SEATTLE (AP) — Sam Darnold's four interceptions and the Seahawks' failure to convert in the red zone overshadowed another strong performance by Seattle's defense.
The Seahawks held Matthew Stafford and the Rams to 249 yards in Sunday’s 21-19 loss. That's the second-lowest total of the season for Los Angeles.
“Our guys fought incredibly hard,” coach Mike Macdonald said. “I thought we executed well, gave them some tough spots. That’s what we talk about.”
Stafford was limited to 130 passing yards, his fewest since a win over the New York Jets last December. Macdonald credited a Seahawks secondary that was close to full capacity after being banged up earlier this season, although injured safety Julian Love didn't play.
Cornerbacks Riq Woolen and Josh Jobe each had pass deflections, and All-Pro cornerback Devon Witherspoon had another solid day.
“We do have depth at cornerback,” Macdonald said Monday. “When you have Riq, Josh and Spoon out there, that’s three starting corners that are playing good football.”
A healthier secondary bodes well for the league's sixth-ranked scoring defense. For much of the season, the front seven has been key to Seattle's success. The team has the fourth-most sacks in the league.
Macdonald wasn’t satisfied after the Seahawks lost to their division rival. But Macdonald, a former defensive coordinator, was pleased that the unit continues to provide him with teaching moments.
“You’re trying to ask them to find new things to screw up,” Macdonald said. “It’s a positive that there’s new things each week that pop up that we want to attack.”
The Seahawks’ rushing attack appears to have turned a corner. Seattle topped 100 yards rushing for the third time in four games. For the second time in as many weeks, Kenneth Walker III ran for 67 yards, and he added his fourth touchdown of the season.
“I think Ken’s showing that he’s earning more opportunities to get the ball,” Macdonald said. “All three of our backs are doing a great job, and I think they really felt Ken yesterday, and just even in the pass game too on checkdowns and finding him late in the play. It just shows you that he’s such an explosive player with the ball in his hands.”
The Seahawks failed to sack Stafford, the first time this year they did not bring down a quarterback.
“You look at the metrics and what we look at on defense of how much we affected the quarterback, and we didn’t really meet our mark yesterday,” Macdonald said. “So, there’s room to grow as well. But the guys rushed hard.”
Tight end AJ Barner responded from a few lackluster showings with the most complete game of his career. The second-year Michigan product had a career-high 10 catches for 70 yards.
Darnold targeted him 11 times. This season, Barner has caught 84% of passes thrown his way.
Darnold wasn’t the sole reason the Seahawks lost, and linebacker Ernest Jones IV vehemently defended the quarterback. But it was a forgettable afternoon for the veteran, who will hope to bounce back quickly.
G Grey Zabel suffered a knee injury that Macdonald said is not significant. LB Tyrice Knight is in the concussion protocol.
2,218 — Days since Darnold last threw four interceptions in a game. He did so on Oct. 21, 2019, for the Jets against New England.
The Seahawks play at Tennessee on Nov. 23 before hosting Minnesota on Nov. 30.
AP NFL: https://apnews.com/NFL
Seattle Seahawks linebacker DeMarcus Lawrence celebrates a false start by the Los Angeles Rams during the second half of an NFL football game Sunday, Nov. 16, 2025, in Inglewood, Calif. (AP Photo/Katie Chin)
Seattle Seahawks cornerback Josh Jobe, left, celebrates after stopping a pass intended for Los Angeles Rams wide receiver Puka Nacua during the second half of an NFL football game Sunday, Nov. 16, 2025, in Inglewood, Calif. (AP Photo/Katie Chin)
Los Angeles Rams running back Kyren Williams, left, celebrates his touchdown as Seattle Seahawks cornerback Devon Witherspoon, center, and safety Coby Bryant watch during the first half of an NFL football game Sunday, Nov. 16, 2025, in Inglewood, Calif. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)
MILAN (AP) — Milan’s storied Teatro alla Scala celebrated its gala season premiere Sunday with a Russian opera for the second time since Moscow’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. But this year, instead of drawing protests for showcasing the invader’s culture, a flash mob demonstrated for peace.
La Scala’s music director Riccardo Chailly conducted Dmitry Shostakovich’s “Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk” for the gala season opener that draws luminaries from culture, business and politics for one of the most anticipated events of the European cultural calendar.
Culture Minister Alessandro Giuli was joined by the senator for life Liliana Segre, a Holocaust survivor, and Milan Mayor Giuseppe Sala in the royal box.
Shostakovich's 1934 opera highlights the condition of women in Stalin’s Soviet Union, and was blacklisted just days after the communist leader saw a performance in 1936, the threshold year of his campaign of political repression known as the Great Purge.
A dozen activists from a liberal Italian party held up Ukrainian and European flags in a quiet demonstration removed from the La Scala hubub that aimed “to draw attention to the defense of liberty and European democracy, threatened today by (President Vladimir) Putin’s Russia, and to support the Ukrainian people.’’
The party underlined that Shostakovich's opera exposes the abuse of power and the role of personal resistance.
Another, larger, demonstration of several dozen people in front of city hall called for freedom for the Palestinians and an end to colonialism, but was kept far from arriving dignitaries by a police cordon. Demonstrations against war and other forms of inequality have long countered the glitz of the gala season premiere.
Chailly began working with Russian stage director Vasily Barkhatov on the title about two years ago, following the 2022 gala season premiere of the Russian opera “Boris Godunov,” which was attended by Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, both of whom separated Russia’s politicians from its culture.
But outside the Godunov premiere, Ukrainians protested against highlighting Russian culture during a war rooted in the denial of a unique Ukrainian culture. The Ukrainian community did not announce any separate protests this year.
Chailly called the staging of Shostakovich’s “Lady Macbeth" at La Scala for just the fourth time “a must.’’
“It is an opera that has long suffered, and needs to make up for lost time,’’ Chailly told a news conference last month.
La Scala’s new general manager, Fortunato Ortombina, defended the choices made by his predecessor to stage both Shostakovich’s “Lady Macbeth” and Modest Mussorgsky’s “Boris Godunov " at the theater best known for its Italian repertoire.
‘‘Music is fundamentally superior to any ideological conflict,’’ Ortombina said on the sidelines of the news conference. “Shostakovich, and Russian music more broadly, have an authority over the Russian people that exceeds Putin's own.’’
American soprano Sara Jakubiak made her La Scala debut in the title role of Katerina, whose struggle against existential repression leads her to commit murder, landing her in a Siberian prison where she dies. It’s the second time Jakubiak has sung the role, after performances in Barcelona last year, and she said Shostakovich's Katerina is full of challenges.
“That I’m a murderess, that I’m singing 47 high B flats in one night, you know, all these things,’’ Jakubiak said while sitting in the makeup chair ahead of the Dec. 4 preview performance to an audience of young people. “You go, ‘Oh my gosh, how will I do this?’ But you manage, with the right kind of work, the right team of people. Yes, we’re just going to go for the ride.”
Speaking to journalists recently, Chailly joked that he was “squeezing” Jakubiak like an orange. Jakubiak said she found common ground with the conductor known for his studious approach to the original score and composer’s intent.
“Whenever I prepare a role, it’s always the text and the music and the text and the rhythms,'' she said. “First, I do this process with, you know, a cup of coffee at my piano and then we add the other layers and then the notes. So I guess we’re actually somewhat similar in that regard.''
Jakubiak, best known for Strauss and Wagner, has a major debut coming in July when she sings her first Isolde in concert with Anthony Pappano and the London Symphony.
Barkhatov, who at 42 has has a flourishing international career, said “Lady Macbeth” is a “very brave and exciting" choice.
Barkhatov's stage direction sets the opera in a cosmopolitan Russian city in the 1950s, the end of Stalin’s regime, rather than a 19th-century rural village as written for the 1930s premier.
For Barkhatov, Stalin’s regime defines the background of the story and the mentality of the characters for a story he sees as a personal tragedy and not a political tale. Most of the action unfolds inside a restaurant appointed in period Art Deco detail, with a rotating balustrade creating a kitchen, a basement and an office where interrogations take place.
Despite the tragic arc, Barkhatov described the story as “a weird … breakthrough to happiness and freedom.’’
“Sadly, the statistics show that a lot of people die on their way to happiness and freedom,’’ he added.
Stage director Vasily Barkhatov sits during an interview with The Associated Press prior to the dressed rehearsal of Dmitri Shostakovich's Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District at La Scala Opera House in Milan, Italy, Thursday, Dec. 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni)
A wig receives final touches ahead of the dress rehearsal of Dmitri Shostakovich's Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District at La Scala Opera House in Milan, Italy, Thursday, Dec. 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni)
A wig receives final touches ahead of the dress rehearsal of Dmitri Shostakovich's Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District at La Scala Opera House in Milan, Italy, Thursday, Dec. 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni)
External view of Teatro all Scala ahead of the dress rehearsal of Dmitri Shostakovich's Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District in Milan, Italy, Thursday, Dec. 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni)
Soprano Sara Jakubiak has her makeup done ahead of the dress rehearsal of Dmitri Shostakovich's Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District at La Scala Opera House in Milan, Italy, Thursday, Dec. 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni)
The stage is prepared ahead of the dressed rehearsal of the Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk District, by Dmitri Shostakovich, at La Scala Opera House in Milan, Italy, Thursday, Dec. 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni)
