is 20th in dropback EPA.

Smith has thrown a league-high 12 interceptions, and he has cost the Hawks points in the red zone on multiple occasions (including losing the game vs. the Rams and throwing an end zone interception against Arizona).

Smith seems to be having trouble reading the field – on one play vs. Arizona, he had about 10 seconds thanks to the line’s stout blocking and still could not find a receiver. He also took two sacks that put the Hawks out of field goal range. Smith needs to get back in the rhythm he had early in the season.

A lot of this falls on Ryan Grubb, of course. The rookie OC has so far not shown he has solutions to the poor running game and the regressive passing game. His offense shows little imagination, uses very little misdirection and seems to include a lot of staid route concepts that make it harder for Smith to find a rhythm. Up-tempo play is the only time Smith seems to feel in rhythm these days. But that was said of Russell Wilson a lot, too.

Macdonald doesn’t seem to think Grubb is in over his head or Smith is a big problem, but the coach clearly sees that the offense has been lacking.

“There’s some things we gotta clean up,” Macdonald told 710. “It’s very similar conversations we had when we felt like we were falling short on defense of, ‘Hey, we’ve just gotta keep working through these things, keep focusing on the right things.’ … You want to be targeted with this stuff rather than just these blank-slate changes and all this stuff. Just keep moving and shifting and veering towards where you want it to be, and eventually we’re going to get to where we want to go.”