Lon Horwedel-Imagn Images A Week 4 preview with John Gilbert of @FieldGulls about the matchup between the Detroit Lions and Seattle Seahawks. For the fourth consecutive season, the Detroit Lions will square off against the Seattle Seahawks, hoping that this will finally be the year they get in the win column. The Lions are 0-3 in Dan Campbell’s tenure as head coach, and the Seahawks have a new coaching staff that has them sitting at 3-0 on the season and at the top of the NFC West. It’s another week of football, and we would never pass up the opportunity to get some intel from the opponent’s perspective. We called on John Gilbert of FieldGulls.com to give us a look into how this Seahawks team has gotten off to such a hot start, and how they’re shaping up for this Week 4 matchup on “Monday Night Football.” Pete Carroll was an institution, coaching for 14 seasons in Seattle and having one of the most decorated tenures in NFL history. Mike Macdonald has some pretty big shoes to fill in that respect, but after a flawless 3-0 start to the season, was this sort of start on your radar, or how have preseason expectations changed for this new regime? The Seahawks have started the season with a perfect 3-0 record, but anyone who watched the games should be quick to offer up that the performances were far from flawless. And, while it is great to be sitting at 3-0, and atop the NFC West with a two game lead over both the rival Los Angeles Rams and San Francisco 49ers, the reality is the opponents Seattle has defeated have not been the most difficult. The three Seattle victories have come over a group of teams that is a combined 3-6 with a point differential of -51, so I’m going to hold off making travel plans to New Orleans in February for right now. With that said, there is zero doubt that Macdonald has put his stamp on this team. The defense is tackling better than they have in a long time, they’re mixing up looks defensively and keeping opponents off balance and while they’ve struggled with specific things when it comes to stopping the run, there has been visible improvement each week. With Macdonald comes one of the most unpredictable defenses for opposing offenses to prepare for any given week. As the defensive coordinator for the Baltimore Ravens, Macdonald had a bevy of talent at all levels in guys like Michael Pierce, Roquan Smith, Marlon Humphrey, and Kyle Hamilton, so in combination with his defensive play calling, he had the unique blend of talent plus scheme. In Seattle, the Seahawks are already ranked the No. 2 defense by DVOA without the same kind of name-brand talent. What’s been key to that early-season success, and which players have flourished under these schematic and philosophical changes under Macdonald? DVOA is a fantastic stat, but the ‘Defense-adjusted’ portion of Defense-adjusted Value Over Average doesn’t actually get figured into the equation until after Week 4. Thus, while they’re highly ranked by DVOA on both sides of the ball, my guess is that once the opponent adjustments get factored in after Week 4 they’ll be a little bit lower. Regardless of how far they drop, though, fans are excited that the defense brings not just more unpredictability, but more intensity and pop than it has in years past. If you think back to when the Seahawks and Lions faced off in the Wild Card Game following the 2016 season, that was the last time Seattle ended the year with a top ten scoring defense, and the early results from Macdonald have fans hoping for a return of that kind of performance on a regular basis. As for the individual players who have excelled, Devon Witherspoon and Tariq Woolen have been phenomenal at cornerback, while Boye Mafe, Derick Hall, Leonard Wililams and Byron Murphy have wreaked havoc up front, and those are all names Detroit fans are likely to hear repeatedly come Monday. The caveat to this is that both Williams and Murphy left the victory over the Dolphins with injuries, so first things first, we’ll need to wait for the injury report to see if they’re able to play. For as great as their start has been on the defensive side of the ball, Seattle’s offense has been awesome as well, currently sitting at sixth in team offense DVOA. What has offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb done to get this offense off to such a productive and efficient start, and where do you still see room for growth through three games? The Seattle offense has put up some very big plays, and they’ve put points on the board when they’ve needed, but they’ve been extremely inconsistent to start the season. They’re in the bottom half of the league in generating explosives, they’ve struggled horrifically when it comes to protecting Geno Smith and injuries to starters at running back, right tackle and tight end have thrown wrenches into what they’ve tried to do at times. Through all that, though, they’ve put enough points on the board to help the team to a 3-0 record. With that said, my guess is the offense will improve in the coming weeks and months as offensive line play (hopefully) improves and the offense is able to string together drives more successfully, rather than relying on the big play to DK Metcalf. A lot of the matchups between these two teams this week seem to be strength-on-strength. What’s one area in which you’re confident Seattle will be successful this week against Detroit, and what’s one area where you think the Seahawks will really be tested by this Lions team? When Seattle and Detroit faced off last year, it was a matchup of teams that had trouble generating pressure, and in particular taking down the quarterback. So far this season that has not been an issue for the Hawks, and with Uchenna Nwosu potentially playing for the first time since suffering a knee injury in the preseason and joining Mafe, Hall, Dre’Mont Jones and the rest of the defense in posing the fiercest pass rush Jared Goff has seen from the Seahawks. On the flip side, there is no shortage of worry about what Aidan Hutchinson might do Sunday. The Seahawks first string right tackle, Abe Lucas, is on the PUP list. The Seahawks second string tackle, George Fant, is on injured reserve. That gives Hutchinson and the Lions the ability to Stone Forsythe, who has started just 11 games in his three plus seasons in the NFL. Forsythe has performed better than many fans expected the past couple of weeks, but Hutchinson will be without question the most difficult assignment he’s been given this season, and it’s a matchup that could easily turn things in Detroit’s favor. What’s your most lucrative nugget of Seahawks’ intel that a Lions fan could benefit from hearing and putting on their bet slip for this Week 4 matchup? This one is simple, and it’s one I’ve written about before, but the fact is that teams from the Pacific Time Zone perform very well against teams from the Eastern Time Zone in primetime. Long story short, playing in primetime is akin to home field advantage for the team from the West Coast.