Sam Darnold enjoyed helping the Seattle Seahawks win the Super Bowl because head coach Mike Macdonald can now call himself a champion. On3 recently attended a Super Bowl celebration event in Seattle and asked Darnold what makes Macdonald a great coach, which led to him revealing how he is similar to his head coach.
“I think just like myself, he’s persevered through a lot,” Sam Darnold told On3 and a group of reporters at the new Raising Cane’s restaurant in Seattle earlier this month. “He’s coached at a lot of spots. He’s had some things that haven’t necessarily gone his way, and for him to be able to … There’s not a lot of head coaches that get to call themselves Super Bowl champions, and for him to be able to look in the mirror and be able to say that to himself, I know he loves that.
“He just loves to see his hard work come to fruition as well. But I think what makes Mike so special is that he loves us being able to celebrate more than him being able to celebrate, if that makes sense. He loves it for us more than for himself, and that’s the kind of head coach he is. He’s so unselfish, and you can see that in the way that he coaches every single day.”
Mike Macdonald and Sam Darnold worked their way to the top
Mike Macdonald led the Seahawks to a Super Bowl win in his second season with the team. He got his coaching start in 2008 when he was an assistant coach at Cedar Shoals High School in Georgia. Macdonald then coached at Georgia from 2010 to 2013 before joining the Baltimore Ravens in 2014. He was then for seven seasons and became the defensive coordinator at Michigan in 2021. Macdonald returned to the Ravens in 2022 to be the defensive coordinator. The Seahawks hired him as the head coach in 2024.
Macdonald and Darnold put in a lot of work over the years to be Super Bowl champions. After the Jets selected Darnold at No. 3 overall in the 2018 draft, he had his hardships and spent time with multiple teams before turning things around with the Minnesota Vikings in 2024. Darnold signed with the Seahawks before the 2025 season and became the first QB in the 2018 draft class to win a title. The QBs selected in the first round of the 2018 draft were Baker Mayfield, Josh Allen, Josh Rosen, and Lamar Jackson.