The Seattle Seahawks are 24-10 through two seasons under Mike Macdonald. His first season ended in a narrow playoff miss, while his second season is in progress and two home wins away from appearing in Super Bowl 60. I could rattle off all of the cool stats regarding Macdonald’s early success, but that’s absolutely not the point of this article.
Earlier this week, the Baltimore Ravens parted ways with head coach John Harbaugh after 18 seasons in charge. Harbaugh’s career highlight was beating his brother
Jim Harbaugh’s San Francisco 49ers in Super Bowl 47 back in the 2012 season, much to the delight of Seahawks fans. Baltimore hasn’t been back to the Super Bowl since then, and missing the playoffs this season was the final straw.
As the Ravens search for a new head coach, Ravens fans are left wondering “what could’ve been?” had their former defensive coordinator somehow stayed on the staff instead of go to the Seahawks.
This has realistically been going on all season in Baltimore, especially with the Ravens starting the year 1 -5 with a defense performing far below their typically high standards. There was surely no chance that the Ravens were considering firing Harbaugh or moving him into some front office role in order to keep Macdonald, but Mike’s top-ranked defense made him an instant candidate for head coach status. Even in defeat to the Kansas City Chiefs in the AFC Championship Game, the Ravens shut the Chiefs out in the second half after giving up 17 points in the first half, but the offense didn’t hold up its end of the bargain.
It’s through the downfall of the Ravens and the rise of the Seahawks that I’ve realized that the context of Macdonald’s early success is something Seahawks fans have never experienced:
Assistant coach poach envy
Subtracting Mike McCormack, who remains the only interim coach in franchise history, the Seahawks have only had nine head coaches over 50 seasons. Five of them were previous NFL coaches (Pete Carroll, Jim L. Mora, Tom Flores, Mike Holmgren, and Chuck Knox), two were college head coaches (Carroll again, Dennis Erickson), and inaugural coach Jack Patera was an NFL-lifer as a player and an experienced assistant.
Mike Macdonald is not like these other eight coaches. No prior college or pro head coaching experience and only three seasons as a high-level college and/or NFL coordinator. He’s the “up-and-coming, young mastermind” hire the Seahawks have generally not even considered doing. Seattle has almost always gone “big game hunting” for its head coaches, as opposed to searching for someone without deeply established credentials. Carroll and Erickson were national champions in college, Holmgren won a Super Bowl with the Green Bay Packers, Flores was a two-time Super Bowl winner with the Raiders, and Knox was a perennial playoff coach with the Rams and Buffalo Bills. Even a complete bust like Jim Mora took the Atlanta Falcons to an NFC Championship Game a few years before his ill-fated Seahawks gig.
Perhaps this was also intentional on the part of John Schneider (and, maybe, Jody Allen) to chart a different course. If you look at the candidates the Seahawks interviewed as Carroll successors, only Raheem Morris and Dan Quinn were previously head coaches. Morris took the Atlanta Falcons job, which left Quinn as the only previous head coach to get a second Seahawks interview, and surely the familiarity with the organization had some role in his candidacy. Otherwise, everyone else was a would-be first-time head coach: Patrick Graham, Mike Kafka, Ejiro Evero, Ben Johnson, and Mike Macdonald.
Striking gold in today’s NFL is finding that elite assistant coach in hopes they’re a future great head coach. The Seahawks’ first legitimate attempt may have hit the jackpot, much to the chagrin of Ravens fans.
And you know what? It feels good. It’ll feel even better if this season ends with a Lombardi Trophy coming back to Lumen Field.
