Seahawks hire Mike Macdonald as coach to replace Pete Carroll

Pete Carroll used his defensive background to become the most successful coach in Seahawks history.

And it is another coach with a defensive background — Mike Macdonald — whom the Seahawks will count on to get them back to their Carroll-era glory years.

After a morning of reports that said the Seahawks had decided to hire Macdonald — the 36-year-old Baltimore Ravens defensive coordinator — as their coach, the team made it official with an announcement shortly after 4:30 p.m. Wednesday.

Macdonald will be introduced during a news conference at 11 a.m. Thursday at his new professional home — the Virginia Mason Athletic Center in Renton.

The hire means that in the span of three weeks, the Seahawks will have gone from having the NFL’s oldest coach — the 72-year-old Carroll — to the youngest, one half Carroll’s age.

Macdonald reportedly signed a six-year deal, doing so after he flew to Seattle following an interview with general manager John Schneider and other Seahawks officials Tuesday in Baltimore.

“What an honor,” Macdonald said on the team’s website, Seahawks.com, which noted that he and his wife, Stephanie, had been greeted by team employees upon their arrival at the VMAC. “We are super excited to be here. Just getting to know John and the rest of the folks, the reputation of this place, what drew us here was the people. That’s why we’re here, to bring a championship back to Seattle and the 12s.

“We’re going to have a lot of fun, we’re going to work our tails off, and it’s going to be an incredible ride. We’re going to be here for a long time, and we’re going to win a lot of football games.”

For now, it’ll be good enough if he can match the success Carroll had for most of his Seattle career.

Carroll, who had just three losing seasons and compiled a 137-89-1 record over 14 years with the Seahawks, also rose to prominence as a defensive coordinator before embarking on a head-coaching career. He led Seattle to its only Super Bowl victory in the 2013 season, powered by one of the most dominant defenses in NFL history.

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The Seahawks hope Macdonald can follow a similar path.

In his two years as Baltimore’s defensive coordinator, the Ravens finished third and first in fewest points allowed and ninth and sixth in fewest yards allowed.

The Ravens this season became the first team to lead the NFL in the following categories: fewest points allowed per game (16.5), most sacks (60) and take-aways (31).

His task is to turn that same magic touch on a Seattle defense that fell off markedly in recent seasons from the Legion of Boom era. The Seahawks were 25th in points allowed and 30th in yards allowed in 2023 and have finished 22nd or worse in yards allowed every year since 2018 — the last season that any member of the LOB secondary played for them. Seattle has won just one playoff game since the 2016 season.

Macdonald’s success with Baltimore made him highly sought after the past few weeks. He had interviews with five of the other seven teams that had head-coach openings. That included a second interview Monday with the Washington Commanders.

The Seahawks were the sixth and final team to talk with Macdonald, with Schneider and other team officials interviewing him for the first time Tuesday, doing so in person in Baltimore.

The Seahawks had to wait to conduct that interview. They had been unable to interview him when they first could have, during the Ravens’ bye week following the regular season. He was then off-limits until after Baltimore’s season had concluded, via NFL rules.

But it was thought all along that Macdonald was high on the Seahawks’ list, and they reportedly were willing to wait to talk with him even if Baltimore had reached the Super Bowl.

Instead, the Ravens lost Sunday in the AFC title game, and Seattle was allowed to interview him this week and quickly seal the coaching deal.

Macdonald’s hiring ended a three-week process in which the Seahawks also considered Dan Quinn, the defensive coordinator for Seattle’s Super Bowl teams in 2013 and 2014 and a former coach of the Atlanta Falcons; Detroit offensive coordinator Ben Johnson; and New York Giants offensive coordinator Mike Kafka. All three were among six coaches with whom Seattle had two interviews.

Quinn, in fact, had long been considered a possible front-runner due to his Seattle ties.

But Seattle instead is gambling on a young coach described by many as a defensive wunderkind — as Carroll once was.

For Macdonald, the hire caps a meteoric rise up the coaching ladder. He is the youngest coach in the NFL by 16 months. Jerod Mayo, recently named to take over for Bill Belichick as coach of the Patriots, is next on the list at 37.

Macdonald got his first NFL job of any kind as an intern with the Ravens just 10 years ago, a season when the Seahawks ended up playing in their second Super Bowl under Carroll.

Macdonald, who was born in Boston but attended high school in Roswell, Ga., did not play football beyond high school due to a knee injury.

But he began coaching high school football while a student at the University of Georgia, where he graduated summa cum laude with a finance degree from the Terry College of Business.

His coaching career began in earnest as a graduate assistant at Georgia in 2010 under coach Mark Richt. Macdonald also served as a quality control coach through the 2013 season while earning a Masters in Sport Management and Policy with a 4.0 GPA.

The following year, a change in defensive coordinators meant Macdonald was out of a job at Georgia, and he briefly considered a career outside coaching, landing a position with the financial firm KPMG.

But then he got a call from the Ravens, coached by John Harbaugh, with whom he had interviewed the previous year for a scouting internship. This time, the team offered him a coaching internship.

Macdonald accepted, and the following year was elevated to a full-time defensive assistant. He moved up to defensive-backs coach in 2017 and linebackers coach from 2018-20.

He left for a year to serve as defensive coordinator at Michigan under Jim Harbaugh — John’s brother — in 2021.

He returned to Baltimore to accept a promotion as the Ravens’ defensive coordinator in 2022 following the departure of coordinator Don “Wink’’ Martindale.

That came after a 2021 season in which the Ravens ranked 19th in points allowed and 25th in yards allowed and finished 8-9 following an 8-3 start. The slump coincided with an injury to quarterback Lamar Jackson (the Ravens were 8-5 when Jackson was sidelined).

Macdonald undoubtedly benefited from a return to health and form by Jackson and Baltimore’s offense the past two years.

But along the way Macdonald also earned his players’ admiration. He implemented a scheme that often easily defies description, with Macdonald cited for his ability to alter the defense each week based on the opponent.

“He’s got a somewhat complicated scheme,” safety Kyle Hamilton told USA Today this season. “I think it always keep the offense on their toes, and I think allows us to make plays in different areas and show our versatility.”

Linebacker Roquan Smith last week called Macdonald a “mad scientist” for his ability to give the defense a unique game plan each week.

One scheme that surely caught the eye of Schneider and the Seahawks came on Christmas Day when the Ravens intercepted 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy four times in a 33-19 victory. The 49ers are the team the Seahawks know they must beat to get back to contending status in the NFC West.

The Seahawks also got a good look at the Ravens defense in 37-3 loss in Baltimore on Nov. 5.

Asked last week about his players’ praise and his prospects as a head coach, Macdonald gave a lengthy answer that provided insight into his philosophy.

“It’s humbling,” Macdonald said. “It’s flattering to hear that. As a coach you’re just trying to put your guys in spots where they can be successful. That’s the viewpoint. That’s why we do what we do. When they have success, you have success. That’s what we’re trying to do here. That’s why all this is here. That’s why you guys are here. That’s what’s rewarding to us. When you hear things that your players feel like you’re helping them have success, that means a lot.

“But, like I said, it’s a team effort. There’s a lot of information that has to be cultivated and broken down and then deciphered and then given to them at the same time. I’m in charge of organizing it and making sure it gets them the right way and ultimately making the calls on Sundays. To answer your question, yes it feels great that we’re helping our players have success, for sure.” 

Now as he enters just his 10th season as a full-time coach, Macdonald will take over as the ninth coach in the Seahawks’ 48-year history, hoping to take them back to the same lofty heights Carroll once did.