With all of the buzz surrounding NFL head coaching hires (particularly around the Las Vegas Raiders hiring Seattle Seahawks OC Klint Kubiak), it is only natural to wonder how certain hirings will stack up compared to others. Will these new hires produce results quickly? Will the teams be better off than they were before the new coaches came to town? Will these coaches be able to guide their teams to championship glory, or at the very least, consistent playoff contention?
Second-year Seahawks head coach Mike Macdonald has answered nearly all of these questions with an affirmative yes so far. ESPN’s Bill Barnwell seemed to agree, ranking Seattle’s hiring of Macdonald as the third-best NFL head coaching hire since 2021. Only Detroit’s Dan Campbell and Philadelphia’s Nick Sirianni were ranked higher, with the former guiding the Lions to their first playoff win in over 30 years and the latter taking the Eagles to two Super Bowl appearances and one championship.
In 2024, Macdonald took over a team that had reached the playoffs just once in the previous three seasons, repeatedly struggling against the likes of the Los Angeles Rams and San Francisco 49ers in the NFC West. Macdonald has left a sizable imprint on the Seahawks through his first two seasons with the organization, taking Seattle from the middle of the pack to one of the best in the league.
The Seahawks won a franchise best 14 games during the regular season, going all the way to Super Bowl 60 with wins over the aforementioned 49ers and Rams in their first two playoff games. Macdonald has provided a fresh voice to his team’s locker room, helping to construct one of the fiercest units in the NFL in a very short amount of time.
Seattle boasts one of the toughest all-around units the league has to offer, ending the 2025 regular season with both the fewest points allowed on defense and a top-three scoring offense. Contrast this to where the Seahawks were two years ago: 17th in points scored (21.4 per game) and 25th in points against (23.6/game); if you were looking for a new head coach, wouldn’t you consider bringing in Macdonald?
These results are not isolated to his time in Seattle, either—in year one as the Baltimore Ravens’ defensive coordinator in 2022, Macdonald flipped his unit from 19th to third in points allowed. He only went up from here in 2023, with the Ravens’ defense letting up a league-low 16.5 points per game, surrendering 30 points in a game on only two occasions that year.
Defensive prowess aside, Macdonald has played a part in assisting several of his players to some of their best years on the gridiron. Jaxon Smith-Njigba had an otherworldly 2025, finishing with a league-best 1,793 receiving yards and becoming the first wideout in franchise history to eclipse 100 receptions in a year. In addition, Sam Darnold was able to continue his success from his time in Minneapolis, justifying the Geno Smith trade with a career-best 67.7 completion percentage and a year largely on par with his one-year stint with the Vikings.
Other noteworthy names include Devon Witherspoon, Ernest Jones IV, Leonard Williams, and trade deadline acquisition Rashid Shaheed, all of whom earned All-Pro selections this season. Williams was particularly impressive, tying for the team lead in sacks (7.0) while starting all 17 games for Seattle en route to his second consecutive Pro Bowl selection.
Needless to say, this is not a one-man show. Macdonald has built a team that has been characterized by players who step up when they need to and get the team in position to win football games. Day in and day out, they play hard for one another, all with one common goal in mind—to claim the heralded Vince Lombardi Trophy. This certainly makes up for Barnwell’s primary criticism of Macdonald, which had to do with his play-calling on fourth down.
All in all, Macdonald has been nothing short of a success thus far, bringing football in the Emerald City to the verge of gridiron prestige once again. Not every first-time head coach can say that they have led their team to the Super Bowl within two years while also boasting one of the league’s best defenses.
There’s only one thing left to do on Sunday—win the whole thing.
