Replace: The Chiefs beat the Ravens 17-10 to earn a visit to the Tremendous Bowl
If Mike Macdonald’s ascent to one of many NFL’s hottest coordinators and a authentic 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 needs to tout the chemistry and cohesion of his workers, not as a result of he needs any extra consideration. He likes to name himself a “steward” of head coach John Harbaugh’s imaginative and prescient and can level you within the path of two dozen others who deserve reward for the Ravens’ success.
However it’s unimaginable to disregard Macdonald’s impression on the AFC’s high seed, which faces the Kansas Metropolis Chiefs in Sunday’s convention championship recreation at M&T Financial institution Stadium.
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Baltimore grew to become the primary protection in NFL historical past to guide the league in factors allowed, sacks and turnovers. The Ravens adopted up a landmark common season by smothering seemingly Offensive Rookie of the Yr C.J. Stroud and the Texans on Saturday, maintaining Houston’s offense out of the top zone — its solely landing got here on a punt return — in a 34-10 divisional-round victory.
After the sport, Harbaugh known as his defensive coordinator into the center of the locker room for a recreation ball.
Macdonald pushed inside linebacker Roquan Smith ahead.
The factor is, Macdonald has by no means been afraid to place himself on the market. Particularly in the case of soccer.
He was born in Boston however moved to Atlanta when he was about 7 years previous. His father, Hugh, had discouraged him from taking part in the sport. Hugh performed on the non-varsity staff at Military-West Level and nervous concerning the damage dangers. However Hugh returned dwelling late from a enterprise journey one evening to discover a helmet and shoulder pads on Mike’s twin mattress.
“The subsequent morning, I requested him, ‘What’s this?’ He had determined to hitch the junior staff,” Hugh stated. “So off he went.”
Mike was neither the most important nor quickest man on the groups he performed for, however there was no questioning his drive. Hugh filmed his youth video games and the 2 would watch them collectively and break down performs. Mike grew to become consumed with the sport’s nuances.
As a operating again and linebacker, Macdonald’s bodily attributes wouldn’t set him aside, however finding out opponents’ tendencies gave him a head begin. When he bought to Centennial Excessive Faculty, Macdonald would break down movie of opponents and current his findings to his coach, Xarvia Smith.
“When he first met me, he tried to inform me that we would have liked to exit to lunch and hang around collectively,” Smith recalled. “I used to be like, ‘Mike, you’re a participant. You’re my participant. I’m not hanging out with you.’
“He simply at all times confirmed management. He at all times was ready to point out how good he was.”
As a junior, Macdonald began getting stingers in his neck. His physician suggested him that he was at long-term threat if he continued to play via his senior yr, however Macdonald wished to exit on his phrases. After the swelling across the nerves in his neck subsided, the physician greenlighted him to play within the remaining recreation of the season. However on the final play of the final apply of recreation week, Macdonald heard a pop in his knee. He tore his ACL. There can be nobody remaining recreation.
There would, nonetheless, be one final highschool hurrah. About 4 months after surgical procedure, Macdonald was sitting on the bench for the Centennial Excessive baseball staff. Macdonald’s coach was initially too involved for his security to play him. Macdonald begged him to rethink. Within the staff’s second recreation, the rating was tied within the final inning and Macdonald bought the go-ahead to hit.
“He took two pitches and put the following pitch over the fence,” Hugh stated. “He seemed like Kirk Gibson going across the bases, he had this large brace on his knee. It was fairly a second.”
Macdonald was a pupil on the College of Georgia when he known as Smith searching for a favor. Smith had just lately gotten the top job at Cedar Shoals Excessive in Athens, and Macdonald wished to know if he had a gap.
“Mike might be one of many smartest folks I’ve ever met in my life,” Smith stated. “I spotted if he simply discovered the way to work, he can be nice at this.”
Macdonald began operating the protection for Cedar Shoals’ ninth-grade staff. They’d six shutouts that yr.
“An superior expertise,” Macdonald stated. “I went into the state of affairs as a strategist. I appreciated figuring out tendencies and anticipating performs. What I discovered is you may take an individual from A to B. While you do this, if he did one thing immediately that he couldn’t do yesterday, that was extremely rewarding. That’s once I was hooked.”
For 2 years, Macdonald dropped by the Georgia soccer places of work on Tuesday and Wednesday mornings, spending hours speaking with video coordinator Joe Tereshinski and hoping any individual would admire 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 bought into grad college.
“I took out a mortgage and went to work,” Macdonald stated.
Macdonald labored at Georgia for 4 seasons, the primary as a volunteer assistant and the following three as a grad assistant. He broke down movie, labored on recreation plans and helped run the scout staff within the final soccer schooling.
“When you will have guys which might be actually sharp and may talk effectively and are arduous employees and put their nostril down and get to work, you may see the place a man goes to have an opportunity to maneuver up on this planet,” stated Mark Richt, Georgia’s soccer coach on the time. “You need assured folks and also you need guys who you consider are reliable. I feel there’s a actual consolation degree with Mike and the kind of particular person he’s. He checked all the containers.”
Then he nearly walked away from the occupation altogether. At 26, Macdonald grew to become “disillusioned” by the job. His time as a grad assistant expired in 2013. A few of the politics had gotten to him, and a few of his relationships had turn out to be draining.
“The entire glamor of being a soccer coach was sporting off,” Macdonald stated. “I didn’t actually consider within the course of and the those who I used to be round. I didn’t see the advantage of what I had fallen in love with earlier than.”
There have been alternatives for him. Macdonald had a finance diploma and a grasp’s in sports activities administration. Hugh had at all times 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 may be awfully profitable for any individual with Mike’s intelligence and savvy, and Hugh wished to verify soccer was one of the best place for his son’s abilities.
“I figured I used to be going to go see the world and begin working,” Macdonald stated. “It didn’t really feel prefer it was the suitable factor to do when it was taking place, however I simply felt type of pressured to do it. I didn’t need to take a job at Wherever State and go throughout the nation recruiting Johnny. It wasn’t on the trajectory that I wished it to be on.”
He accepted a $60,000 job in Atlanta working at KPMG, one of many nation’s “Huge 4” accounting corporations. He had already signed a contract when he bought a name from the Ravens. The earlier yr, he had utilized for a scouting internship with Baltimore. That wasn’t an amazing match, however Harbaugh was beginning a training internship program in 2014.
Macdonald knowledgeable KPMG that he would not be becoming a member of the agency.
Harbaugh has every of his assistants current a unique side of the week’s recreation plan to the staff. It’s good publicity and expertise for younger coaches and creates a way of accountability for everybody on workers.
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 simply keep in mind pondering, Terrell Suggs is again there,” Macdonald stated. “Why on this planet would he hearken to something I’m saying?”
However these recreation week periods in entrance of the likes of Suggs, a former defensive participant of the yr, helped Macdonald discover his voice. If he believed within the course of, he didn’t want to fret about presenting himself in a sure approach.
“I feel you come to the conclusion of, ‘OK, I’ve put a variety of work into this factor and I feel I’ve one thing (Suggs) can profit from,’” Macdonald stated. “If I’m attempting to be some man that I really feel like he’d resonate with, that’s not going to work. It’s arduous to be that particular person all the time. Simply be your self.”
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That first yr in Baltimore, Macdonald shared an workplace with fellow Ravens interns Chris Horton and Eugene Shen. They broke down performs, labored on tasks and helped out the teaching workers. A decade later, Horton leads the Ravens’ particular groups and Shen is the senior vp of soccer technique for the Washington Commanders.
“We discuss it on a regular basis, the place we’ve come from to the place we are actually,” Horton stated. “It’s been a tremendous technique of placing your head down, going to work and people issues will repay for you.”
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In his lone season at Michigan, Mike Macdonald led a top-10 protection on a staff that earned a School Soccer Playoff look. (Robin Alam / Icon Sportswire through Getty Photographs)
In 2018, Harbaugh interviewed Macdonald, then a 30-year-old linebackers coach, for the defensive coordinator job after Dean Pees retired. Harbaugh in the end employed Wink Martindale, however the alternative to interview in the end strengthened Macdonald’s conviction.
“It was an amazing expertise to undergo and say, OK, if I had been to do it, what wouldn’t it seem like? What are your concepts?” Macdonald stated. “It makes you set up your ideas.”
He continued to arrange himself for a possibility. He and fellow assistant Jesse Minter watched movie collectively and practiced calling the sport, continuously reviewing totally different offensive schemes and discussing the defensive response.
“You possibly can inform instantly how sharp this dude was,” stated Minter, now the defensive coordinator at Michigan. “Some folks do the job that they’ve and do a superb job, and different folks do the job that they’ve and do a superb job whereas on the similar time at all times making ready for the following job mentally.”
When Michigan had a defensive coordinator opening after the 2020 season, Harbaugh pitched Macdonald to his brother, Jim, pondering Macdonald was then able to be in that function. He was confirmed right. In Macdonald’s one season in Ann Arbor, the Wolverines had a top-10 protection, turned the tables on Ohio State, performed within the School Soccer 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.
Issues 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, stated the “new hot-shot coordinator is horrible.” However by season’s finish — and after a commerce that introduced Roquan Smith over from Chicago in the midst of Smith’s second consecutive All-Professional marketing campaign — the Ravens protection was taking part in at a excessive degree, ending eighth within the league in defensive DVOA.
They’ve been considerably higher this season, shutting down among the recreation’s high offenses. Smith calls Macdonald a “wizard” for his capability to establish weaknesses and exploit them.
“If there’s one thing we’re not comfy with, he’ll throw it out. If there’s one thing we’re not comfy with however we need to work on, he’ll attempt to simplify it and make it to the place it does work for us,” stated inside linebacker Patrick Queen. “He’s very thorough in all the pieces he does.”
This isn’t the continuously blitzing, bodily pulverizing Ravens protection of yesteryear. This group’s aggression is extra managed and calculated, relying closely on deception and every participant embracing his function on a given play. It’s versatile, a number of and inventive, a stupendous concord of scheme and personnel being studied and admired at each the faculty {and professional} ranges.
Macdonald believes strongly within the gamers being accountable to at least one one other. He has his 355-pound nostril sort out drop into passing lanes and his 190-pound cornerback blitz. He has onrushing linebackers set picks to present defensive linemen free runs on the quarterback. He preaches complete buy-in, however you gained’t see him admonishing a participant on the sideline. As a substitute, he usually stands stoically, his eyes both educated on the sphere or peering down at his name sheet.
“I feel there’s an ideal mixture of what you play and the way you play,” Minter stated. “I feel a variety of coaches lose that. For some folks, it’s all about scheme. For some folks, it’s all about effort and fundamentals. However having been in Baltimore, to me, it’s an ideal mixture.
“You usually hear the time period, ‘Play like a Raven.’ Meaning 11 guys on the sphere taking part in collectively.”
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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 among the funnier ones.
Then after a fast grin, his recreation face returned.
He’s by no means going to be the primary man within the room to inform a joke. His thought of breaking the strain in conferences is dropping a line from a Jim Carrey comedy. These are sometimes met with quizzical seems from gamers, akin to cornerback Brandon Stephens, who chuckled fascinated about his coach’s “tacky, lame jokes.”
“He’s just a little little bit of a soccer nerd,” Minter stated. “And I imply that as a praise.”
Perhaps self-promotion is overrated.
One of many signature performances for Macdonald’s Ravens protection got here in Baltimore’s heavyweight conflict towards the San Francisco 49ers, who host the Detroit Lions in Sunday’s NFC Championship Sport. Each groups entered 11-3, however the Ravens pressured 5 interceptions within the Christmas evening tour de power, with Marcus Williams placing the ending touches on the 33-19 victory by selecting off San Francisco’s Sam Darnold within the recreation’s closing minutes.
Macdonald stomped across the sideline and wildly slapped the hand of line of defense 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 Photographs)