GM John Schneider’s new football ‘marriage’ with Mike Macdonald sees Seahawks into new era

John Schneider has come full circle in Seattle.

When he arrived 14 1/2 years ago, Schneider was a 38-year-old first-time general manager. Unconventionally, the Seahawks’ coach picked the GM for the job. That was part of the enticement then-team CEO Tod Leiweke pitched to get Pete Carroll to come to Seattle from USC with a Seahawks coach/executive vice president dual role in January 2010.

So began an unusual arrangement: Carroll as the franchise’s ultimate football authority, and the GM, Schneider, technically working for and under the veteran coach.

That evolved quickly into a partnership. It became he most successful one in team history. From 2010-23, Schneider and Carroll won Seattle’s only Super Bowl trophy. They came within a yard of a second one. They went to the playoffs nine times in 12 years.

“When Pete and I got together in 2010, to Pete’s credit he was like ‘Hey, we’re going to make this the best marriage in the National Football League,’” Schneider said on the eve of his 15th season as Seahawks GM beginning Sunday. “I always knew after getting fired with the Redskins when I was working hand-in-hand with Coach (Marty) Schottenheimer, I was like ‘OK, I know the next time this happens I can’t screw this up.’

“So I had been fired. Pete had been fired (as coach of the Jets and Patriots). We knew exactly how we had to try handle things. And that’s like putting your ego aside, and just doing the right thing by the club. Every day. Every hour.

“There’s nothing like ‘I’m smarter than you’ or ‘You’re smarter than me.’ We’re just going to work hand-in-hand and try to get better every single day.”

That unique arrangement, as a GM hired by the coach, led Schneider to the primary lesson he would give to a new NFL general manager now that he’s now 53 and been Seattle’s GM for a decade and a half.

“I think if there’s advice to other general mangers it’s really the ego part of it and just being yourself,” Schneider said. “I learned a lot (as a Green Bay Packers executive) from Ron Wolf and Ted Thompson and (when Schneider worked for the Kansas City Chiefs) Carl Peterson and these big name guys that I worked for.

“But I’m not those guys. You have to just be yourself and kind of be understanding and have a lot of empathy with your partner,” Schneider said. “Because like Pete said, it truly is a marriage. You spend a ton of time together. You’re making decisions all the time. You’re kind of in a constant negotiation, like ‘Am I doing the dishes or are you doing the dishes? Are you drying or are you washing? I got the garbage.’ It truly is like that, every day.

“You just have to keep working every single day on your relationship.”

In that sense, the husband to long-time spouse Traci Schneider is starting a new football marriage.

John Schneider with Mike Macdonald

Seahawks chair Jody Allen and vice chair Bert Kolde decided in January to fire Carroll, 72, after 14 seasons leading the team.

Carroll wanted to stay as the coach. He wanted retain his coordinators and his system, including on a defense that ranked 30th in the league last season. That defense has been the reason Seattle has finished barely above .500, 9-8, in each of the last two seasons.

Schneider had a different vision to restore the Seahawks above mediocrity. He wanted a young, new defensive mind. He wanted a new defensive system. He wanted the NFL’s most innovative defensive strategist to run the entire team.

For the first time, Allen and Kolde chose Schneider’s path over Carroll’s.

Schneider chose Mike Macdonald.

Two weeks after they fired Carroll, the Seahawks made the 37-year-old former coordinator for the Baltimore Ravens’ elite defense the league’s youngest head coach.

Seven months later, Schneider’s vision and Macdonald’s schemes are about to play out for real for the first time.

The Seahawks’ new Schneider-led, Macdonald-coached era begins Sunday when they face the Denver Broncos in the 2024 season opener at Lumen Field (1:05 p.m., channel 7).

“Exciting times,” Macdonald said.

Now, it’s Schneider who is the franchise’s ultimate football authority. Instead of partnering with the league’s oldest coach, he is leading and guiding its youngest, a first-time head coach.

In the first months of this new football marriage, Schneider is giving Macdonald context, referring to the coach’s Seahawks and NFL predecessors.

“I think (it’s) just being there for him,” Schneider said of his relationship with Macdonald. “Like, ‘Hey, this is what I’ve experienced in the past. This is what Coach (Mike) Holmgren’s staff looked like. This is what Coach (Marty) Schottenheimer’s (Chiefs) staff was like. This is what Pete’s (Carroll) staff was like. These are the issues that may pop up. These are the things that you need to nip in the bud right away.’

“And then just being able to listen to him and try to assist him. There are certain things that he may feel like he can’t share with people, and he can share it with me. And we can help work things out together.”

What’s the GM learning about his new coach?

“Probably intent. Clarity,” Schneider said. “Knows exactly what he wants. Humble. Knows what he doesn’t know and knows what he wants and knows how to attack it.

“We’re still learning each other. Seven months really feels like maybe a month; the time’s gone really fast. Really impressed with the teaching that’s going on here.

“The one thing that really stands out, everybody’s asked me ‘What would you say about this coach or that coach with Mike?’ I would say clarity and there’s an intent to everything that we’re doing.”

Such as practicing multiple times in T-shirts, unscheduled, in the middle of contentious training weeks; Macdonald calls those ACT practices, focusing on Alignment, Communication, Technique.

Such as wearing their game uniforms in practices (The Seahawks’ offense is wearing the team’s 1990s throwback, royal-blue game uniforms in practices this week because that’s what the team is wearing in Sunday’s game). Macdonald says he wants his players to practice like they will play, down to what they will wear.

The coach got to advance his relationship with his GM this past week. They collaborated to cut the 90-man preseason roster to 53 players for the start of the regular season.

They decided to give up on wide receiver and kick returner Dee Eskridge, Schneider’s top pick from the draft three years ago.

They decided to keep four rookies on their offensive line that has troubled the team for years. That includes an undrafted rookie from the Football Championship Subdivision (North Dakota State’s Jalen Sundell) and their sixth-round pick from Division II (Mike Jerrell, from Findlay).

“That’s kind of been par for the course, with just about everything we’ve done every day from February 1st until now...It was smooth. Open communication. Thorough,” Maconald said. “And we’re on the same page (he and Schneider) the whole way through.

“So it was a good process.”

Mike Macdonald’s clarity

What does Schneider mean, specifically, by saying Macdonald has clarity in everything he does?

“He knows what he wants. He knows that,” the GM said. “But he knows the personnel side of it, also just understanding what he wants out of certain positions. Schematically working through the issues that go on behind closed doors every day that assistant coaches just aren’t exposed to, usually.

“And so for him to come in and understand what certain situations look like and understand it and be able to work with him and make quick decisions and what we feel are our correct decisions, there’s just a clarity to it. That’s the best way I can describe it.”

They and the NFL are about to find out beginning Sunday how this is going to work. Yet Schneider says Macdonald has the most important trait in building and furthering a new relationship.

“I just think Mike’s a great listener. He really is,” Schneider said.

“He can take that information in and make decisions. It’s been really impressive to watch.

“Like I said, he’s a very direct communicator. He’s going to give me the information: ‘I got it. I’m going to take it over here and I’m going to have the conversation,’ and we’re going to move on.”