The Seattle Seahawks are just around the corner from opening up a brand new NFL season under second-year head coach Mike Macdonald. Macdonald is part of the younger crop of head coaches in the league who bring brains, intelligence, and creative play-calling to the mix.
Seahawks fans saw some of what Macdonald has the potential to do last season, but heading into year two, he'll have more chances, which means higher expectations.
As with a new coach taking over in any organization, culture is the hot keyword these days. It's more commonly used and hotly debated on in the NBA, but in the NFL, things are not much different. For Macdonald, who took over for Pete Carroll—a coach greatly admired for setting a culture in Seattle—is now responsible for establishing a new culture for the Seahawks.
AJ Barner green-lights the Seattle Seahawks culture heading into the 2025 season
With one year of experience under him, Macdonald enters this season with a new quarterback, a new offensive coordinator, and several significant changes at key positions on the 53-man roster. It's Macdonald's turn to create a culture, and Seahawks tight end AJ Barner has nothing but positive things to say in that regard.
Carroll, who now coaches in a division that arguably holds the best quartet of division head coaches in NFL history, was once the foundation and cornerstone of a Seahawks run that spanned 14 years. Carroll's "players coach" approach and happy-go-lucky attitude helped Seattle win the Super Bowl in 2014, followed by another appearance the year after.
Back then, Seattle was known for its devastating "Legion of Boom" defense, consisting of players like Kam Chancellor, Richard Sherman, Earl Thomas, and Byron Maxwell, among others.
While a young Russell Wilson was running circles (evasively, mind you) around diving defenders in the backfield before tossing the ball downfield, the defense had a firm, choking grasp on the opponent's offense on nearly every drive.
Carroll had a massive role to play in those teams, and the years the Seahawks dominated. But it all started with the mindset and culture Carroll implemented. Well, now Carroll is gone, and Macdonald is in, and it's his job to craft a similar blueprint for success.
Barner is about to enter his second year in the NFL, having already spent one year under Macdonald. Earlier this week, during a media session, he gave glowing remarks about the Seahawks' culture and how it will impact the upcoming season:
"...Really good culture here. We have a great culture in this building," Barner said. "We know what the expectation is. We know the physical brand of football that we’re trying to play. There’s ego's and everyone has their swag and this and that to them, but there’s no pointing fingers. There’s no I need this and I need that. Its let me do my job, let me play the style of football we need to play and let's win games."
In the Carroll era, fingers eventually began to point, and some were even raised, but Carroll didn't hold it against Thomas in the end. The point is that culture did begin to suffer with some specific personalities, but it never overshadowed Carroll's ability to create the right culture that produced winning results. It's why the Las Vegas Raiders hired him over the summer.
In Seattle, it's Mcdonald's ship to helm now, and it starts with culture. If we're to take Barner at his word, in Seattle, it's so far so good. Whether the apparent solid culture translates to solid football and winning games, well, Seahawks fans are soon to find out.