If Mike Macdonald’s ascent to one of many NFL’s hottest coordinators and a professional 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 within the course of two dozen others who deserve reward for the Ravens’ success.
However it’s unimaginable to disregard Macdonald’s influence on the AFC’s high seed, which faces the Kansas Metropolis Chiefs in Sunday’s convention championship sport at M&T Financial institution Stadium.
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Baltimore turned 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 possible Offensive Rookie of the 12 months C.J. Stroud and the Texans on Saturday, retaining 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 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. Particularly 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He was born in Boston however moved to Atlanta when he was about 7 years outdated.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 group at Military-West Level and frightened concerning the damage dangers. However Hugh returned residence late from a enterprise journey one evening to discover a helmet and shoulder pads on Mike’s twin mattress.
“The following morning, I requested him, ‘What’s this?’ He had determined to hitch the junior group,” 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 2 would watch them collectively and break down performs. Mike turned consumed with the sport’s nuances.
As a working again and linebacker, Macdonald’s bodily attributes wouldn’t set him aside, however finding out opponents’ tendencies gave him a head begin. When he received 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 wanted to exit to lunch and hang around collectively,” Smith recalled. “I used to be like, ‘Mike, you’re a participant. You might be 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 by means of 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 sport of the season. However on the final play of the final follow of sport week, Macdonald heard a pop in his knee. He tore his ACL. There could be nobody remaining sport.
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 group. Macdonald’s coach was initially too involved for his security to play him. Macdonald begged him to rethink. Within the group’s second sport, the rating was tied within the final inning and Macdonald received the go-ahead to hit.
“He took two pitches and put the subsequent pitch over the fence,” Hugh mentioned. “He regarded like Kirk Gibson going across the bases, he had this huge brace on his knee. It was fairly a second.”
Macdonald was a pupil on the College of Georgia when he referred to as Smith in search of a favor. Smith had not too long ago 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 individuals I’ve ever met in my life,” Smith mentioned. “I noticed if he simply realized how you can work, he could be nice at this.”
Macdonald began working the protection for Cedar Shoals’ ninth-grade group. That they had six shutouts that yr.
“An superior expertise,” Macdonald mentioned. “I went into the scenario as a strategist. I preferred figuring out tendencies and anticipating performs. What I realized is you may take an individual from A to B. Whenever you try this, if he did one thing right now that he couldn’t do yesterday, that was extremely rewarding. That’s after I was hooked.”
For 2 years, Macdonald dropped by the Georgia soccer workplaces on Tuesday and Wednesday mornings, spending hours speaking with video coordinator Joe Tereshinski and hoping any individual would recognize 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 received into grad college.
“I took out a mortgage and went to work,” Macdonald mentioned.
Macdonald labored at Georgia for 4 seasons, the primary 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 group within the final soccer schooling.
“When you will have guys which might be actually sharp and may talk properly and are onerous 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,” mentioned Mark Richt, Georgia’s soccer coach on the time. “You need assured individuals and also you need guys who you imagine are reliable. I believe there’s a actual consolation degree with Mike and the kind of individual he’s. He checked all the containers.”
Then he nearly walked away from the career altogether. At 26, Macdonald turned “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 change into draining.
“The entire glamor of being a soccer coach was carrying off,” Macdonald mentioned. “I didn’t actually imagine within the course of and the folks that 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 make certain each choice 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 the perfect place for his son’s abilities.
“I figured I used to be going to go see the world and begin working,” Macdonald mentioned. “It didn’t really feel prefer it was the correct factor to do when it was occurring, however I simply felt sort of compelled to do it. I didn’t wish 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 “Massive 4” accounting companies. He had already signed a contract when he received a name from the Ravens. The earlier yr, 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 not be becoming a member of the agency.
Harbaugh has every of his assistants current a distinct facet of the week’s sport plan to the group. 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 led to highschool, Macdonald felt some preliminary apprehension about stepping in entrance of a room of NFL veterans.
“I simply bear in mind pondering, Terrell Suggs is again there,” Macdonald mentioned. “Why on this planet would he take heed to something I’m saying?”
However these sport week classes 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 believe you come to the conclusion of, ‘OK, I’ve put lots of work into this factor and I believe I’ve one thing (Suggs) can profit from,’” Macdonald mentioned. “If I’m making an attempt to be some man that I really feel like he’d resonate with, that’s not going to work. It’s onerous to be that individual 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 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 discuss it on a regular basis, the place we’ve come from to the place we at the moment are,” Horton mentioned. “It’s been a tremendous strategy of placing your head down, going to work and people issues will repay for you.”
In his lone season at Michigan, Mike Macdonald led a top-10 protection on a group that earned a Faculty Soccer Playoff look. (Robin Alam / Icon Sportswire by way of Getty Photographs)
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 an incredible expertise to undergo and say, OK, if I have been to do it, what wouldn’t it appear to be? What are your concepts?” Macdonald mentioned. “It makes you arrange your ideas.”
He continued to organize himself for a chance. 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 may inform instantly how sharp this dude was,” mentioned Minter, now the defensive coordinator at Michigan. “Some individuals do the job that they’ve and do a great job, and different individuals do the job that they’ve and do a great job whereas on the similar time at all times getting ready for the subsequent 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 position. He was confirmed appropriate. In Macdonald’s one season in Ann Arbor, the Wolverines had a top-10 protection, turned the tables on Ohio State, performed within the Faculty 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, mentioned 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 course 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 sport’s high offenses. Smith calls Macdonald a “wizard” for his skill to establish weaknesses and exploit them.
“If there’s one thing we’re not snug with, he’ll throw it out. If there’s one thing we’re not snug with however we wish to work on, he’ll attempt to simplify it and make it to the place it does work for us,” mentioned inside linebacker Patrick Queen. “He’s very thorough in every thing 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 position on a given play. It’s versatile, a number of and inventive, a gorgeous 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 1 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 provide defensive linemen free runs on the quarterback. He preaches complete buy-in, however you received’t see him admonishing a participant on the sideline. As an alternative, he typically stands stoically, his eyes both skilled on the sphere or peering down at his name sheet.
“I believe there’s an ideal mixture of what you play and the way you play,” Minter mentioned. “I believe lots of coaches lose that. For some individuals, it’s all about scheme. For some individuals, it’s all about effort and fundamentals. However having been in Baltimore, to me, it’s an ideal mixture.
“You typically 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 sport 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 stress in conferences is dropping a line from a Jim Carrey comedy. These are sometimes met with quizzical appears from gamers, similar to cornerback Brandon Stephens, who chuckled enthusiastic about his coach’s “tacky, lame jokes.”
“He’s a bit little bit of a soccer nerd,” Minter mentioned. “And I imply that as a praise.”
Possibly 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 Recreation. Each groups entered 11-3, however the Ravens compelled 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 sport’s closing minutes.
Macdonald stomped across 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; pictures: Todd Olszewski, Fred Kfoury III / Getty Photographs)
