Highlights from Macdonald's season end presser

[James in PA]

The highlights I took from it:

He was 100% involved in the Grubb hiring and he will be 100% involved in the next OC hiring.

Having previous NFL offensive play calling experience isn't necessarily a prerequisite for landing the OC job.

There may be more staff changes. The new OC will obviously have input.

There are no in-house candidates for the OC job (that should end the Peetz talk).

He feels like having Geno back is what is best for the team right now.

He thought special teams grew throughout the season. He thinks Jay Harbaugh is a tremendous coach.

 

[TheLegendOfBoom]

What I took from it was, “everything is up to be moved, if I don’t see it in the future.”

Mac said/implies he’s fine if the next OC might want his “own” choices with coaches as well.

 

[James in PA]

What I took from it was, “everything is up to be moved, if I don’t see it in the future.”

Mac said/implies he’s fine if the next OC might want his “own” choices with coaches as well.

Yep, Huff might not be a lock to return.

 

[GetNjigbaWithIt]

Couldn't help but notice that "in house candidate" comment myself. He didn't even think about that answer. That made me doubt that Peetz could be the guy.

 

[James in PA]

Couldn't help but notice that "in house candidate" comment myself. He didn't even think about that answer. That made me doubt that Peetz could be the guy.

I was relieved to hear that personally. Now, if we could just get him to change his mind about not needing to have previous NFL play calling experience. But I can understand why he said that. Leave no stone unturned.

 

[sutz]

I normally skip these interviews, but was curious so I listened.

Complementary football. I think this could be boiled down to one thing/stat. That being: did we force the other guy to punt more than we did? Kind of stupid/silly simple way to think but it makes sense to me. You want your D to force 3 and outs, as many as possible. One way to rate a game is by how many punts vs punts forced. Sounds a little hokey, maybe, but it makes sense to me.

Our D is pretty good at that, and secondarily forced a good amount of FG vs TD when backed up in the endzone. Always room for improvement, of course, but a solid base is there to build on for the future.

Conversely, you want the O to score more times than you punt, preferabley TDs and not settling for FGs so much but scores. OK, we sucked at that in '24, and need some big changes. That started with opting to replace the OC. It sounds like the current O coaching staff is "safe" for now, but once the OC is in he'll have some leeway to bring in his own staff. Makes sense to me. No need to just can everybody and make the guy start from scratch, but yeah, you let him have some options.

Also, I don't have exactly the same take on his answer to the "promote from within" comment, but he did say he already had a couple of guys they have interest in. A little iffy about "willing to wait for the SB to choose the OC" but it doesn't sound like he has anybody on current top teams in mind yet. Last year it became obvious we were waiting for Mac to come available and that was a good strategy. It just made the Grubb choice a bit hurried in the end. Oh well.

He sounded like he was willing to the let the current young guys on the O-line develop, but in no way said he was against any kind of upgrade, whether FA or draft. Also said they need to constantly draft O-line just to keep the depth in place to develop guys. I like that.

Maybe some more comments as the discussion deepens. Good interview, though. The future is bright.

 

[Scout]

First of all on paper the Seahawks have a nice young OL group to go forward with. But most NFL teams are 6-7 deep on OL for a reason and the Seahawks are not there yet. Expect to see another guard drafted for sure.

Based on what Mac wants to do is control the flow of a game and an OC that can do that with some balance and misdirection is what he is looking for.

 

[DarkVictory23]

Thanks for the highlights. I can't sit through press conferences generally, so it's appreciated.

I do agree though that I hope they consider NFL play calling experience to be a major part of their consideration. I just don't want another experiment. I want a confident play caller who has a system and identity already, not figuring it out as the season goes on.

 

[SoulfishHawk]

This guy is impressive, focused and doesn't have be all rah rah, ah shucks like Pete.

 

[sutz]

Thanks for the highlights. I can't sit through press conferences generally, so it's appreciated.

I do agree though that I hope they consider NFL play calling experience to be a major part of their consideration. I just don't want another experiment. I want a confident play caller who has a system and identity already, not figuring it out as the season goes on.

I think they would be OK with a college guy who ran a pro-style offense. Nothing beats real NFL experience, of course, but it sounded to me like that wasn't a hard pre-requisite.

 

[GetNjigbaWithIt]

I was relieved to hear that personally. Now, if we could just get him to change his mind about not needing to have previous NFL play calling experience. But I can understand why he said that. Leave no stone unturned.

This was brought up in the most recent Seahawks Forever episode Dan Viens did with Bryce Couts, they mentioned that Macdonald said they put "slips" in. That means the guys he's looking at are currently in the playoffs. And one name that's been brought up before, and that Bryce Couts mentioned in that episode, is Marcus Brady.

He's currently the Chargers passing game coordinator, but he has 15 years of coaching experience between the CFL & NFL, including as an OC when he was with Frank Reich in Indy. He was their OC when Jonathan Taylor went off. Indy was able to either get in the playoffs or nearly get in with QB's like Jacoby Brissett, Carson Wentz, and and aging Phillip Rivers, before Indy just collapsed because they had a past-his-prime Matt Ryan playing QB for them, and the team didn't have much depth, plus, I'm sure they had GM/ownership issues as well.

He was also with Philly as an offensive analyst when they went to the Super Bowl. He's now got familiarity with a Harbaugh offense, which I'm sure Macdonald values highly. Plus, he's a former QB, it wouldn't hurt to have an OC who knows how to develop QB's because of their playing experience.