Seahawks hiring of Mike Macdonald gets Richard Sherman's stamp of approval

The relationship between the Seattle Seahawks and Richard Sherman has been an odd one. When he played for the Seahawks, especially early in his career, 12s loved Sherman. He was a former fifth-round pick who far exceeded expectations and was drafted into the perfect system for him. Former head coach Pete Carroll liked taller cornerbacks with long arms and that is exactly what Sherman was.

But Sherman left in free agency after Seattle released him in 2018. Worse, Sherman signed with NFC West rival, the San Francisco 49ers. But the cornerback kept living in the Seattle area and after he retired he was a familiar face during Seahawks training camps as Carroll liked bringing former players back to help out in an unofficial capacity. That will change now that Carroll is no longer the coach and Mike Macdonald is.

What does Sherman think of Seattle hiring Macdonald to replace Carroll? He is good with it. To a degree.

Richard Sherman likes the Seattle Seahawks head coaching decision...to a point

In a social media post on X (the artist formerly known as Twitter), Sherman was asked what he thought of the Macdonald hire. Sherman responded by saying, "I think (Macdonald is) one of the brightest defensive minds in football right now. Gotta see who he hires offensively but there will def be improvement defensively."

That is the real key, isn't it? Macdonald appears to potentially be a fantastic hire. He has succeeded at a high level defensive in the NFL already even though he is just 36 years old. But he has never been a head coach before and he is joining a team with quite a bit of young defensive talent but no proof they can play with any cohesion.

Even if Macdonald can fix the defense, if the offense gets worse it's a wash. The second-most important hire the Seahawks will have this offseason is who the offensive coordinator is. Macdonald will still call the plays for the defense, but he is going to rely on his offensive coordinator to control the offense. Whoever the OC is will have receiving talent and talented running backs to work with, but the offensive line needs to be better.

So while we are in this honeymoon phase with Macdonald and have high hopes for the future, maybe we should adopt Sherman's more measured tone and see how good the OC hire is. Then we will need to wait until the real games begin and see what kind of in-game decisions Macdonald makes. Hopefully, Macdonald is very successful, but there is no real way of knowing that yet.

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