ExtremeRavens Posted 7 hours ago Posted 7 hours ago The first person Mike Macdonald called after being hired as the Seattle Seahawks’ head coach two years ago was Leslie Frazier. They had overlapped for one season in Baltimore in 2016. Macdonald was 36 then, a fast-rising defensive assistant still learning how the league worked. Frazier was 64, a grizzled NFL lifer with nearly two decades of experience who was charged with coaching the Ravens’ safeties. The age gap hardly mattered. There was an immediate connection, Frazier said. His experience also told him that Macdonald had the kind of presence that carries a coach far: a natural way with people, ideas that made sense, and — most importantly — ideas players respected. Sunday night in Santa Clara, California, that promise crystallized. Macdonald, droplets of yellow Gatorade still trickling from the bill of his cap, paused near midfield at Levi’s Stadium. As confetti drifted down and the noise swelled around him, he stared skyward, mouth agape, eyes wide as pie plates, absorbing the moment. At 38, he had just become the third-youngest head coach to hoist the Vince Lombardi Trophy. He is also believed to be the first Super Bowl-winning head coach to call his own defensive plays. That distinction did nothing to diminish Frazier’s role. As an assistant head coach for Seattle, he has been one of Macdonald’s closest collaborators. “He’s just a great complement to my skill set, to my personality,” Macdonald said in his postgame news conference. “He’s such a great connector with the players, such a great communicator. He calls our bluff when we’re full of crap on defense, when we do stupid stuff in game planning. … He’s been tremendous.” In Baltimore, the Ravens are hoping Jesse Minter can be for them what Macdonald has been for Seattle. Minter, 42, a former Los Angeles Chargers defensive coordinator and now the Ravens’ head coach, is tasked with following a familiar blueprint. In two years as Baltimore’s defensive coordinator, Macdonald architected a dominating 2023 defense that became the first to lead the league in sacks, takeaways and points allowed. This season in Seattle, he joined Chuck Noll and Bill Belichick as the only coaches to lead the NFL’s No. 1 scoring defense both as a coordinator and as a Super Bowl-winning head coach. He also became just the second former Ravens coordinator to win a title, joining Gary Kubiak with the 2015 Denver Broncos. Though Macdonald and Minter narrowly missed overlapping on the Ravens’ staff — Minter coached in Baltimore from 2017 to 2020 — the two know each other well. They come from the same John Harbaugh coaching tree, share much of the same defensive DNA and have become friendly. And as Minter’s father, Rick, a longtime NFL and college coach who will join Baltimore as a senior analyst, said recently, the “blueprint” is already out there in Seattle. Macdonald’s fingerprints were everywhere in Seattle’s 29-13 thumping of the New England Patriots. After the game, Macdonald told ESPN’s Chris Berman that the Lombardi Trophy felt lighter than he expected. What struck him more, though, were the actual fingerprints on the trophy after it had been passed around the locker room. The symbolism wasn’t lost on the former Ravens intern. The Seahawks entered the game with the fifth-lowest blitz rate in the league, according to Next Gen Stats. Against New England, they sent an extra rusher just seven times, but with each featuring a defensive back. No one was more disruptive than three-time Pro Bowl cornerback Devon Witherspoon, who rushed six times after recording zero blitzes over the previous four games. The results were decisive: four pressures, three quarterback hits and a sack. None mattered more than Witherspoon’s fourth-quarter blitz, which jarred the ball loose from quarterback Drake Maye — sacked six times on the night — and into the arms of linebacker Uchenna Nwosu, who sprinted 45 yards for a punctuating touchdown. It was one of three turnovers forced by Seattle. The design was deliberate. Macdonald anticipated that the Patriots’ running backs would slide in protection, so Seattle often sent multiple defenders and pressure away from the slide. The chaos up front freed the secondary, particularly rookie nickelback Nick Emmanwori. It was the same kind of thinking Macdonald once employed in Baltimore, where Minter will now look to maximize talents like All-Pro safety Kyle Hamilton. Seahawks cornerback Devon Witherspoon forces Patriots quarterback Drake Maye to fumble. Seattle's defense was dominant in its Super Bowl victory over New England. (Adam Hunger/AP Content Services for the NFL) Minter is likewise assembling his staff in a similar fashion. Like Macdonald, he will call the defensive plays himself. For his defensive coordinator, he will lean on Anthony Weaver — Baltimore’s defensive line coach from 2021 to 2023 — to be a respected voice that can carry a meeting room and hold players accountable. Weaver also brings experience from previous stints with the Miami Dolphins and Houston Texans. While many of Minter’s other hires skew younger, he has prioritized at least some veteran voices among the group, too. It’s also worth remembering that even Macdonald’s early decisions weren’t flawless. His first offensive coordinator hire, Ryan Grubb from the University of Washington, proved to be the wrong fit, a realization that quickly led him to Klint Kubiak this season. How the roster was pieced together by Macdonald and general manger John Schneider mattered as well. The Seahawks traded quarterback Geno Smith and signed Sam Darnold. They dealt enigmatic DK Metcalf and instead built their receiving game around young star Jaxon Smith-Njigba. They drafted Emmanwori to be Macdonald’s version of Hamilton. All of it was done with an eye toward cohesiveness. “This team is one of one as far as the players and the relationships,” Emmanwori told reporters. “I promise you. I wish they would record all the behind-the-scenes [stuff], because they would have really seen how tight this was. But we know how tight this was, so this team is one of one. It’ll be hard to recreate this.” How Minter’s choices unfold and what roster decisions general manager Eric DeCosta makes remains to be seen. Unsurprisingly, though, they are searching for the same traits that define Macdonald and the culture he created in Seattle. They are, after all, the same ones borne out of his time in Baltimore. “I’m looking for leaders and connectors and relationship builders and schematic expertise,” Minter said last month. “But most importantly, guys that the players believe in. Coaches who are willing to dive deep and build really strong relationships. When it feels collaborative — when it feels like it’s ours — that’s when we’ll be at our best.” The fingerprints on the Vince Lombardi Trophy say the rest. Have a news tip? Contact Brian Wacker at bwacker@baltsun.com, 410-332-6200 and x.com/brianwacker1. View the full article Quote
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