@pnw4democracy.bsky.social asks, "The running game still isn't functioning like it should. What is the plan to fix it?"
A: The Seahawks have indeed been more inconsistent than they'd like in the running game, and that is a topic coaches dove into during the bye week. What solutions they came up with won't be shared publicly, for obvious reasons, but Macdonald is confident they will get that aspect of their offense going.
"I think we're on the right track," Macdonald said Monday. "We have a better understanding of what we do well and what we don't do as well, how we build things, who's out there, that sort of thing. But we don't need any wholesale changes. We need to keep attacking it. There's detail involved, there's operation involved, game plan, scheme, all the above is room for improvement. I think we saw last game, we took a stride. We just got to keep moving in that direction."
@SeanO_PNW asks, "With Pearl Jam turning 35 years old recently, rank their last four studio albums: Backspacer, Lightning Bolt, Gigaton, Dark Matter."
A: Sheesh, Sean, just ask me to rank my children next time, it might be easier (just kidding, girls!).
As anyone who reads this mailbag regularly or follows me on twitter knows, I'm a rather big Pearl Jam fan, so I spent way too much time on this list, including consulting a few co-workers and friends who are also Pearl Jam fans, and also re-listening to all four albums. Pearl Jam's best and most well-known work came earlier in their career, which as the question notes, began in 1990, with their first show taking place in Seattle at the Off Ramp on October 22, 1990 when they were still known as Mookie Blaylock. The beauty and challenge of this question is that by only ranking the most recent four albums, it eliminated the more obvious choices from earlier in their career like Ten, Vs., Vitalogy, No Code and Yield. I thoroughly enjoy every album Pearl Jam has put out, so ranking them is hard, but let's give it a go anyway.
Maybe it's recency bias, maybe it's nostalgia since my oldest daughter's first Pearl Jam concert was on the Dark Matter Tour, or maybe it's just that the combination of a great band working with Andrew Watt, one of the best rock producers in the biz, but to me Dark Matter, which came out in 2024, is the best of Pearl Jam's recent work. In fact, depending on when you ask me, I might put it up as their best album since Yield, which came out in 1998, which shows the talent and longevity of the band that they're still putting out such high-quality work nearly 35 years after their debut album.
Again, that's not to say I don't like every one of Pearl Jam's albums, but if you're making me choose, Dark Matter gets the slight edge over Backspacer for the best of those four. Unlike my friend and fellow Pearl Jam enthusiast, Seattle Times reporter Tim Booth, I'm not an irrational Backspacer hater. Backspacer, which came out in 2009, kicks off with some fun up-tempo songs, then hits a great three-song stretch with Just Breathe, Amongst the Waves and Unthought Known, the latter of which is particularly outstanding live. The End is a great slow song to close out the album as well. And, oh by the way, Just Breathe was the first dance at our wedding, so my wife would probably not be thrilled if this album didn't rank highly.
Lightning Bolt (2013) comes in third on the list for me, and includes several songs I really enjoy, including Sirens, Lightning Bolt, Pendulum (another song you'll appreciate a lot more if you've heard it live), and the final track on the album, the gorgeous Future Days.
Rounding out the list for me is Gigaton, which again, by no means is a bad album, it's just not quite as good, to me, as the other three. There are several songs I really enjoy on Gigaton, including Seven O'Clock, Comes Then Goes, Retrograde and River Cross, and giving this album a little extra meaning is when it came out: March 27, 2020. As most of you probably recall, the world was pretty much shut down in late March, 2020 thanks to COVID-19, so having something like a new Pearl Jam album, the band's first in seven years, to look forward to, was a pretty big deal. For me, and I'm sure plenty of other folks, there are certain albums, TV shows, movies or other forms of art and entertainment that came out during the COVID lockdown that have a little extra meaning because they provided entertainment or distraction or levity in some pretty dark times. For me, that list includes Ted Lasso, the Fake Doctors, Real Friends podcast, Hamilton's release on Disney+, ESPN's the Last Dance, Taylor Swift's Folklore (some good father-daughter bonding there) and Gigaton. Would I have appreciated any of those things as much in more normal times? Maybe, maybe not, but they were all particularly meaningful given what was going on in the world at the time and how few options for entertainment we had.
Finally, to wrap this way-too-long answer up, as I mentioned, I consulted a few other Pearl Jam fans, so here's how they ranked them.
Jesse Ireland, one of my oldest friends who I went to PJ concerts with as a teenager: Dark Matter, Backspacer, Lightning Bolt, Gigaton.
Tim Booth, Seattle Times reporter and unfairly harsh critic of Backspacer: Dark Matter, Lightning Bolt, Gigaton, Backspacer.
Brian O'Connell, Seahawks director of broadcasting: Dark Matter, Lightning Bolt, Backspacer, Gigaton.
Eric Enberg, Seahawks VP of suites & premium: Lightning Bolt, Dark Matter, Backspacer, Gigaton.
Mike Naehr, Seahawks director of suite sales: Backspacer, Lightning Bolt, Dark Matter, Gigaton.
@haaeson asks, "How was your bye week?"
A: Lovely, thank you for asking. We did Disneyland with the kiddos for the first time, which obviously was a blast for them, while also being exhausting. So a fun bye, but not a relaxing one.
@luxmaiorum.bsky.social asks, "When will Robbie Ouzts be back?"
A: Ouzts, Seattle's rookie fullback, has missed the past four games on injured reserve with an ankle injury, but he was back on the practice field Monday for the first time, having been designated for return. That doesn't necessarily mean Ouzts will be game ready this week, but it's an important first step towards his return. We probably won't know the likelihood of Ouzts playing this week until Friday's final injury report of the week.
@MegaNuck, who appears to be a Ravens fan, asks, "Can Mike Macdonald come back to Baltimore?"
A: Sorry, no, we're pretty darn happy with him here in Seattle. Though the schedule rotation does have the Seahawks scheduled to return to Baltimore in 2031, so you can always wait until then to see Macdonald up close. And yes, I realized it's far from a given that a head coach will be in one job for nearly a decade, but based off what we've seen from Macdonald so far in his short time leading the Seahawks, I would expect this to be a long and successful tenure in Seattle.