3 nightmare scenarios for the Seattle Seahawks in 2024

Mike Macdonald makes too many first-year mistakes

No coach is perfect, of course. A first-year head coach can have even more issues. He doesn't know what he doesn't know. How quickly he can learn from his mistakes could decide how successful a team is in his first year. This goes far beyond challenges to officiating, but a head coach in his first season has to rely on his past success as an assistant coach to drive his direction.

Macdonald might have another issue, too. He has not had to deal with a team potentially having a losing season, and how to fix little things along the way to make sure that does not happen. He has been fortunate enough to work for two coaches, Jim Harbaugh and John Harbaugh, whose teams were not only barely successful but championship contenders. The last time Macdonald worked on a team that did not have a winning season was in 2016 when Macdonald had the title of Defensive Assistant Coach.

In other words, Macdonald has gotten used to working from being ahead and not having to react to turmoil. Whether he can take a team that is struggling early in a season, correct whatever the concerns are, and shift the team into a winner is unknown. Macdonald has never had to do that while in a leadership position.

The chances are that Macdonald will be fine. He will implement a scheme that gives NFC West rivals problems. Seattle hopefully has the correct players to run the scheme, but we might not know that until the bye week of 2024. By that time, the team could already be planning for 2025.

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