If Mike Macdonald’s ascent to one in all the NFL’s hottest coordinators and a official head-coaching candidate feels meteoric, that’s in all probability as a result of he has by no means embraced the artwork of self-promotion.
The 36-year-old second-year Baltimore Ravens defensive boss has consented to facet media interviews in latest weeks largely as a result of he desires to tout the chemistry and cohesion of his employees, not as a result of he desires any extra consideration. He likes to name himself a “steward” of head coach John Harbaugh’s imaginative and prescient and can level you in the course of two dozen others who deserve reward for the Ravens’ success.
But it’s unattainable to disregard Macdonald’s impression on the AFC’s prime seed, which faces the Kansas City Chiefs in Sunday’s convention championship sport at M&T Bank Stadium.
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Baltimore turned the first defense in NFL historical past to steer the league in factors allowed, sacks and turnovers. The Ravens adopted up a landmark common season by smothering seemingly Offensive Rookie of the Year C.J. Stroud and the Texans on Saturday, retaining Houston’s offense out of the finish zone — its solely landing got here on a punt return — in a 34-10 divisional-round victory.
After the sport, Harbaugh referred to as his defensive coordinator into the center of the locker room for a sport ball.
Macdonald pushed inside linebacker Roquan Smith ahead.
The factor is, Macdonald has by no means been afraid to place himself on the market. Especially with regards to soccer.
He was born in Boston however moved to Atlanta when he was about 7 years outdated. His father, Hugh, had discouraged him from taking part in the sport. Hugh performed on the non-varsity workforce at Army-West Point and apprehensive about the damage dangers. But Hugh returned house late from a enterprise journey one night time to discover a helmet and shoulder pads on Mike’s twin mattress.
“The next morning, I asked him, ‘What’s this?’ He had decided to join the junior team,” Hugh mentioned. “So off he went.”
Mike was neither the largest nor quickest man on the groups he performed for, however there was no questioning his drive. Hugh filmed his youth video games and the two would watch them collectively and break down performs. Mike turned consumed with the sport’s nuances.
As a operating again and linebacker, Macdonald’s bodily attributes wouldn’t set him aside, however learning opponents’ tendencies gave him a head begin. When he obtained to Centennial High School, Macdonald would break down movie of opponents and current his findings to his coach, Xarvia Smith.
“When he first met me, he tried to tell me that we needed to go out to lunch and hang out together,” Smith recalled. “I was like, ‘Mike, you are a player. You are my player. I’m not hanging out with you.’
“He just always showed leadership. He always was prepared to show how good he was.”
As a junior, Macdonald began getting stingers in his neck. His physician suggested him that he was at long-term danger if he continued to play by his senior 12 months, however Macdonald wished to exit on his phrases. After the swelling round the nerves in his neck subsided, the physician greenlighted him to play in the remaining sport of the season. But on the final play of the final apply of sport week, Macdonald heard a pop in his knee. He tore his ACL. There can be nobody remaining sport.
There would, nevertheless, be one final highschool hurrah. About 4 months after surgical procedure, Macdonald was sitting on the bench for the Centennial High baseball workforce. Macdonald’s coach was initially too involved for his security to play him. Macdonald begged him to rethink. In the workforce’s second sport, the rating was tied in the final inning and Macdonald obtained the go-ahead to hit.
“He took two pitches and put the next pitch over the fence,” Hugh mentioned. “He looked like Kirk Gibson going around the bases, he had this big brace on his knee. It was quite a moment.”
Macdonald was a scholar at the University of Georgia when he referred to as Smith in search of a favor. Smith had just lately gotten the head job at Cedar Shoals High in Athens, and Macdonald wished to know if he had a gap.
“Mike is probably one of the smartest people I’ve ever met in my life,” Smith mentioned. “I realized if he just learned how to work, he would be great at this.”
Macdonald began operating the defense for Cedar Shoals’ ninth-grade workforce. They had six shutouts that 12 months.
“An awesome experience,” Macdonald mentioned. “I went into the situation as a strategist. I liked identifying tendencies and anticipating plays. What I learned is you can take a person from A to B. When you do that, if he did something today that he couldn’t do yesterday, that was incredibly rewarding. That’s when I was hooked.”
For two years, Macdonald dropped by the Georgia soccer workplaces on Tuesday and Wednesday mornings, spending hours talking with video coordinator Joe Tereshinski and hoping anyone would respect his persistence. Macdonald was placing the ending touches on a level in finance — he graduated summa cum laude — when he bumped into new defensive coordinator Todd Grantham at a Starbucks and took one remaining alternative to state his case. Impressed, Grantham invited him in for a proper assembly, then instructed Macdonald there was a volunteer teaching spot accessible so long as he obtained into grad faculty.
“I took out a loan and went to work,” Macdonald mentioned.
Macdonald labored at Georgia for 4 seasons, the first as a volunteer assistant and the subsequent three as a grad assistant. He broke down movie, labored on sport plans and helped run the scout workforce in the final soccer training.
“When you have guys that are really sharp and can communicate well and are hard workers and put their nose down and get to work, you can see where a guy is going to have a chance to move up in the world,” mentioned Mark Richt, Georgia’s soccer coach at the time. “You want confident people and you want guys who you believe are trustworthy. I think there is a real comfort level with Mike and the type of person he is. He checked all of the boxes.”
Then he virtually walked away from the career altogether. At 26, Macdonald turned “disillusioned” by the job. His time as a grad assistant expired in 2013. Some of the politics had gotten to him, and a few of his relationships had develop into draining.
“The whole glamor of being a football coach was wearing off,” Macdonald mentioned. “I didn’t really believe in the process and the people that I was around. I didn’t see the benefit of what I had fallen in love with before.”
There had been alternatives for him. Macdonald had a finance diploma and a grasp’s in sports activities administration. Hugh had all the time inspired Macdonald and his two sisters to have a plan after which be sure each determination was geared towards that plan. Hugh wasn’t towards a profession in teaching, however the enterprise world will be awfully profitable for anyone with Mike’s intelligence and savvy, and Hugh wished to verify soccer was the finest place for his son’s skills.
“I figured I was going to go see the world and start working,” Macdonald mentioned. “It didn’t feel like it was the right thing to do when it was happening, but I just felt kind of forced to do it. I didn’t want to take a job at Wherever State and go across the country recruiting Johnny. It wasn’t on the trajectory that I wanted it to be on.”
He accepted a $60,000 job in Atlanta working at KPMG, one in all the nation’s “Big 4” accounting companies. He had already signed a contract when he obtained a name from the Ravens. The earlier 12 months, he had utilized for a scouting internship with Baltimore. That wasn’t an incredible match, however Harbaugh was beginning a training internship program in 2014.
Macdonald knowledgeable KPMG that he would now not be becoming a member of the agency.
Harbaugh has every of his assistants current a special facet of the week’s sport plan to the workforce. It’s good publicity and expertise for younger coaches and creates a way of accountability for everybody on employees.
As a twenty-something whose taking part in profession resulted in highschool, Macdonald felt some preliminary apprehension about stepping in entrance of a room of NFL veterans.
“I just remember thinking, Terrell Suggs is back there,” Macdonald mentioned. “Why in the world would he listen to anything I’m saying?”
But these sport week classes in entrance of the likes of Suggs, a former defensive participant of the 12 months, helped Macdonald discover his voice. If he believed in the course of, he didn’t want to fret about presenting himself in a sure approach.
“I think you come to the realization of, ‘OK, I’ve put a lot of work into this thing and I think I have something (Suggs) can benefit from,’” Macdonald mentioned. “If I’m trying to be some guy that I feel like he’d resonate with, that’s not going to work. It’s hard to be that person all of the time. Just be yourself.”
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That first 12 months in Baltimore, Macdonald shared an workplace with fellow Ravens interns Chris Horton and Eugene Shen. They broke down performs, labored on initiatives and helped out the teaching employees. A decade later, Horton leads the Ravens’ particular groups and Shen is the senior vice chairman of soccer technique for the Washington Commanders.
“We talk about it all the time, where we’ve come from to where we are now,” Horton mentioned. “It’s been an amazing process of putting your head down, going to work and those things will pay off for you.”
In his lone season at Michigan, Mike Macdonald led a top-10 defense on a workforce that earned a College Football Playoff look. (Robin Alam / Icon Sportswire by way of Getty Images)
In 2018, Harbaugh interviewed Macdonald, then a 30-year-old linebackers coach, for the defensive coordinator job after Dean Pees retired. Harbaugh finally employed Wink Martindale, however the alternative to interview finally strengthened Macdonald’s conviction.
“It was a great experience to go through and say, OK, if I were to do it, what would it look like? What are your ideas?” Macdonald mentioned. “It makes you organize your thoughts.”
He continued to arrange himself for a chance. He and fellow assistant Jesse Minter watched movie collectively and practiced calling the sport, continually reviewing completely different offensive schemes and discussing the defensive response.
“You could tell right away how sharp this dude was,” mentioned Minter, now the defensive coordinator at Michigan. “Some people do the job that they have and do a good job, and other people do the job that they have and do a good job while at the same time always preparing for the next job mentally.”
When Michigan had a defensive coordinator opening after the 2020 season, Harbaugh pitched Macdonald to his brother, Jim, considering Macdonald was then able to be in that position. He was confirmed right. In Macdonald’s one season in Ann Arbor, the Wolverines had a top-10 defense, turned the tables on Ohio State, performed in the College Football Playoff and produced three top-45 defensive draft picks.
When the Ravens and Martindale parted methods in January 2022, Harbaugh introduced again Macdonald, believing the time was proper. Minter changed him with the Wolverines.
Things didn’t get off to an auspicious begin. When the Ravens blew a three-touchdown result in the Miami Dolphins in Week 2 that season, ESPN analyst Rex Ryan, a former Baltimore defensive coordinator, mentioned the “new hot-shot coordinator is terrible.” But by season’s finish — and after a commerce that introduced Roquan Smith over from Chicago in the center of Smith’s second consecutive All-Pro marketing campaign — the Ravens defense was taking part in at a excessive degree, ending eighth in the league in defensive DVOA.
They’ve been considerably higher this season, shutting down a few of the sport’s prime offenses. Smith calls Macdonald a “wizard” for his skill to establish weaknesses and exploit them.
“If there’s something we’re not comfortable with, he’ll throw it out. If there’s something we’re not comfortable with but we want to work on, he’ll try to simplify it and make it to where it does work for us,” mentioned inside linebacker Patrick Queen. “He’s very thorough in everything he does.”
This isn’t the continually blitzing, bodily pulverizing Ravens defense of yesteryear. This group’s aggression is extra managed and calculated, relying closely on deception and every participant embracing his position on a given play. It is flexible, a number of and artistic, a lovely concord of scheme and personnel being studied and admired at each the school {and professional} ranges.
Macdonald believes strongly in the gamers being accountable to at least one one other. He has his 355-pound nostril deal with drop into passing lanes and his 190-pound cornerback blitz. He has onrushing linebackers set picks to offer defensive linemen free runs at the quarterback. He preaches whole buy-in, however you received’t see him admonishing a participant on the sideline. Instead, he usually stands stoically, his eyes both skilled on the discipline or peering down at his name sheet.
“I think there’s a perfect combination of what you play and how you play,” Minter mentioned. “I think a lot of coaches lose that. For some people, it’s all about scheme. For some people, it’s all about effort and fundamentals. But having been in Baltimore, to me, it’s a perfect combination.
“You often hear the term, ‘Play like a Raven.’ That means 11 guys on the field playing together.”
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Macdonald has had 5 head-coaching interviews already and is awaiting a second with the Atlanta Falcons. Ravens followers are so involved they could lose him that they’ve taken to social media to jokingly impugn him so different organizations keep away. Macdonald cracked a smile when requested about these makes an attempt, saying his spouse Stephanie has handed alongside a few of the funnier ones.
Then after a fast grin, his sport face returned.
He’s by no means going to be the first man in the room to inform a joke. His concept of breaking the rigidity in conferences is dropping a line from a Jim Carrey comedy. Those are sometimes met with quizzical seems to be from gamers, similar to cornerback Brandon Stephens, who chuckled serious about his coach’s “cheesy, lame jokes.”
“He’s a little bit of a football nerd,” Minter mentioned. “And I mean that as a compliment.”
Maybe self-promotion is overrated.
One of the signature performances for Macdonald’s Ravens defense got here in Baltimore’s heavyweight conflict towards the San Francisco 49ers, who host the Detroit Lions in Sunday’s NFC Championship Game. Both groups entered 11-3, however the Ravens pressured 5 interceptions in the Christmas night time tour de drive, with Marcus Williams placing the ending touches on the 33-19 victory by selecting off San Francisco’s Sam Darnold in the sport’s closing minutes.
Macdonald stomped round the sideline and wildly slapped the hand of defensive position coach Anthony Weaver, an outburst notable as a result of it was so out of character.
(Illustration: Sean Reilly / The Athletic; photographs: Todd Olszewski, Fred Kfoury III / Getty Images)
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