On his 1st day 21 months ago, Mike Macdonald told his Seahawks they’d be here
Mike Macdonald was a wreck.
And a prophet.
The Seahawks’ direct, square-jawed leader talks, walks, lives conviction. He demands precision and decisiveness. Since he took the job two years ago he’s had a clear vision for his players, his coaches, this franchise. It’s his military-like “commander’s intent,” as the son of a West Point graduate and former Army officer likes to say.
But on April 8, 2024, the first meeting of his first day in front of his players as a first-time NFL head coach, the youngest one in the league, the 36-year old commander felt he was commanding nothing.
“We got everybody?” Macdonald said to begin his first team meeting at the start of 2024 offseason, inside the main auditorium of the Seahawks’ Virginia Mason Athletic Center in Renton.
“Man, this is, uh, pretty awesome, huh guys?” the new coach and former Baltimore Ravens defensive coordinator asked more than said.
He was holding a card of notes. He wasn’t looking at them.
He was giving his commander’s intent from his heart.
“This is awesome. We’ve got a helluva program waiting for you guys.,” Macdonald told the 90 players who’d never met him, on a team coming off a subpar season of missing the playoffs with now-fired coach Pete Carroll. “One of the things I want you guys to feel going through this program is that we have a vision for you and this football team.
“But today — I’m going to take you here now, so stay with me — I want us to just take a minute here and fast-forward to January. NFC championship. It’s 30-something degrees, all right. It’s wet. It’s windy. All right, sh***y for them, OK?
“But it’s just right for us.
“We’re loose. We’re focused, all right. We’re confident. We just spent the last nine months stacking every opportunity that we had to put us in that position. ...
“It’s inevitable. So let’s go to work.”
Twenty-one months later, it’s January. It’s the NFC championship.
Sunday, those same Seahawks that sat listening to their rookie coach’s first, foreshadowing words, the team that missed the playoffs two years in a row before this season, is playing the dreaded Los Angeles Rams at Lumen Field.
The winner goes to the Super Bowl.
Somebody asked Macdonald Wednesday if he looked at the weather forecast for the title game Sunday.
“I actually did, yeah,” Macdonald said.
“I think it’s going to be in the 40s (and sunny). Unfortunately.”
He smiled.
Two seasons, 25 wins in 35 games plus his first career postseason victory later, Macdonald’s program has its players in Seattle’s first conference championship game since January 2015.
Looking back now at day 1
Four days before Seahawks-Rams for a title, Macdonald looked back on his first words to his players 21 months ago.
“All I was thinking about was how nervous I was going to the first team meeting. I don’t know if you can tell,” Macdonald deadpanned Wednesday.
“Probably some more awkward pauses throughout that. It’s funny. It’s actually a point of like an inside joke with the guys about how we didn’t know each other and it was just our first, true interaction. Just kind of this wild experience.
“Everyone talks about what your first message to the team is going to be. And it’s really overblown, frankly. But you think about, ‘What am I going to talk to the team about? What’s the first thing? I don’t want to say the wrong thing.’
“It just came to me. I think God just allowed me to just take pressure away and said, ‘This is what you should say.’
“It was pretty powerful. Awesome.”
Seahawks players remember day 1
Those Seahawks players in the auditorium that April day in 2024 remember what their new coach said, and the genuine conviction he had saying it.
And not just the impressionable rookies.
The most veteran players on the team remain blown away by how Macdonald has led them to where he said they’d go.
“Yeah, I definitely remember,” 11th-year Pro Bowl defensive lineman Leonard Williams said. “I mean, it hasn’t been too long now since Mike has been here.
“He’s made a huge impact and difference in a short amount of time.”
Williams spent the first 8 1/2 seasons of his NFL career with the New York Jets (as their sixth-overall pick in 2015) and Giants. He says Macdonald’s key trait is the coach’s authenticity.
“I think what makes Mike special is he practices what he preaches,” Williams said. “He’s always talking about chasing edges. Always talking about what’s important now. He openly will talk to us on what he has to work on as a coach.”
Such as the last time the Seahawks played the Rams.
Coach Sean McVay’s offense with likely NFL MVP Matthew Stafford at quarterback rolled up 581 yards and 37 points at Lumen Field Dec. 18. Wide receiver Puka Nacua roamed free through the deep middle of the miscommunicating Seahawks defense for 225 yards receiving.
After Pro Bowl return man Rashid Shaheed brought a punt back for a touchdown and Pro Bowl quarterback Sam Darnold finished off Seattle’s rally from 16 points down in the fourth quarter to win 38-37, Macdonald blamed himself for the Rams shredding his defense.
The defensive guru said he erred giving his players too much, changing too much, in the three, short days between their Sunday win over Indianapolis on Dec. 14 and the Thursday night Rams game.
He had thought they had mastered the defense well enough he could tweak and add on to concepts. But he admitted after that game he was wrong in picking the wrong week.
“He talks about where he lacks and wants to grow, and you see the growth,” Williams said. “I think him setting that standard as a leader for our team kind of seeps into the rest of the team and allows us to feel like we can be that same way. Allows us to show vulnerability where we are weak, and let other guys know that’s where we need to grow.
“It creates an open dynamic where when we’re in the film room and we are coaching on things, you don’t see guys getting offended. They’re like, ‘OK, this is something I need to attack.’
“We’re not attacking the player, we are attacking the problem-type thing.
“Yeah, it starts with Coach Mike,” Williams said. “He’s done a great job leading this team.”
Darnold identifies two more of Macdonald’s impactful traits: accountability and trust. Macdonald has at times this season changed practice schedules between games to give his guys rest they’ve felt they’ve earned. He’s gone the other way, too, putting them in full pads or fuller-than-expected practices, including the playoff bye week before the Seahawks beat the 49ers.
“He’s very honest. He’s very honest with the players. He listens to players.” Darnold, 28 and a veteran of five NFL teams in eight seasons, said. “If we’re feeling a certain type of way about whatever it is, he’s going to listen to us.
“At the same time he knows what’s best for the team, and if guys are saying one thing and he feels like we need something, then Coach is going to put his foot down and be like, ‘No, this is what I feel like the team needs.’
“He’s really good at balancing that as a head coach, which I feel like can be hard. He does such a good job of just running the show and leading us.
This story was originally published January 22, 2026 at 5:00 AM.
