TOP STORIES
The Coach
Macdonald Told the Truth About Year One and Didn’t Soften Any of It
Mike Macdonald sat down with Graham Bensinger and described the months after Seattle hired him in January 2024 as the hardest stretch of his life. The episode went live on YouTube Wednesday. He is 39, he won a Super Bowl in February, and he chose to say all of it anyway.
“It was an extremely difficult time,” Macdonald said, per Seattle Sports. “I’ve never felt like that in my life. Like, I was sick. I’d go home, I’d get in bed and I wouldn’t get out.” Weekends, he said, he didn’t get out of bed at all. He told Bensinger he was drinking a lot. He called it the toughest, most difficult stretch of his life.
10-7
Seattle’s record in 2024, the season Macdonald now describes as the hardest of his life.
The line that will stick with me isn’t about the bed or the drinking. It’s the performance review: “I was not a great leader my first year,” he said. “It sucks to say that, but I just fell short in so many different ways.” He went 10-7 that season. Nobody was asking him to apologize for it.
What pulled him out of it was aggressively unglamorous. His two sisters and his wife. A routine. Two hourlong walks a day, phone calls to players, workouts, eating better. “If I could get some physical, personal wins, then I could just start stacking those things,” he told Bensinger. No breakthrough, no montage. Just a guy deciding to go outside.
“
Most coaches take the 10-7 and the mythology and never mention the part where they couldn’t get out of bed.
He’ll be on a sideline in Glendale on Sunday looking like the most composed man in the building, because that’s what the job costs and that’s what he’s good at now. Worth remembering he had to build that version on purpose.
SOURCES →
Injury Report
Tory Horton Is Playing Sunday. The Safety Room Is Still Held Together With Tape.
Keep Reading ↓
The rest of the sheet is less cheerful. Sam Darnold is out with the glute and is expected back in Week 4 against the Chargers. Safety Ty Okada is out with the hamstring for a second straight game, which means Seattle goes into a division road game with Julian Love and a group of names most of the country has to look up. Nick Emmanwori is questionable with the ankle and the hip.
So the receiver room gets deeper on the same afternoon the secondary gets thinner. That’s been the shape of this season for eleven days now. Drew Lock gets a full-speed WR4 he has actually practiced with, and Mike Macdonald gets to find out again whether his defense is a scheme or a depth chart.
SOURCES →
AROUND THE COOP
Around the Coop
Starting right guard Anthony Bradford is questionable with knee and hip injuries, which is a sentence nobody wanted on a Friday. Mason Richman is already on injured reserve. The interior line insurance policy is a fifth-round rookie from Iowa and a lot of optimism. Seahawks.com
With Okada out, Rodney Thomas II is expected to be elevated from the practice squad again after starting the opener. Macdonald: “We saw Rodney play great football and that’s what it’s going to take.” The practice squad has now been supplying a starting safety for two straight weeks. Pay the man in per-game bonuses, at minimum. Seahawks.com
Macdonald said Friday that Zach Charbonnet could be practicing soon. He’s still on PUP and still has games to sit out, but eight months after reconstructive knee surgery, “soon” is a genuinely lovely word. Yahoo Sports
Julian Love, on the national habit of calling Nehemiah Pritchett and Josh Jobe backups: “those are starters for us. They’re not backups.” Between them they took two of the three fourth-quarter interceptions in the opener. The tape agreed with him before he said it. Seahawks.com
NFC WEST SCHADENFREUDE REPORT
RAMS
Sean McVay was asked about the Melbourne trip and produced the review of the year: “We’re not playing in Australia ever again, I hope. Not because it wasn’t a great atmosphere; that’ll get taken out of context.” Sir, you said it into a microphone. That’s not context being taken, that’s context being handed over in a gift bag. Sixteen thousand miles for a 27-7 loss and a head coach publicly begging the league never to invite him back.
NINERS
San Francisco finally plays a football game in California on Sunday, having sold Week 1 to another hemisphere. The organization’s own home-opener preview is selling a chance to improve to 7-3 in home openers under Kyle Shanahan. Ten years of Week 1 at Levi’s and the marketing pitch is a .700 record at the one game you get to script. Go get ’em.
CARDINALS
Arizona’s tight end Trey McBride is 0-8 in his career against Seattle. Michael Wilson is 0-6. Marvin Harrison Jr. is 0-4. Asked about the streak this week, Mike LaFleur said he didn’t even know the history of it, and that it was news to him. That’s a fun thing to be able to say once. Somebody in that building is going to have to tell him eventually, and it might as well be the scoreboard.
SEACHICKENS TRIVIA
This undrafted wide receiver set career highs of 78 catches, 1,069 yards and 14 touchdowns for Seattle in 2015, and those 14 scores tied for the NFL lead that season. Who is he?
Tap to Reveal the Answer
Doug Baldwin. The 1,069 yards made him just the seventh player in franchise history to post a 1,000-yard season, and he got there after entering the league without a draft pick attached to his name.
Got a Question? Fire Away.
The mailbag is open and the bar for entry is low. Cap math, depth chart grievances, conspiracy theories about the right guard rotation, all welcome. Send it in and I’ll answer the best one in my usual calm and measured fashion.
Nine straight in this rivalry. Let's go make it ten. — The Rooster