George Harris
Jan 31, 2024 - 09:05

Seahawks to hire Ravens DC Mike Macdonald as new coach - AP source

Seattle Seahawks hire 36-year-old Mike Macdonald, the youngest head coach in the NFL, to lead the team after Pete Carroll's departure.

The Seattle Seahawks are making a significant change in their coaching staff, hiring Baltimore Ravens defensive coordinator Mike Macdonald as their new head coach. At just 36 years old, Macdonald will become the youngest head coach in the league, taking over from Pete Carroll, who was let go after 14 seasons in charge in Seattle. Macdonald's experience includes running Baltimore's defense for the past two years, where the Ravens finished with the NFL's best regular-season record and reached the AFC championship game. This will be Macdonald's first head coaching position at any level, but he has been surrounded by successful coaches as he moved up the ranks, including an extended run on the staff of John Harbaugh in Baltimore and a season on now-Chargers' coach Jim Harbaugh's staff at Michigan.

Seattle made it clear that Macdonald was one of its top candidates, and after interviewing several candidates, they made the final decision to hire him. One of the unknowns will be how Macdonald meshes with an organization that was shaped around Carroll's philosophy for more than a decade. Seattle general manager John Schneider said one of the mandates from owner/chair Jody Allen was to keep a level of Carroll's culture in place, so how Macdonald manages that will be one of the questions.

In a related move, the New England Patriots have an agreement in place with Los Angeles Rams assistant Jeremy Springer to become their special teams coordinator. Springer, 34, is coming off his second season with the Rams, where he served as a special teams assistant. Before that, he spent eight years coaching in college, making stops at UTEP, Texas A&M, Arizona, and Marshall. He served as special teams coordinator for the Aggies, Wildcats, and Thundering Herd. Springer will now be tasked with improving a Patriots special teams unit that ranked 28th in the NFL this season in defense-adjusted value over average, or DVOA, an advanced metric used to measure efficiency.