Julian Love made the defensive play of the game.
The veteran Pro Bowl safety plays on the strongest part of the team, the side coach Mike Macdonald revamped upon arrival last year.
Yet all Love and his buddies on the Seahawks defense were talking about when they were on the bench during their 33-16 rout of the Kansas City Chiefs in Seattle’s second preseason game Friday night was about the offense.
The new, so far vastly, unequivocally improved Seahawks offense.
“It sets a tone of validation that our work’s going to something,” Love said after his fourth-down stop in the first quarter — the period when the Seahawks starting offense romped through blocked Chiefs for 119 rushing yards, including a 15-yard scoring run.
On that play, Zach Charbonnet could have brought his entire family with him untouched through the lane the O-line provided.
“The offense? I mean, all of us on defense were talking on the sideline about the flow that we had on offense (Friday night),” Love said. “When you’re able to stay on cadence, on timing, ahead of the sticks, it is awesome.
“I mean, we see what it can be.”
The Seahawks’ offensive line, maligned for most of the last decade, was dominant. The league’s 29th-ranked rushing offense last season running for a whopping 268 yards on 48 carries with two touchdowns against Kansas City.
Seattle Seahawks running back Zach Charbonnet (26) bows after scoring a touchdown during the first quarter of the preseason game against the Kansas City Chiefs at Lumen Field, on Friday, Aug. 15, 2025, in Seattle.
New quarterback Sam Darnold completed all four of his passes off those throws on the opening drive of the Chiefs game, his only drive he’s played so far this season.
The possession was just about perfect: 10 plays, 81 yards, touchdown.
The Seahawks are rolling so far this preseason. Their huge success on offense has become a leadership test for their young head coach.
The past week has provided more insight into how the 37-year-old Macdonald motivates, and how much more assertive he’s been so far in year two of his program team chair Jody Allen and general manager John Schneider chose to replace fired Pete Carroll’s in January 2024.
Seattle Seahawks head coach Mike Macdonald talks with players as they warm up during training camp at Virginia Mason Athletic Center on Friday, July 25, 2025, in Renton, Wash.
Mike Macdonald and Leadership 101
Macdonald is from a military family. He is the son of a West Point graduate, Class of 1971, and veteran U.S. Army officer. Hugh Macdonald played for Army’s lightweight (now called “sprint”) football team while earning a bachelor’s of science degree in applied science. Upon graduation four years before the end of our country’s combat operations in Vietnam, Hugh Macdonald was a engineer officer.
Mike Macdonald speaks of how his parents have shaped his family, his career and his life.
The son said his mother “has taught me if you’re going to do something, you’d better do it right.” His father instilled in him “integrity, humility and determination.”
Mike Macdonald is grounded in military-like accountability and consistency in enforcing unwavering standards.
It’s a rare day when the coach isn’t reciting mottos and motivational slogans straight out of a military leadership manual.
“Commanders’ intent.”
“If you’re walkin’, you’re wrong.”
“Force multiplier.” “Tip of the spear.” Pro Bowl defensive end Leonard Williams says Seahawks players often grunt “Hooo-AHH!” — an Army battle cry — to punctuate Macdonald’s team meetings.
When his Seahawks lost for the fifth time in since games last season, his first as a head coach at any level, said this: “Chin up. Shoulders back. Frickin’ go to work.” Yes, sir!
Seahawks coach Mike macdonald with a major from the 1-2 Stryker Brigade Combat Team at Joint Base Lewis-McChord during the team’s visit to the U.S. Army unit June 4, 2024.
“The first thing is, just respect for our men and women in the Armed Services,” Macdonald said last November. “I’ve been around that world for a long time, my dad being a West Point grad. A lot of my family — my aunt…she was a nurse in Vietnam, met her husband in Vietnam. My other two aunts were nurses in the military, as well.
“So, just an immense respect for those people. Protect our country and put their lives on the line. “This is the top of the top in terms of teams operating at a really high level. A lot of takeaways that our team can learn from that I feel are valuable to apply to our world.” Macdonald is constantly, as he says so often he’s made it into team T-shirts this summer, “chasing edges.”
He’s been chasing a lot of them since Seattle’s sterling preseason game Friday. Immediately following the win, Macdonald gathered his players around him in the Lumen Field locker room. He reminded them that ultimately, the result has little to do with where they are trying to get. That is, back to the NFC playoffs for the first time in three seasons.
“Like, it’s great,” Macdonald told his Seahawks after the Chiefs game late Friday night. “But it’s a building block for us moving into the season.”
Saturday, the players got a day off from practice. That was as mandated, one day per week by the NFL collective bargaining agreement. Sunday was their first day back on the field after the blowout of the Chiefs. They began a week that will include a joint practice Thursday in Green Bay, then a preseason game Saturday at the Packers the starters likely won’t play.
Sunday morning, Macdonald was all over his guys.
He scheduled a 9:40 a.m. practice time to get the players’ minds and bodies familiar with what the Seahawks are going to do in week two for a 10 a.m. Seattle time game at Pittsburgh Sunday, Sept. 14.
The head coach stomped into a drill the offensive line was doing early in this Sunday practice. He interrupted it. He barked at the blockers for how slow they were moving. He mentioned Pittsburgh, how it better not be like this.
Then on the other field during a walking-speed drill with his defense on alignments based on the scout-team offense’s formations, Macdonald yelled at starters and reserves alike for not having their assignments nailed down.
After a string of completions, gains and touchdowns for the offense in a red-zone scrimmage, Macdonald shouted at his defense, the strength of this team dating from the latter half of last season, for getting worked over.
He was employing Leadership 101: When you sense they feel too good about themselves, bring ‘em back down to earth.
The coach that says “we’re chasing edges” so often he had team shirts made with those words on the front was asked following the practice about his Sunday morning buck-up.
“Aw, that wasn’t anything,” Macdonald said, with a wry smile.
Then he laughed.
Mike Macdonald’s balance
Sunday he used a stick. Monday, Macdonald used a carrot, in another leadership tenet of demand then reward as old as the military. He gave the players an unscheduled day off from practice. The coach who’s also a golfer led his Seahawks off to a team activity at Topgolf, a golf-entertainment venue on Seattle’s east side, instead of another afternoon of practicing football. Tuesday, he’ll likely have one of his “ACT” practices. The players love them. They wear T-shirts, sunglasses and bucket hats on the field as they walk, and we mean walk, through plays for a couple hours. “ACT” is Macdonald’s acronym — the military has an incredible amount of those — for accountability, communication and technique. Wednesday, the Seahawks fly to Green Bay. They have a joint practice with the Packers there on Thursday, then the final preason game, against Green Bay at Lambeau Field Saturday.
How is Macdonald seeking to get a mostly young team through the success its had in preseason to make this month better apply to the real season that begins Sept. 7 against San Francisco?
“This is a great opportunity to be relentless,” he said.
“Let’s be poppin’ out of our skin every time we get a chance to take the field and play our style of ball.
“So, that’s the expectation.”
Seattle Seahawks quarterback Sam Darnold (14) and head coach Mike Macdonald talk during training camp at Virginia Mason Athletic Center on Friday, July 25, 2025, in Renton, Wash.
Macdonald’s demanding intent
Accountability is key tenet to how Macdonald coaches. When his operation is humming best, the players hold each other accountable so the coaches don’t have to.
He wants Love, Williams, Pro Bowl cornerback Devon Witherspoon and middle linebacker Ernest Jones, the veteran leaders, to perfect his tricky defense. It changes looks before the snap based on one-word commands Macdonald sends in to Jones to relay to the rest of the defense. Much of this offseason and training camp has been about Macdonald bringing his new offense, with new coordinator Klint Kubiak plus new line coaches John Benton and Rick Dennison, up to the baseline expectation he established on his defense in 2024.
“The standard is high right now,” Love said.
“They’re trying to set a standard of how they want to operate. Ad you can see it. It’s evident they’re trying to get off the ball, the receivers are trying block, the tight ends are trying to block. So it’s exciting to see.
“It’s trying to develop an identity.”
And not just with how they play on the field, but also how they act.
Coach Mike Macdonald talks with 2023 Pro Bowl safety Julian Love at the start of the fifth practice of Seahawks organized team activities June 4, 2025, at the Virginia Mason Athletic Center in Renton.
Following a practice in Macdonald’s first training camp as a head coach, in the summer of 2024 when he was the NFL’s youngest head coach last season, he saw about a dozen younger defensive players walking away from fans into the team facility immediately after practice. That was counter to his requirement all players stay after public practices to sign autographs.
Macdonald yelled at a trailing assistant coach to run ahead to those players leaving the field and get them back out to sign autographs. They returned to the field, a lot faster than they left it, went to field’s perimeter, and signed. “Mike does not play,” said a veteran player signing autographs nearby who saw the exchange.
That’s the last time that’s happened. His players seem to appreciate and even like his direct leadership.
“He’s cool people, man,” Witherspoon, 24, said.
This exactness and accountability to standard extends to game preparation with his assistant coaches.
“Mike talks about chasing edges. He’s consistently pushing boundaries, and he’s always trying to push us,” defensive coordinator Aden Durde said. “He’s always pushing me to see what the next thing we can do: ‘Are we doing it the right way?’
“I respect that. I respect you pushing me, saying, ‘Have I got a right, logical answer for you? Are we doing it?’ Because I suspect the same questions from the players, like, ‘Are we doing it the right way?’
“That’s really in the core of it, what he’s asking.”