Questions that wouldn't insult Mike Macdonald

Told Macdonald: "Bad S. Darn?" Gee I, Gee I...No!

When most Seahawks fans heard Mike Salk ask Mike Macdonald if there was any chance of Sam Darnold being unseated as Seattle’s starting quarterback before Week 1, they probably had the same thought that the head coach had: “What the hell are we doing here?”

The answer for why Salk would waste Macdonald’s time with a question that doesn’t need to be answered is probably the saddest possibility: Salk’s dumb question for Macdonald made “the news” and that is not something that happens to Brock & Salk very often.

Yes, he did it for clicks…

Calling out someone for “clickbait” is not an accusation I take lightly because I know how hard it is to create original content that isn’t meant “for clicks” and yet how common it is for writers or hosts to be accused of clickbait simply because fans disagree with the opinion. Clickbait isn’t meant as a catch-all for any hot takes that we dislike. It should only be used when the content actually has no real purpose or substance other than to attract attention despite the absence of value:

Flat out asking Macdonald if Darnold is in danger of losing his job to Drew Lock or Jalen Milroe because Salk’s untrained eyes observed that the quarterback had a few bad plays in the first practice of the year that the media was allowed to observe doesn’t help fans learn anything about the Seahawks, Darnold, or Macdonald.

I can’t say it any better than the movie Billy Madison said it:

"Mr. Madison, what you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul."

So if the question didn’t serve the fans, the players, the coach, or the team, then who did it serve? The ONLY answer is that it serves Salk and Seattle Sports radio. When Salk says “I have to ask this…” and your rational response is to wonder why he thinks this question is necessary, he’s talking about himself.

When ESPN’s (very, very good journalist) Brady Henderson appeared on Brock & Salk this week, Salk couldn’t help but smile and smirk when mentioning that he’s become the subject of ridicule by national talk show hosts such as Rich Eisen. In his head, all press is good press.

Eisen called the “Sam Darnold might not start Week 1?” narrative “the silliest conversation” of the moment and that it has no place in the news:

Because it is early June and these are truly the DEADEST days of the NFL offseason, the Darnold question made national news from the New York Post to ProFootballTalk to Darnold’s previous stomping grounds in Minnesota twisting the question into an opportunity to write that he must be struggling already.

Even Seaside Joe, the number one Seahawks publication in the world, covered it.

Twice.

But leaving Darnold’s job security aside, because there isn’t anything there worth exploring beyond why a radio host would fritter away his opportunities to talk to the head coach of the team, lets transition from stupid questions to smart ones. Here are a few more of your questions and comments about the Seahawks from this week:

Roger Woitte: If you were interviewing MM, what questions would you ask?

Now that’s a good question!

My objective would be to aim for questions that I believe have some small chance of being answered with specificity and honesty because what we end up with after 20 minutes of listening to Macdonald speak on Seattle Sports is mostly general thoughts that could be applied to literally any team at any time.

For example, on the rookie class Macdonald said: “I love the rookies. They’re putting in the time and they love football. They’re smart. They understand what it means to be a Seahawk. They make mistakes, as to be expected, but they’re practicing the right way. They’ll get better with more experience.”

Okay. It’s not dishonest or anything. (Although maybe there are rookies who give less effort than others and we should assume that there are.) But could his answer just be copy/pasted to every team? Yes. If at this time last year Macdonald was asked if any rookies might not make the roster, would he have told the media that D.J. James (who didn’t even make the practice squad) was not as close to playing as they thought at draft time?

Probably not.

That’s not a dig at Macdonald or Brock & Salk, that’s usually just the nature of these interviews and why I don’t put a lot of stock into them.

So what sort of questions would be valuable?

Unfortunately, Macdonald has also made it clear that he’s not going to answer questions about player timetables for returning from injuries. That rules out a whole lot of questions that might have been useful.

Instead, I’d probably target questions about specific people, which doesn’t mean that we have to think of the most salacious clicky topic like benching the starting quarterback at the very first opportunity. I mean, look at some of these very good questions that came from the Seaside Joe community this week that Macdonald could answer a lot better than I could:

• “What is Leslie Frazier’s role?” - Shaymus McFamous

• “What’s the difference between calling a pressure on defense and allowing a pressure on offense?” - John DeLorie

• “Is team growth linear — i.e. do you expect the Seahawks to always be better than the year before — or does it ebb and flow?” - Ted Sheffield

• “You’ve said that Nick Emmanwori is going to start at big nickel, but a lot of people in the media keep referring to him as a safety. Can you explain the short-term and long-term vision for Emmanwori and why he is better suited for different positions today vs. a different one in the future?” - Claude Golden

• “How does keeping 3 quarterbacks on the roster this year impact your ability to have a certain number of players at other offensive positions?” - Chuck Turtleman

(Not exact quotes; I reformed your questions slightly as if they were being directed at Macdonald instead of at me.)

Don’t these questions make a ton more sense than “U gonna bench Sam Darnold???” and “Grade your baseball swing!” (which came courtesy of Brock Huard and geez louise who cares?)?

I would definitely ask questions like what does Leslie Frazier do, how does Aden Durde’s role differ from other defensive coordinators given that YOU are the defensive coordinator, does every decision on offense belong to Klint Kubiak, do you expect Byron Murphy II to have a different and/or more significant role on the defense in 2025, will Devon Witherspoon play exclusively on the outside, etc.

Maybe he has answered some of these questions already, maybe he’d avoid answering some of these questions, but they sound reasonable to me!

What questions would YOU ask Mike Macdonald?

KHammarling: Ok I've been totally out of the Hawks loop for the last three weeks - on a very incredible holiday. I've been exploring Tokyo's vast array of second hand stores. There's a good selection of RW3 jerseys. But I've found Lynch, Metcalf, Lockett, Baldwin. I've found more than one Hasslebeck jersey! It's been fun to see.

However, Hawks pale in comparison to Giants, Ravens, Packers, Pats, Broncos and Steelers kit out here. But in terms of the NFC West we stand a clear #1 in Tokyo's 2nd hand market, and we're up there in NFC overall.

To bring this to some relevant point beyond flexing about my travels - Why do Seasiders think the Hawks have such a broad international appeal compared to other teams? Especially given the relative lack of long term historical success and megastars?

I wish I could say I am as well-traveled as many of you probably are and I’ve never been to Tokyo. I’ve also never been to Europe, which seems to have a strong Seattle sports fan contingent as well.

For those of you out there who have been abroad, or live outside of the U.S., what are your thoughts on this question?

Seahawks 1976 season documentary:

Whether you lived through it and want to walk down memory lane, or you didn’t and you’re curious about the first Seahawks season in 1976, this video from NFL Films is worth 35 minutes.

Ted Sheffield: How many players on the current roster will be on the team when we next return to the Super Bowl?

If the Hawks shock with world and win the SB this year, then obviously Darnold, Lawrence and Kupp will become much bigger characters in the overall story of the franchise. But Vegas has us at 1.6% odds of winning the SB this year and that sounds about right to me.

All of this makes me wonder what we hope to achieve with some of these aging vets (I realize Darnold is only 27, so I'm really talking more about Kupp, Valdes-Scantling, Lawrence and to some degree the re-signing of Leonard Williams). I fear we're caught in the classic trap of the teams in the middle of the NFL -- not good enough to win a SB, but still trying to maximize our current roster to be as competitive as possible.

It's easy to see how this happens. Almost all GMs and Head Coaches are incentivized to win now, and the idea of tanking is an anathema for most organizations. Realistic or not, most organizations and fan bases prefer to think of their team as growing, building, improving year over year. The reality, however, is that this linear growth doesn't really happen for most teams. The much more common experience is that teams go up and down within the parameters of ~6-10 wins.

And tying this back to my original question, I think the answer is zero outside of (maybe) our recent 1st/2nd round draft picks.

With all that said, my biggest hope for the Hawks this year is that we have the patience to view this as a developmental year. Let's focus on the guys that at least have a shot of being on the roster if/when a true SB window opens. And yes, that includes Milroe.

I’m not going to say anything that you don’t already realize or that wasn’t included in your comment, but the Seahawks see themselves as viable NFC West champion contenders and I think they’re right to feel that way. No, winning the division and making the playoffs would not be “enough” for me to call 2025 a successful season…Seattle’s been there, done that before.

But between the options of pulling back and being okay with 6-11 or stepping on the gas and trying to win the extra 1-2 games that might earn them a better seed, the Seahawks didn’t really have a choice. If the Seahawks had traded Geno Smith and DK Metcalf and then opted to start Lock and not sign players like Kupp and Lawrence, then “not trying at all” would be the thing they were criticized for, just as we saw the media do with the Cowboys in 2024.

Personally I agree that the Seahawks are longshot Super Bowl contenders, but they are still somewhere in the conversation, even if it’s towards the bottom of it. The Washington Moons were not even in the Super Bowl conversation last year and they ended up one game out.

That’s one of those points that doesn’t necessarily apply to Seattle — the “anything could happen” argument isn’t much of an argument — but does highlight that the NFC is a little more wide open right now and the Seahawks have a mix of players and coaches that might get to the playoffs and then having veterans on the team could come in handy.

As far as how many current players are on the next Seahawks Super Bowl team, hopefully that day isn’t more than 5 years away. The Seahawks have made quite a lot of first and second round picks recently though so maybe you won’t have to wait that long!

Seaside Joe 2287