Mike Morris only had the chance to play one game during his rookie season because of an injury, so he didn’t have much time to make an impact on his teammates.
When news came out that Mike Macdonald was going to be the new coach of the Seattle Seahawks, Morris’ phone was flooded with messages, making him possibly the most popular player in the locker room.
“It was like, ‘Mike, did he coach you in college?’ And I was like, ‘yeah.’ I got a bunch of those text messages,” Morris remembered. “My mom and dad called me and were like, ‘How do you feel about it?’ I said, ‘I’m really excited.’”
Morris isn’t the only one thrilled about Macdonald and what might happen in his first season as the Seahawks head coach.
The team that had Pete Carroll for 14 seasons and had the oldest head coach in the league last year went in a new direction by hiring Macdonald, who is the youngest head coach in the league at 37 and has no previous head coaching experience.
Macdonald is a football expert in the best way. He made a big impact as a defensive coordinator at Michigan—where he coached Morris—before going back to Baltimore, where he started his NFL career.
There, he turned the Ravens’ defense into one of the most effective and challenging to understand in the league over the past two seasons.
“Yeah, he’s smart. He doesn’t know how smart he is,” Seattle linebacker Tyrel Dodson said. “That guy is just so smart. I thought I was smart. He blows me out of the water.”
Running a team is quite different from running a defense. Even though Macdonald is relatively new to being a head coach, those around him in Seattle have been impressed with how he has adapted to the role so far.
“I just think Mike’s a great listener. He really is, he can take that information in and make decisions,” Seattle general manager John Schneider said. “It’s been really impressive to watch. Like I said, he’s a very direct communicator.”
He’s going to give me the information, I understand it, then I’ll take it, discuss it, and we’ll move forward.”
Macdonald will start his head coaching career on Sunday when the Seahawks play their first game at home against the Denver Broncos. He is now the face of the team, even though he doesn’t like the attention that comes with being the youngest coach in the league.
He prefers spending time in a film room or on the practice field, “chasing edges”—a term he uses to describe what he aims to achieve with the Seahawks.
“We’re always trying to push the envelope. We want people chasing us,” Macdonald said. “So to kind of get to the mentality of we’re not copying anybody it’s going to be our style of play, it’s going to be our team, our way of doing things, never satisfied with where we’re at, no complacency.
Kind of a relentless pursuit of creating the vision that we want to create. I think that kind of paints a nice picture.”
Although Macdonald is now more visible as a head coach, his defensive expertise was what caught the attention of teams looking for a new leader this past offseason.
The Ravens led the league last season in fewest points allowed and sacks, and were tied for the lead in takeaways. They held six teams to 10 points or fewer during the regular season, including a 37-3 win over the Seahawks.
Creating confusion and disguising plays were key to Baltimore’s success, and Macdonald is trying to bring the same approach to a Seahawks defense that struggled in almost every category last season.
The system isn’t too complicated, but it requires a high level of communication and understanding of each player’s role to make the coverage disguises work. Seattle used a very basic defense during the preseason. The first real test of how effective it could be comes on Sunday.
“I enjoy this defense because I think it’s fun,” Seattle safety Julian Love said. “It’s not monotonous, you’re not just getting to the post. You’re doing different things. The flip side of that is you have to be on top of your game.”
