The biggest change from Carroll to McDonald

[seabowl]

I think it’s rather obvious, but I’m going to state it anyway. The biggest difference between Pete Carroll and Mike McDonald can be summed up in one word: HOPE

The previous regime was the best thing that ever happened to this franchise. Unfortunately, like virtually every other coaching regime, eventually the scheme and staff gets stale, losing ensures, and a change needs to be made. Frankly, it almost didn’t matter who the coach was that took over for Pete because HOPE is all the fans were searching for as this was at least three years in the making.

With McDonald being young, previously successful, and coming in with a much different approach then that of Pete the last several years, this provides quite a bit of HOPE for the fanbase. After just one preseason game there are already stark differences in the level of play on the field. This is the HOPE fans were looking for. We don’t know if McDonald will be successful, but at least it’s not the definition of insanity yet again this year.

In closing, I think an appropriately named title to this next generation of the Seahawks would be:

Seahawk Wars : A new HOPE

 

[LeveeBreak]

I think it’s rather obvious, but I’m going to state it anyway. The biggest difference between Pete Carroll and Mike McDonald can be summed up in one word: HOPE

The previous regime was the best thing that ever happened to this franchise. Unfortunately, like virtually every other coaching regime, eventually the scheme and staff gets stale, losing ensures, and a change needs to be made. Frankly, it almost didn’t matter who the coach was that took over for Pete because HOPE is all the fans were searching for as this was at least three years in the making.

With McDonald being young, previously successful, and coming in with a much different approach then that of Pete the last several years, this provides quite a bit of HOPE for the fanbase. After just one preseason game there are already stark differences in the level of play on the field. This is the HOPE fans were looking for. We don’t know if McDonald will be successful, but at least it’s not the definition of insanity yet again this year.

In closing, I think an appropriately named title to this next generation of the Seahawks would be:

Seahawk Wars : A new HOPE

I think we as fans have more legitimate hope now.

I think the biggest differences between PC & MM is discipline and a hands on approach to teaching. PC/coaches did that early on, but it seemed to wane over the years.

But even compared to PC in the early days, from what I've read MM is more precise and purposeful about what/how he teaches the game and sets expectations.

 

[IndyHawk]

Attention to detail is a big thing with Mac and hard practices.
There is no more Hoops and chillaxing to music while practice is going.
I love it!

 

[Spin Doctor]

The issue with Carroll is that things had gotten stale. He wasn't a bad coach by any means, if we go by regular season wins, we were doing all right. The issue is that we increasingly were falling behind the competition. The 9ers and Rams were consistently pounding our faces into the sand. Even with inferior talent, the Rams would roll right up to us and make a mockery out of our teams.

Carroll's demeanor the last few years also changed. Increasingly he looked flustered and pissed off. In addition to this in a bid to modernize the defensive schemes, he chose the wrong people. Hurtt was one of the worst choices to do what Carroll wanted to do. Carroll consistently surrounded himself with bad coaches, particularly on defense. That is one of the main reasons why we never were able to fix our defense. In addition we were running schemes that Carroll had no experience with, leading to problems that he was unable to correct.

Carroll at some point lost his way. The always compete mantra seemed to fall to the wayside, young talent was pushed down in favor of aging vets, we also struggled developing young talent. All of this led to a team that was not outright bad, but never really competitive. Even in 2020, there were some serious issues with that 12 win Seahawks team.

Macdonald represents change, for better or for worse. A new guard, more risk of going to the cellar, but also the potential to be much greater than anything the post 2015 Carroll teams could offer. It's exciting, it reminds me a lot of when Carroll first stepped into the Seahawks role. In addition, MacDonald is a straight shooter, if we have a bad practice, he'll say so. That is a refreshing change from the world salad that Carroll often threw out.

 

[cymatica]

Attention to detail is a big thing with Mac and hard practices.
There is no more Hoops and chillaxing to music while practice is going.
I love it!

That and discipline

 

[Spin Doctor]

The biggest difference I saw was discip

That and discipline

There are a lot of major differences between Carroll and MacDonald. First major difference is the scheme. Carroll implemented a lot of 4-3 under fronts and cover 3 defenses. A very simple defense to execute. Carroll's philosophy is it allowed players to be themselves and limited potential mistakes if a simple system was mastered.

MacDonald on the other hand comes from the Harbaugh school. His defenses require precision and have a lot of moving parts. They'll come out in one formation, then presnap switch it up. They'll look like they're running man, then hit you with a zone. They'll look like they will bring the house, but instead hit you with a pass rusher coming from an odd angle, while everyone drops back. This requires a great deal of discipline, precision, and coordination. The linebackers and safeties in particular have to have the skillsets to play several different positions at any one time.

MacDonald also strikes me as being more analytical and more of a straight shooter. I've heard him in press conferences straight up say that it wasn't a good practice, we never would have heard that from Pete Carroll. When our players are struggling, you hear from him and he tends to take it to heart.

 

[12AngryHawks]

I think it's safe to say Macdonald has handled his first off-season as a HC better than we could've hoped for.

I think his honesty has been absolutely refreshing to hear, when he says something, you believe him. So far, he hasn't sugarcoated anything, he's made it clear which players aren't meeting his standards, and which players are. He evaluates his players without being too harsh or to cheerful. He has a process, and he's gonna hold the players accountable and make them work their tails off until they meet his standards.

Macdonald has breathed new life into this team when it comes to physicality/toughness/aggression. And we see the fruits of that in practice. I think we're on the verge of getting those L.O.B era vibes back, where teams are intimidated by our D. They're gonna send a message, and that message is, "we're not here to play nice anymore!"

Man, I'm hyping myself up for this season. I'm absolutely pumped to see what this team will look like once they have a full grasp of the system.

 

[olyfan63]

I remember in 2011 (IIRC) when Carroll's Seahawks announced to the NFL and the world that "these are not your father's "finesse" Seahawks. In NY, the Eli-led NY Giants were behind, after a good effort by the Seahawks on the road, but marching to the winning TD pass by Eli and the inevitable Giants victory. The articles on the Giants 4th quarter comeback, another masterpiece by Eli, were practically written by the NY media. Then, Eli missed a throw, the receiver couldn't handle it, and the ball fluttered up in the air. Brandon Browner corraled it, and then went 90 yards the other way for a pick-6, and a 36-25 Hawks upset victory.

Also that season, the Hawks beat the Ravens in a slugfest, matching up to the Ravens schoolyard bully physicality.

So, what will be MikeMac's Seahawk's announcement to the NFL and the world that this is not a Pete Carroll crappy run-right-over-us defense? Stuffing the Niners offense? Shutting down the McVay Rams offense? I'm looking forward to it! I'll go with bullying the 49er offense in a win as the moment of emergence. Let's go make it happen, Seahawks!

 

[bileever]

I'll always appreciate what Pete Carroll did for the Seahawks, and believe that he ushered in a new era not only for the Hawks, but for NFL defenses. But NFL adjusts and adapts so quickly, and Carroll's defenses have been neutralized and the McVays and Shanahans and all their clones have brought about a new change, one that hasn't been successfully countered.

If someone is going to figure out a way to stop the 49ers and Rams, it's going to be someone like Macdonald, a young cerebral defensive mind. He's had some success in Baltimore, but he hasn't proven anything yet as a head coach.

It will be interesting to see how this all shakes out, especially within our division, the NFC West. Four young coaches, two offensive gurus and two defensive experts. Kyle Shanahan is 44, Jonathan Gannno is 41, Sean McVay is 38 and Mick Macdonald is 37. Which team will ultimately prevail?

 

[Jac]

I love the brand new culture. It's rather obvious to say given where he came from, but this feels much more like the Ravens than the Seahawks.

 

[olyfan63]

I love the brand new culture. It's rather obvious to say given where he came from, but this feels much more like the Ravens than the Seahawks.

I always felt there was a lot of culture overlap between the peak-Carroll Seahawks and the Ravens. Then Pete lost his way a bit, some of the classic Carroll culture got exposed as empty words for certain players and assistants, etc. In any case, the organizational and front office culture has long had a degree of commonality between the teams.

I suspect that commonality was a factor in MM deciding to come to the Seahawks, e.g., he saw the organizational commonality and templates, and felt like he would fit in and could do his thing the way he wanted to here. For example, early in MM's time here, the organization brought in Leslie Frazier as an assistant head coach, I was guessing to take some of the admin load off of MM so he could focus on building and running an elite defense.

In any case, MM brings a back-to-basics approach (accountability) that is sophisticated in ways-that-matter (e.g., defensive schemes, deception, knowing and exploiting opponent weaknesses, etc.), and the players seem to be responding. We shall see!

 

[WmHBonney]

I'm hoping we see a huge change in clock management and use of timeouts and challenges. Those simple things right there have cost us many wins.

 

[hawks85]

There's a lot of differences. The biggest one to me is seriousness. Carroll was a goof ball a lot of the time acting like a kid on the side line. That great, but not in football. Coach Mike brings the seriousness and lets get to work mentality to this team which was much needed. Coach Mike is a straight shooter, if practice was bad he'll let you know. Carroll was always beating around the bush and sugar coating stuff which I didn't like at all.

 

[jeremiah]

I think it’s rather obvious, but I’m going to state it anyway. The biggest difference between Pete Carroll and Mike McDonald can be summed up in one word: HOPE

The previous regime was the best thing that ever happened to this franchise. Unfortunately, like virtually every other coaching regime, eventually the scheme and staff gets stale, losing ensures, and a change needs to be made. Frankly, it almost didn’t matter who the coach was that took over for Pete because HOPE is all the fans were searching for as this was at least three years in the making.

With McDonald being young, previously successful, and coming in with a much different approach then that of Pete the last several years, this provides quite a bit of HOPE for the fanbase. After just one preseason game there are already stark differences in the level of play on the field. This is the HOPE fans were looking for. We don’t know if McDonald will be successful, but at least it’s not the definition of insanity yet again this year.

In closing, I think an appropriately named title to this next generation of the Seahawks would be:

Seahawk Wars : A new HOPE

The difference is DISCIPLINE. Music blaring at practice etc.. McDaddy will result in one great thing for sure, LESS PENALTIES, better yet less penalties at important times. Maybe even no wasting of the clock when time is of the essence. Example, clock is running, QB gets behind the center and lets it run out, but calls a time out, comes back out and don't have the play right.. We lost to NE because Pete mismanaged that last drive. Thinking to leave NE with -0- on the clock, he left the Hawks with EGG on their faces.

 

[JayhawkMike]

I have hope.

After 3 total playoff wins in the 8 years after the Super Bowl loss I did not with PC.

At least I no longer have to see the excuse making posts for PC. Thank God.

 

[12AngryHawks]

I have hope.

After 3 total playoff wins in the 8 years after the Super Bowl loss I did not with PC.

At least I no longer have to see the excuse making posts for PC. Thank God.

And those 3 playoff wins didn't exactly inspire confidence either, when you think of the circumstances. There was Philly, who had to rely on Josh McCown to finish the game, a mediocre Detroit team, and Minny, who only lost because of Blair Walsh.

 

[MontanaHawk05]

It's easy to hope when there's been no product on the field yet.

This is exactly what people want when they say "just find me someone new, I don't care who it is at this point". They want those few months of hope during which there's no failure on the field to contradict it, because there's nothing on the field at all.

I personally want something that I can mentally project as successful. Can't really feel hopeful otherwise. Fortunately, MacDonald offers a pedigree and has a lot of pieces. Ironically, though, he has a lot of them because of Pete.

We'll see. I doubt that 2024 will be a playoff year for us, at least. Mac deserves more than one year for sure, but he's ultimately going to be defined by whether he finds a QBOTF. I also am concerned about how little noise his first draft class (apart from Murphy) is making in camp.

 

[Torc]

SMH. There is no QB of the future on the way. Geno is our QB, and everyone should be thrilled about that. Then again, he could throw for 5000 yards and 50 TDs and some people would still be waiting for the "QBOTF".

 

[morgulon1]

SMH. There is no QB of the future on the way. Geno is our QB, and everyone should be thrilled about that. Then again, he could throw for 5000 yards and 50 TDs and some people would still be waiting for the "QBOTF".

I don't know when or where this want of this mythical QBOTF came from . Geno Smith can play , and play well.
I'd rather have #7 than most of these youngsters coming out of college .

Heck , maybe I'm wrong but I've watched a lot of football over my many years , and the way MM is going about his business makes me hopeful for the future. An emphasis on the defensive front and offensive line. The rest will take care of itself.

 

[MyrtleHawk]

I personally want something that I can mentally project as successful. Can't really feel hopeful otherwise. Fortunately, MacDonald offers a pedigree and has a lot of pieces. Ironically, though, he has a lot of them because of Pete.

I agree with everything you said, but I wanted to specifically target this for a second.

Yes, MacDaddy has a lot of pieces ironically from Pete; however I feel like MacDonald will use them a lot better and instill MUCH needed discipline in them better than Pete could himself. I feel that it's a night and day difference so far but we're only 1 preseason game in so I'm TRYING to temper my excitement and expectations even though it's very difficult for me to at this time.