Mike Macdonald had never been a head coach at any level before he became the Seattle Seahawks coach after the 2023 season. He replaced Pete Carroll, who had been with the team since 2010. Carroll was the most successful head coach in Seattle's history, so Macdonald had the proverbial big shoes to fill.
He did so admirably. The team did not make the playoffs, but did have its best record in four seasons. Seattle was the only team to reach double-digit wins and not make the postseason. Moreover, one of Macdonald's main jobs was to get the defense back to being good, and he did just that.
Seattle was ninth in yards allowed per play (5.3) and eighth in quarterback pressure percentage (24.8). The Seahawks were also 10th in third-down conversions allowed (37.1 percent) compared to 30th in 2023. Macdonald's impact was immediate and positive.
Seattle Seahawks' Mike Macdonald receives astonishingly low ranking compared to other NFL head coaches
Rotoballer's Mike Fanelli doesn't think what Macdonald did was all that special. This is evident in Fanelli's recent ranking of all the NFL head coaches. Macdonald was listed in the bottom third of the league (number 23) behind coaches such as Brian Daboll of the New York Giants and Raheem Morris of the Atlanta Falcons.
Morris has been a head coach for five seasons since 2009; his record is 29-47. Only once has one of his teams had a winning record. Twice in an entire season, his teams won four or fewer games.
Some thought Daboll should have been fired after the Giants' poor 2024 season. Maybe New York knows it should be ready to finish last in the NFC East for most of the next decade.
Fanelli appears to base much of his ranking on how long a person has been a head coach. This would make sense if all the coaches at the bottom were rookies, but this is not the case. Shane Steichen has been the Indianapolis Colts head coach for two seasons. Still, most of the coaches near the bottom are relatively new.
The fallacy in this thinking is that just because a head coach is somewhat new to his job does not mean he is worse than a coach who has done the job for a long time. Experience is no substitute for quality. Pete Carroll might be a good coach, but the Seahawks let him go after 2023. According to Fanelli, he is the eighth-best head coach in the league.
Again, that is another example of Fanelli ranking time-served versus how good someone is at their job. There is no way Macdonald, based on how much he improved the Seahawks defense alone in his first year, is the 10th-worst head coach in the NFL. That is precisely where Fanelli has him rated, though.
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