What have I learned from Seahawks HC search?

How could this have happened? Seaside Joe 1798

In announcing my intention to predict the next head coach of the Seattle Seahawks, I called it “the hardest prediction that Seaside Joe has ever had to make.” The Seahawks heard that and said:

Though Mike Macdonald actually makes perfect sense for the Seahawks, perhaps the Washington Moons were the only team that did a better job of hiding their intentions…If hiding your intentions is even necessary.

I did leave a reply to a comment last week that stated, “Hey, if the Seahawks actually interview Macdonald, he’ll be at least #2 on my list” but purposeful or not on Seattle’s part, that initial meeting didn’t happen until Tuesday. When I first predicted Mike Kafka, I did so because I was worried an announcement could be made before I ever got to an “official prediction” and nothing happened between then and Tuesday that would make me change my mind.

But I’m not running away from my prediction just because I was wrong. I made Kafka the pick, I had plenty of opportunities to change it, I never did. In fact, like a good newsletter writer I’m running directly at my mistake: What did I get wrong about the candidates and what can I learn from this experience? Hopefully the Seahawks don’t go through this again for a long time, but it doesn’t hurt to (in the words of anyone with a podcast) rate and review.

“2 stars **: He said it would be Mike Kafka.”

Show me a single time anyone else who does what I do has admitted to a mistake and tried to correct it….in public!

Mike Macdonald

By all accounts, the Ravens beat the Seahawks so badly last season that Macdonald literally took Pete Carroll’s job from him that day. It’s like a martial arts tournament in which if you beat the master, you become the master.

I think the Seahawks went into the process with this plan in mind: Mike Macdonald is 1A, Ben Johnson is 1B, Dan Quinn is 3, and then they’d find out how the interviews went with other candidates.

I’ll get to this later, but it appears as though Johnson’s first interview was good enough for Schneider to “pray that the Lions would lose the NFC Championship” (as we learned from the opening press conference) but as they got deeper in the process and talked to him on Monday, made up their minds that it wouldn’t be him.

Based on reports this week, I would say that if Macdonald pulled out, Seattle was then deciding between Quinn and Mike Kafka. If the Seahawks wanted to have a really solid idea of who they were hiring then they would have picked Quinn, but given that they did choose Macdonald, maybe Kafka was the real fallback option.

Nobody else seemed to be in the running after the first round of interviews: Macdonald and Johnson, Kafka, and then Quinn if they didn’t get any of those options.

I would have always ranked Mike Macdonald higher on my list if not for the fact that the Seahawks didn’t manage to get a first round interview with him, but it sounds as though Baltimore’s bye week was actually a hinderance to the process instead of beneficial. After Seattle had finished DEI training, it was too late and Schneider would have to wait until the Ravens lost. Otherwise, Macdonald made perfect sense…I just read the context clues incorrectly.

What I learned: Context clues can be misleading without more…context

Frank Smith

I want to start following Frank Smith’s life and career closely now because I prefer to watch the dunce over the hero: Michael Scott, Homer Simpson, Al Bundy, George Costanza, and this was before my time but I want to say that Don Knotts as Barney Fife would qualify?

Why put Smith in this category? Well, it’s interesting that of all the known candidates for Seattle’s job, Smith was the only one who had an interview and kind of disappeared. No second interview, no excuses like Ben Johnson, he just came and went which is sort of weird for the offensive coordinator of a team that’s been as revolutionary as the Miami Dolphins over the past two seasons. I know that Mike McDaniel is the composer of the Dolphins offense, but that hasn’t stopped Sean McVay and Kyle Shanahan’s OCs from getting jobs, including McDaniel.

Smith’s career is five years of working for Sean Payton, three years for John Fox, three years for Jon Gruden, one for Brandon Staley, and two for McDaniel but he can’t even get a second interview? Something tells me that we’re in for a hilarious bieniemesque ride with Smith’s career.

The OC of the #2 offense in the NFL only had one other interview, with the Panthers, which he lost to Dave Canales. I wouldn’t be surprised if Smith was Carolina’s eighth or ninth choice because they interviewed four people who got head coaching job not including their own. Another OC who didn’t have a second interview is Bobby Slowik, but Slowik had four other interviews and it was made out as big news when he signed a new deal to stay with the Texans.

Or maybe Frank Smith is a geniunely great coach who the Seahawks will keep bookmarked if they need an offensive coordinator in a few years and he’s available…but I hope not. That wouldn’t be funny at all.

What I learned: A first interview is just what it sounds like, a “first interview”, and it doesn’t guarantee a second

Ben Johnson

There’s something off with the offensive coordinator of the Detroit Lions. Maybe if I personally met Johnson I’d come away thinking to myself, “Actually that guy is my hero because he has too much integrity to take a job he isn’t excited about over money” which 98-percent of people simply wouldn’t do.

But that’s not an interesting story and he’s not with the Seahawks so why should I give him the benefit of the doubt???

This is a coach who has had NINE teams (Panthers twice) express significant interest in hiring him over the past 12 months and he’s come away with zero head coaching jobs…That’s 25-percent of the league. What would he be waiting for, if he’s actually waiting? NFL Network’s Mike Garafolo, who has nothing to gain that I know of from trash talking Johnson for no reason, told the “Puck & Jim Show” that the Lions offensive coordinator likely had no offers and for the second year in a row decided to make it seem like it was his decision to go back to Detroit:

“I don’t think he interviewed particularly well,” Garafolo said. “Johnson withdrew, and he withdrew as Washington was coming to see him, which did not go over well at all with the Washington organization. But, I believe he withdrew from two coaching searches that he wouldn’t have gotten the job anyway. So, that’s the old ‘I’m not fired, I quit,’ one of those deals. So, I don’t think he really bowled people over in the interview process at all. And I’ve heard that his personality, you know, he’s very smart, very bright, a great play-caller, but I’ve heard that his personality is kind of…..not the most gregarious guy.”

Garafolo noted that before his second interview, Johnson was likely not even one of Washington’s top two choices after Dan Quinn and Anthony Weaver. (Macdonald was likely ahead of Johnson too, as Washington really didn’t want him to accept the Seahawks job before they got to speak to him for a second time, but Macdonald was reportedly in love with the opportunity in Seattle.)

Ben Johnson had six interviews and requests this cycle, let’s quickly break it down:

-The Falcons decided to hire Raheem Morris instead of him

-The Panthers decided to hire Dave Canales instead of him

-The Seahawks decided to hire Mike Macdonald instead of him

-The Chargers decided to hire Jim Harbaugh instead of him

-The Titans decided to hire Brian Callahan instead of him

-Washington was likely not going to hire him and hired Quinn

Aside from Harbaugh, NONE of those coaches were ranked above Johnson going into the process. He didn’t withdraw from consideration at the end of the regular season, like he could have…He only withdrew after six of eight jobs were given to somebody else and then it appears Seattle and Washington both had preferred candidates. It’s not logical to me to assume that Johnson was going to make a decision based on how the Lions did in the playoffs. Every year 31 teams don’t win the Super Bowl and now Johnson’s going to put his career on hold until the least successful team in the Super Bowl era wins a Super Bowl?

I don’t want this to be spun as a Seahawk writer who is bitter that Johnson “turned down” Seattle because a) I don’t believe he did and b) Why would I care that a coach who didn’t get any job didn’t get this job?

Also, it seems the Seahawks could still leave the offseason with an offensive coordinator from Detroit: They’re interviewing Lions pass-game coordinator Tanner Engstrand. “Pass-game”? I love the pass game!

Do I think this is career suicide for Johnson? Not really. In fact, I’ll make a prediction: Ben Johnson is head coach of the Las Vegas Raiders in 2025. It’s the perfect landing spot for an indecisive offensive coordinator who rubs people the wrong way.

What I learned: Don’t listen to Twitter’s/the fans opinion of who the top head coaching candidate is at any given time

Mike Kafka

Word on the street is that contrary to the far more popular OC, Kafka gives great interview. It’s funny how much we let narratives seep into our brains to judge these men who we couldn’t have picked out of a lineup a week ago (and still probably couldn’t in most cases) and yet Canales and Callahan are head coaches and Johnson is not. Who is to say that Kafka isn’t the head coach of the Raiders next year?

Who among us lived through the era of “If only the Seahawks made John DeFilippo the offensive coordinator, we’d be right back in the Super Bowl!!!”?

DeFilippo was the QBs coach for the Eagles in 2017, helped the team win a Super Bowl with Nick Foles, and after two unsuccessful years as OC with two different teams, is now a coach in the USFL.

Kafka’s basically being judged more negatively than others because the Giants have the worst offensive line in football, the worst receivers, and potentially the worst quarterbacks. Is Kafka a good OC? Will he be a good head coach? No clue. But he was at least step-for-step with “the best OC in the game” throughout the entire process, if not ahead of him.

And maybe, like Smith, this meeting with Kafka leads to an OC hire in the future. The Giants are headed down a dark path and Kafka could be out there as a QBs coach in 2025, that’s something else these interviews accomplish.

What I learned: Good interviews can lead to opportunities besides being the head coach and better offense does not equal better coach

Dan Quinn

Why don’t we all come together and wish Quinn “Good luck!” in Washington. The other Washington.

When the Seahawks lost to the Cowboys in late November, there were reports then that Seattle left Dallas with a feeling that it was time to replace Carroll with his former defensive coordinator. I wonder if the organization was using that opportunity to put out feelers on the prospect of bringing Quinn back to the Seahawks and if the lukewarm reaction by fans was the final nail in his coffin.

Carroll hinted that management was doing too much listening to outsiders and not enough internal evaluation by “football people”.

Hiring a young coordinator is exciting. Bringing back Quinn, regardless of whether it was a great move or not, wouldn’t have made anyone think differently of the Seattle Seahawks than they did for the last seven years, which we’ve seen in the reaction of Moons fans by the hire:

What I learned: Maybe sometimes choosing a head coach is as much for the fans as it is for the players and fans didn’t start flipping over tables in joy when rumors were floated that he’s bookmarked for the job

Would I do anything differently?

As I’ve said, I watch the show Big Brother religously and anytime someone is evicted, Julie Chen asks if they would do anything differently if they had a second chance. They basically all say, “No.” That’s the stupidest answer they could give. You lost! You wouldn’t try to not lose?

With Macdonald, I would have certainly gained an advantage by being more logical because despite not being interviewed in the first round, he was the most logical fit for the Seahawks. I tried to downplay their interest in defensive coordinators and got fixated with an offensive play caller, but a defensive play caller who might be more effective and revolutionary on that side of the ball than his competition is just as valuable as his counterparts on offense.

Mike Macdonald made a lot of sense and I would do something differently: I would have at least put him in my top-3 and stayed there because I knew he was at least as attractive as Ben Johnson on paper but ignored it. Hopefully this opportunity doesn’t come around again soon.