New Seattle Seahawks head coach Mike Macdonald is entering his first season as a head coach at any level.
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As legendary former Boise State and UW Huskies coach Chris Petersen can attest, this brings with it a lot of challenges.
“It’s so hard being a head coach for the first time,” Petersen said last week during an appearance on Seattle Sports’ Brock and Salk. “It’s like being a parent for the first time. You think you know, you watch it, people tell you what to do, you read books, you’re in the thick of it.”
“And once you’re in the middle of it, you think, ‘What’s going on here? How can I understand this?’ You go through it and in a few years you look back and think, ‘Wow, how did we do that?'”
Macdonald, 37, also faces the challenge of being the youngest head coach in the NFL and follows in the footsteps of Pete Carroll, the winningest head coach in Seahawks franchise history.
But for Macdonald, who is entering his first season as an NFL head coach, Petersen says there are three things going for him.
1. “He is extremely, extremely smart.”
Macdonald has quickly earned a reputation as one of the NFL’s smartest defensive minds. As the Ravens’ defensive coordinator for the past two years, he presented an innovative scheme that confounded opposing offenses and helped make Baltimore’s defense the envy of the league. Last season, the Ravens became the first defense in NFL history to lead the league in points allowed, turnovers and sacks.
“He’s extremely, extremely smart,” Petersen said. “I’ve had the opportunity to talk to him a few times, and it shows. I imagine he gets down in the weeds, just listening and taking it all in – and sometimes he doesn’t say much and just processes it and digests it. And when he does say something, it’s usually really well thought out.”
2. “He is well educated.”
Macdonald spent the last decade under the tutelage of the Harbaugh brothers, who are among the most respected coaches in all of football.
In nine of the last 10 seasons, Macdonald has been a coach or defensive coordinator on Ravens head coach John Harbaugh’s staff, with the only exception being the 2021 season, when he was the defensive coordinator for the Michigan Wolverines under Jim Harbaugh.
Both Harbaughs have a long history of success. John Harbaugh led Baltimore to 11 playoff appearances and a Super Bowl title in his 16 seasons at the helm. Jim Harbaugh led the San Francisco 49ers to the Super Bowl, won the national championship last year in Michigan and is now the head coach of the Los Angeles Chargers.
“He’s well-coached,” Petersen said. “I think when you’re around the Harbaugh brothers, you know how to win football games. And I think the two Harbaughs have very different styles, but the common denominator is they know how to win. And he saw that.”
3. With the Seattle Seahawks he is in a successful organization.
Macdonald joined a Seahawks franchise that is well-versed in success. Seattle has made the playoffs in 10 of the last 14 seasons, winning two NFC titles and a Super Bowl during that time. During that 14-year run, the team was entirely under Carroll, but also under general manager John Schneider, who remains in his post.
“This is a pretty successful organization, as we know,” Petersen said. “And half of that is kind of gone with Pete leaving, but John is (still) there and this system of evaluating players and their performance. And I think the mix of Mike’s and John’s vision is going to be a really cool thing.”
“I think it’s difficult when they dismantle the entire organization, bring in a new GM, a new president and all those things and say, ‘OK, what are we creating here?’ Sometimes you have to do that, but in my opinion that’s a much harder task than what they’re doing there in Renton with the Seahawks.”
Listen to the full conversation with Chris Petersen at this link or in the audio player at the top of this story. Tune in to Brock and Salk weekdays from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. or find the podcast in the Seattle Sports app.
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