It’s heating up: Mike Macdonald coming into Seattle for 2nd Seahawks interview
The one piece the Seahawks — and their new coach — need before they could hire him was one thing Mike Macdonald lacked.
Until now.
Macdonald is scheduled to be in the Seattle area Wednesday for a second interview with the team, this one for the first time at Seahawks headquarters in Renton, a league source told The News Tribune. Tom Pelissero of the league’s NFL Network was the first to report Wednesday morning Macdonald was to be in Seattle.
Knowing the interview will be inside the Seahawks’ Virginia Mason Athletic Center is a key piece.
It’s highly unlikely the team would hire the ninth head coach in franchise history without him having been in the Seahawks’ facility and meeting staff there before the hiring.
Now Macdonald is doing that.
This is the second time in two days Macdonald and the Seahawks have talked, on opposite coasts.
Seahawks general manager John Schneider interviewed the Ravens defensive coordinator in the Baltimore area Tuesday. Schneider then flew home to Seattle on a private jet owned by the estate of late owner Paul Allen Tuesday afternoon.
Macdonald is 36. He’s half as old as Pete Carroll.
The Seahawks fired Carroll after 14 seasons Jan. 10. That was three days after the team missed the playoffs for the third time in 12 years with one of the NFL’s worst defenses.
This second interview doesn’t make Seattle hiring the coordinator of the NFL’s top defense — one that dominated the San Francisco 49ers last month — a done deal.
The Seahawks have in the last week done second interviews in person, also in Seattle, with Dallas Cowboys defensive coordinator Dan Quinn, New York Giants offensive coordinator Mike Kafka, Las Vegas Raiders defensive coordinator Patrick Graham and Carolina Panthers defensive coordinator Eijro Evero.
That put the Seahawks in compliance with the Rooney Rule, the league’s mandate that at least two in-person interviews for each team’s head-coach jobs be with minority candidates.
But none of those other first-then-second interviews were on back-to-back days, both in person, as Macdonald’s are.
The Washington Commanders were still the other NFL team with a head-coaching vacancy as of Wednesday morning. Macdonald interviewed with Washington for a second time on Monday.
That was the day Schneider flew to Detroit to interview Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson for the second time. Tuesday, Johnson informed the Seahawks and Commanders he was taking himself out of consideration for those head-coaching jobs and staying with the Lions as their play caller.
Why they’ve waited for Mike Macdonald
The reason Seattle’s coaching search entered its fourth week Wednesday was because Schneider has been waiting to interview Macdonald.
NFL rules prohibited the Seahawks from talking to Macdonald until after the Ravens’ season ended. That happened Sunday, when Baltimore lost to the Kansas City Chiefs in the AFC championship game.
Had the Ravens won that game, Schneider was prepared to keep this Seahawks coaching search on hold until after the Super Bowl Feb. 11, to interview Macdonald.
Why?
He’s done what the Seahawks haven’t come close to doing the last two seasons. Macdonald has beaten the 49ers, and decisively. His schemes confused Niners quarterback Brock Purdy into four interceptions and held him to a completion rate of just 53%, second-lowest of the QB’s starting career, in Baltimore’s dominant win at Super Bowl-bound San Francisco Christmas night.
The Seahawks aren’t getting out of the NFC West, aren’t getting home playoff games, aren’t getting back to the Super Bowl for the first time in 10 years, until they beat the 49ers.
Factors John Schneider is weighing
This is Schneider first head-coaching hire with top, final football authority in the NFL. The first-time GM was under executive vice president Carroll in Seattle’s football decisions from January 2010 until team chair Jody Allen sided with Schneider’s vision for the franchise and fired Carroll Jan. 10.
Schneider is deciding whether to hire the Seahawks’ first offensive-minded head coach since Mike Holmgren in 2008, or continue the Carroll model of the last 14 years. That is, with a defense-first head man.
Quinn was Seattle’s Super Bowl defensive coordinator in the 2013 and ‘14 seasons. Schneider was the team’s GM under Carroll when Quinn was Carroll’s top defensive coach. He knows Quinn as well or better than any NFL executive. That makes Quinn almost in the Seahawks’ back pocket, so to speak, if they want to hire him to replace Carroll.
.JPG "SeahawksCowboysFootball (2).JPG")
Quinn would fulfill what Schneider has said is one of the qualities he is prioritizing in his search for a new coach.
“(Maintaining) our culture, and how are we evolving,” Schneider said.
“Who’s going to help us move to the next level? How are we going to compete with everybody that we need to compete with and advance this organization moving forward?”
That latter point is what Macdonald has done that Quinn didn’t this season (the Cowboys lost at San Francisco 42-10 in October).
Beat the 49ers.
This story was originally published January 31, 2024 at 7:41 AM with the headline "It’s heating up: Mike Macdonald coming into Seattle for 2nd Seahawks interview."
