RENTON, Wash. – Mike Macdonald guided the Seattle Seahawks to a place they haven’t been in more than a decade by being everything John Schneider prayed for two years ago.
On Sunday, the Seahawks will play in the NFC championship game for the first time since January 2015, the second consecutive year in which the NFC’s road to the Super Bowl went through Seattle. When the Seahawks were the conference’s top dog back then, their defining trait was competitiveness, a principle reflective of head coach Pete Carroll’s mentality and vision for success.
To return to this point, Macdonald had to construct a team with principles of his own. The Seahawks weren’t bad when Macdonald took over two years ago; they were no longer carrying out their coach’s vision.
Before they even met face to face, Schneider, Seattle’s longtime general manager, knew Macdonald would be the answer to the problem. Macdonald had been coaching in the NFL for only 10 years but had a reputation as a leader.
“Wait until you look in this guy’s eyes,” people familiar with Macdonald told Schneider. The GM didn’t want to wait, which is why he prayed for the Baltimore Ravens to lose the AFC Championship Game after the 2023 season and accelerate the process of interviewing Macdonald.
Communication, leadership and clarity were the qualities that endeared Macdonald to Seattle in that meeting. Those same qualities have the Seahawks on the brink of a Super Bowl berth.
“It’s easy to follow someone like that, that’s so genuine and has such a belief and practices what he preaches,” veteran tight end Eric Saubert said. “He’s the guy that led us the whole season, and it’s never been a doubt. We’ve never faltered in how we follow him.
“He’s the man. He’s a great coach. He is a great person to talk to. And we’re going to follow him to the end, man.”
It’s fitting Seattle must go through Kyle Shanahan’s San Francisco 49ers and Sean McVay’s Los Angeles Rams to reach Super Bowl LX. Those two coaches changed the landscape of the NFC West when they arrived in 2017. This will be McVay’s third NFC Championship Game appearance; he’s 2-0 at this stage and has a Super Bowl win. Shanahan has reached the conference title game four times and won twice.
McVay and Shanahan are two of the best offensive play callers in the NFL. Their rise coincided with Seattle’s fall from grace. By the time Macdonald became a coveted head-coaching candidate, he was known as the “Sean McVay of Defense.” Faith in Macdonald to match wits with two of the league’s best was part of the math when choosing him as Carroll’s successor.
Seattle’s 20-17 win over San Francisco in November 2024 snapped a six-game losing streak against the 49ers. Before last month, the Seahawks had never beaten McVay when quarterback Matthew Stafford started, going 0-5. This year, they split the season series, won the division by beating both in a span of three weeks and just routed Shanahan in the playoffs – all in a season when the NFC West is the best division in football.
Now, another NFC West rubber match awaits in the biggest game of the Macdonald era.
“Wouldn’t want it any other way,” Macdonald said.
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The clarity Schneider often cites when talking up Macdonald comes in many forms. For the players and coaches, it starts with establishing a standard. Schemes come and go, but Macdonald’s Seahawks are built on a rock-solid foundation.
They call themselves the M.O.B., which stands for “Mission Over BS” The slogan was chosen by the players. But the four core principles – brotherhood, truth, work and violence – come from the coach.
On one wall outside the locker room reads the phrase “12 as One,” a go-to Macdonald tagline. On the opposite wall is his second-favorite phrase, “Chasing Edges.” Along the wall nearest the outdoor practice fields is, “A style nobody wants to play.”
On the surface, those are just words. At Lumen Field on Sundays – or Mondays, Thursdays or Saturdays – they are a way of life.
“Mike’s the biggest thing,” All-Pro inside linebacker Ernest Jones IV said. “Just being able to start Day 1 (saying), ‘This is the type of team we’re going to be, and we can’t be that team unless we work for it.’ He’s constantly just had us working at it. Mike’s a big reason why we’re here.”
On the first play of the fourth quarter Saturday night, Kenneth Walker III ran up the middle and was stood up by two 49ers defenders at the 16-yard line. As Walker worked for extra yards, eight teammates came to push the pile and turn it from an 8-yard carry to a 15-yard gain. Seattle already led 34-6, but that was one of the plays shown in Monday’s team meeting because it reinforced the standard.
Plays on defense receive the same treatment.
“A lot of times we see the ball carrier on the ground (and) we pause the film to see how many blue helmets are in the picture,” All-Pro defensive tackle Leonard Williams said. “A majority of the time, it’s nine-plus players standing over the ball carrier.”
Macdonald sees those moments as critical opportunities to show everyone how it all fits together and “that those little things are big things to us.” Part of defensive assistant Neiko Thorpe’s job is to give a biweekly presentation, with his own unique flavor, highlighting those small-but-significant impact plays.
It can be rookie Nick Emmanwori making sure a ball carrier falls backward on a tackle in space, limiting “hidden yardage.” Or 334-pound defensive tackle Brandon Pili forcing a fumble in his kickoff coverage debut. Or Walker sprinting 50 yards to tackle a defender at the 1-yard line after an interception. Or All-Pro receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba making a key block that leads to a third-and-long conversion.
“It paints a great picture to the guys of what we’re looking for and what matters,” Macdonald said.
This is not a team full of try-hards. The Seahawks are arguably the best team in football because they have elite talent. But everyone in the NFL has talent, especially in the postseason. Marrying that talent with the vision and bringing it to life, Macdonald believes, starts with intent and attitude. That’s their foundation for getting players to play fast and free.
“If you’re prepared and have a great attitude, and you get after it, and you go practice and go let it rip like we say all the time, you have to see, ‘OK, I’m not going to get killed for making a mistake,’ ” Macdonald said.
“We’ve fallen short sometimes, and that’s going to be inevitable,” he continued. “But as long as you realize it and make it right … you just say, ‘Hey, look, we realized it; we screwed this up – now what are we going to do to move forward? It’s no harm, no foul; let’s rock and roll from there.’ It’s that consistent attitude from day to day.”
His players appreciate this approach.
“It’s unbelievable to have that,” left guard Grey Zabel said. “As a rookie, you can’t ask for anything else from your head coach. If you make a mistake going a million miles per hour, he is going to coach you off of it, but he’s never going to be mad about giving 100% or trying to do your best.
“It’s awesome, and it makes football a lot of fun.”
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Because the standard is so established, correcting mistakes is much easier than in the past. The Seahawks know their playing style and have an identity to lean on in tough times.
Riq Woolen had two terrible plays in Week 1, costing his team the game and making him the focus of trade rumors. Since then, the fourth-year cornerback has been the best coverage player on the league’s No. 1 defense. When coaches explain how Woolen did it, they rarely speak about his technique or talent. They go straight to the way he mentally and physically handled every practice rep, every walk-through and every meeting – while sharing snaps with Josh Jobe in a contract year – then carried that to the field on game day, every week.
In other words, Woolen recommitted to the process that made him a starter in the first place.
“That’s the type of guy we want around here,” Macdonald said.
Macdonald loves the career arcs of Jobe, a former practice-squad player, and safety Coby Bryant, a former backup, because they are testaments to the culture. Devon Witherspoon is one of Macdonald’s favorite players, not just because he is an All-Pro cornerback, but also because of how hard he plays for his teammates. Macdonald applauds Smith-Njigba’s practice habits and mentality more than any catch he’s ever made.
The coach loves that Charles Cross signed a four-year, $104.4 million extension, not only because he’s a good left tackle, but also because he’s the guy drenched in sweat from walk-throughs. Zach Charbonnet’s season-ending ACL tear didn’t break Macdonald’s heart just because he had 12 touchdowns this season. Charbonnet, by being tough and detail-oriented, “is the epitome of what it means to be a Seahawk,” Macdonald said.
The coach’s fixation on the process has had a trickle-down effect. His emphasis on accountability has, too.
Seattle had its worst pass-rush performance of the season in a Week 5 loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The Seahawks rushed as individuals, not as a collective, and Baker Mayfield made them pay. It was painfully obvious they weren’t meeting the standard. Vowing to make it right during the subsequent film session birthed the “feed my family, I feed your family” mantra that the front line now swears by. Seattle finished the season among the top 10 in sacks, quarterback hits and pressure rate.
Even after allowing just 17 points on defense in a win over the Tennessee Titans in Week 12, defenders were upset at their performance. One player refused an interview request, still fuming. The defense pitched a shutout the next week.
The offense has done the same after wins, like when it hung 27 on the Houston Texans. This attitude goes beyond the usual “there are things we can clean up” clichés players spout after games. Holding themselves to a standard is what matters to these Seahawks. Their style of football looks and feels a certain way. They chase it every week, independent of the score.
The Seahawks operate that way in all three phases because that’s how Macdonald is wired. They are here because they are an extension of him.
“Mike’s consistent every single day in what he wants and what he expects from us,” linebacker Drake Thomas said. “He sets the standard, and then the rest kind of follows in line. It starts at the top, and he’s done an amazing job setting, creating a foundation and making the expectation clear of what the standard is and what we’re doing here.”
Macdonald’s players call him a genius. His assistants love the way he thinks. But the NFL is cyclical, and defensive strategy is only a piece of what he was hired to bring. The multiplicity Seattle masters in is slowly gaining in popularity, but eventually, it’ll be a thing of the past, like when Cover 2 was all the rage, or when Seattle’s Cover 3 was the new trend or when Vic Fangio’s scheme took over.
Physicality never goes out of style. Communication and clarity are critical, no matter the era. Accountability will never be antiquated. Seattle has synced Schneider’s best offseason in a decade with talent that translates the coach’s beliefs to the field.
Many coaches live by these same principles, but it’s all just coachspeak until backed by actions and exemplified by the players.
When that happens, a culture is created, and a championship window is reopened.