8 takeaways from Mike Macdonald opening press conference with Seahawks

The future of Geno Smith, Seahawks coordinators, and the turning point for Pete Carroll: Seaside Joe 1797

The Seahawks hired Mike Macdonald to be their next head coach on Wednesday and held their opening press conference with him and John Schneider on Thursday. These are eight takeaways from the press conference, join the newsletter to not miss any more news and updates from these exciting times on the Seattle Seahawks:

Seahawks in contact with many coaches

Macdonald didn’t say who of course, but Seattle’s been in the process of contacting assistant coaches to woo their favorite candidates to the Seahawks which is probably why the head coach says that the last 24 hours already feels like it’s been weeks.

The first name rumored, right after the press conference ended, was Ryan Grubb: The Washington Huskies offensive coordinator last season who followed Kalen DeBoer to Alabama but is apparently now in the running to be the Seahawks OC.

This would be a shocking hire for many reasons, but nothing stands out more than Grubb’s lack of experience: He didn’t even coach at a Power 5 school until following DeBoer to Washington from Fresno State in 2022. He has never coached in the NFL.

Having been with the Ravens since 2014, aside from one year as the defensive coordinator at Michigan, I would imagine that Macdonald’s “book” of coaches has a lot of his colleagues from Baltimore in it. Schneider noted that one of the things that he loved about Macdonald is that they both know a lot of the same people even though the head coach is much younger and less experienced than him…Schneider’s got about 20 years on him in terms of NFL experience.

I’ll list some notable Ravens coaches since 2014 but not with the intention to just say that they could be coming to Seattle; instead, maybe a mutual friend who is a link between them could be though?

Notable Ravens coaches since 2014:

*retired might only mean they weren’t in the league last season

Steve Spagnuolo (Chiefs DC); Gary Kubiak (retired); Dean Pees (retired); Wink Martindale (Free Agent DC); Juan Castillo (Free Agent TE coach); Rick Dennison (retired QB coach); Jerry Rosburg (retired ST coordinator); Ted Monachino (retired LB coach); Marty Mornhinweg (retired); Marc Trestman (retired); Greg Roman (Free Agent OC); Joe Cullen (Chiefs DL); David Culley (retired); Anthony Weaver (Ravens DL/AHC); George Godsey (Ravens TE)

This is not an exhaustive list, but definitely all the former head coaches and offensive/defensive coordinators that Macdonald worked with during his tenure with the team. Rosburg, for example, was the Broncos interim head coach after Denver fired Nathaniel Hackett in 2022; would he be a candidate as special teams coordinator or will Seattle retain Larry Izzo?

Answers should be revealed soon.

Schneider was hoping Ravens, Lions would lose title games

It was reported all along, but still a little surprising to hear John Schneider say that he was in church on Sunday praying that the Ravens and Lions would lose their championship games so that he could interview Macdonald and Ben Johnson. There’s no hiding their interest in Johnson because the team flew to Detroit on Monday to interview the Lions offensive coordinator. However, I do think it is interesting that in Macdonald’s first press conference the GM is letting it be known that he may have been just as quick to hire Johnson.

Remember, the Lions didn’t have to lose for the Seahawks to interview Johnson because Seattle had already done a virtual interview with him. They had to wait until Macdonald’s team was eliminated from the playoffs or won the Super Bowl because they didn’t.

It’s a moot point anyway: Johnson went back to the Lions and after he cancelled his meeting with Washington, the Moons hired Dan Quinn to be their next head coach on Thursday.

We may never know if the Seahawks made an offer to Johnson and he declined, but I’m assuming that they didn’t because the news seemed to come out before they interviewed Macdonald. Schneider wanted both coaches to be available and it’s clear that reports of Seattle’s willingness to wait two more weeks for Macdonald if necessary were true.

Mike Macdonald will call defensive plays

Though Macdonald would eventually like to get to the point where he’s exclusively the head coach and a defensive coordinator is calling plays, he says that it is in the best interest of the team for him to have that role to start 2024. This is probably why Zach Orr, rumored on Wednesday to be following Macdonald to Seattle as DC, ended up staying in Baltimire: Orr will replace Macdonald as the Ravens defensive coordinator.

This is the same setup that DeMeco Ryans has in Houston after the Texans made him the head coach last year, but the order of news was much slower: When Ryans was hired, he said he hadn’t decided. Then in July, Ryans said he would call plays. Then in the preseason, defensive coordinator Matt Burke called plays. Then when the season started, Ryans was calling plays.

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It seems Macdonald wants no confusion: He will call plays. Will the Seahawks have a defensive coordinator? Technically, they don’t need one—Sean McDermott doesn’t have one in Buffalo, Bill Belichick didn’t always have one in New England. But if the Seahawks hire a defensive coordinator to support Macdonald, it gives the team options in the future and potentially someone to groom for the role.

Ravens blowout was turning point

Schneider said that leaving Baltimore was the most deflating feeling he’s had as a GM since 2011, when the Seahawks went to Pittsburgh and lost 24-0 to the Steelers. He later brought the Ravens game up again, noting that offensive players were essentially shellshocked and didn’t know what hit them.

Macdonald’s Ravens won 37-3 and held the Seahawks to 123 net passing yards, 28 rushing yards, forced two turnovers, had four sacks, and kept Seattle to 1-of-13 on third and fourth down conversion attempts.

Do the Seahawks have the talent on defense to win games in that fashion with Macdonald calling plays? A lot of people would actually say that they do, or that if they don’t that Seattle is only a couple of moves away from getting there. Will it translate immediately? I doubt that. The total stats from the last two years are phenomenal for the Ravens, they’re the best defense in the NFL in that period of time, but they were not that good in the first half of 2022 and actually the run defense was about as bad as Seattle’s in the second half of 2023.

But given a couple of years, the Seahawks might catch up to the Ravens, if not surpass them.

Ravens, Seahawks have similar philosophies

Schneider mentioned that many times throughout the years he would text former Ravens GM Ozzie Newsome or current GM Eric DeCosta and say “you stole our guy!” or vice versa during the draft.

But I’m not sure if there’s a player on either team who serves as an example of that right now. I don’t immediatley see any former Seahawks on the Ravens roster (closest being longsnapper Tyler Ott) or vice versa. The only thing I could really think of is that the Seahawks picked Jordyn Brooks right in front of Baltimore’s selection of Patrick Queen in 2020.

They are similar off-ball linebackers and I would hope that if Seattle re-signs Brooks that Macdonald is able to do for him what he did for Queen. That would be preferable to Macdonald bringing Queen, a free agent, over from Baltimore.

Mike has not met Pete Carroll

It’s not surprising that Mike Macdonald wouldn’t have met Pete Carroll up until yesterday, but then the new head coach was practically greeted by the entire city of Seattle standing in the VMAC on Wednesday. Everyone except…Pete Carroll.

There’s been mystery surrounding Pete’s involvement with the team as a “special advisor” but to not even meet the new head coach? It sure doesn’t seem like he’s doing much advising when Macdonald has probably met the local mailman before he’s met the previous head coach.

Which I still consider to be normal. It’s unusual that Pete was supposed to stick around at all.

Mike is not a “player’s coach”

A reporter asked something (I think, the questions are impossible to hear) about Macdonald being referred to as a “player’s coach” to which the coach said he had never been called that before.

This is a positive to me: Who cares about being a “player’s coach”? Nobody. You only get that reputation if players feel like they can get away with murder and relax while being paid millions of dollars to have the greatest job in the world. Yes, Pete has been referred to as a “player’s coach” many times and in the beginning it worked really well for him.

But the key isn’t to be a player’s coach…Players will automatically respect you if you’re a…”Winning Coach”. Nothing matters more than that.

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Intends to build offense around QB

This is about as clear as you can be that you’re different from Pete Carroll. In Pete’s opening press conference in 2010, he stressed the importance of the run game and defense. We know that Macdonald will stress defense and we can safely assume that he values a dominant run game—his old team had the number one rushing offense in the NFL—but he made it clear that the quarterback is the most important player on offense.

That’s what I like to hear and it’s what John Schneider likes to hear so that’s probably one of the reasons that Mike Macdonald is the Seahawks head coach today.

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As far as Geno Smith, Macdonald said that he has met him (when the teams played, not since being hired) and noted “He’s at the Pro Bowl right now, right?” but he never said anything that would make you think the Seahawks are committed to Geno Smith. It was more of “We’ll evaluate everything and take it from there” which stresses more of a philosophy to probably figure out how to get an elite quarterback and not just a good one.

I know that a lot of people think that the Seahawks will draft J.J. McCarthy because Macdonald crossed paths with him at Michigan (McCarthy was not really the starter that season, it was Cade McNamara) and the news of talking to Grubb about OC will surely put Michael Penix on people’s radar for Seattle. That’s not where my head goes: John Schneider is making the decision at quarterback with, I’m sure, input from the coaching staff.

The Seahawks should not draft Penix or McCarthy because of a coach, they should only draft a quarterback because they believe he’s a special talent who can succeed with any coach. We see the media make these pre-draft player/coach connections all the time (remember when the Seahawks were going to draft Taylor Mays in 2010 because he knew Pete Carroll but then Seattle picked Earl Thomas instead and Mays had a bad NFL career?) without very encouraging results.

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In either case, Macdonald made it clear that he places a lot of value on the quarterback position even though he’s a defensive guy. That’s a sign that him and Schneider will work well together and not necessarily that Geno Smith will survive his February 16th contract deadline.