Seahawks beginning to learn what life is like under coach Mike Macdonald

RENTON — Seahawks quarterback Geno Smith needed only to look down during the second Organized Team Activity on Wednesday to get a sense of how things are changing in the first year of the Mike Macdonald era.

Instead of the red jersey quarterbacks typically wore in practice under Pete Carroll — a color common around the league and signifies that the QB is off-limits to contact — Smith and backup Sam Howell are wearing the team’s blue retro game jerseys.

Other players are also wearing game jerseys instead of ones made specifically for practice.

Macdonald says it’s not necessarily a new thing and instead is something he borrowed from Baltimore coach John Harbaugh, for whom he spent all but one year since 2014 working as an assistant.

“The thinking behind it is we are trying to make practice as much like a game as possible,’’ Macdonald said. “So how we dress, all the details, where we stand, how we operate, how we coach ‘em up timing-wise, like we want the guys feeling like they are out there playing. So that’s just kind of part of the equation.’’

What also struck Smith about the new way of doing things?

“No bags out there,’’ Smith said, “Don’t have to do the bags before practice.’’

That’s a reference to a drill that was a Carroll staple — the offense and defense splitting up as early warm-ups ended and doing a few raucous sets of quick steps over bags (or more precisely, pads used in blocking drills) placed a foot or so apart. 

It was an agility drill designed as much as anything to hype up everyone as practice began in earnest.

But as Smith noted, every coach does things a little differently and some change was to be expected as Macdonald took over for Carroll, a transition that took a more significant turn this week with the beginning of OTAs and the first chance for the offense and defense to work together in 11-on-11 drills.

“Every coach has got his own style, his own philosophy,’’ said Smith, who has now played for six different head coaches in an NFL career dating to 2013. “And it’s about buying in. And I think guys are doing a great job of buying in to what Mike is doing and we’ve got to continue to do that. I think he’s a great, great coach, man. He understands exactly what he wants to do and he’s laid it out for us and so it’s our job to execute.”

How well the players have really bought in, of course, won’t become clear until deep into the 2024 season.

For now, learning is most important.

For the players, that means learning the systems of Macdonald — who will call the defensive signals on game day — and new offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb, fresh off leading the Michael Penix Jr.-powered offense that guided the Huskies to the national title game last season.

For Macdonald, that means learning more about his players and what they can and cannot do.

When the Seahawks went into full-team sessions Wednesday, it was Macdonald who held the walkie-talkie, relaying the defensive calls to players on the field (on game days, one player can wear the helmet with a green dot which has a headset allowing him to communicate with Macdonald).

For now, it’s a defense that is a bare-bones version of what it will eventually look like — Macdonald said only 20% of the defensive package has been installed and that the immediate focus is on learning concepts.

Macdonald said that while coaches have a calendar mapped out for installing the defense, he expects there could be some changes along the way.

“Not really worried about the pace of how fast we get everything in,’’ he said. “We want a really good foundation for when we get into (training) camp (in late July). So we have a schedule, but we’ll adjust as we go.’’

It’s a defense with a goal of trying to create confusion in the offense. 

One of the primary ways to do that is for the defense to line up in one formation as the offense breaks the huddle — say, a zone — and shift to another (such as man coverage) at the snap.

That also calls for constant and clear communication between players.

“The defense is really creative,’’ said safety Rashawn Jenkins, who signed as a free agent after playing the last three seasons in Jacksonville. “It’s a lot of thinking. But we’re professionals, so that just comes with the game. But it will be challenging for opposing offenses to kind of figure out what we are in …

“It’s the communication (that is key). It’s every play, every movement on the offense, every shift, every motion, something has to be communicated. We are never just sitting back in one defense. So it’s really creative. Really fun. But you’ve got to be on the details.”

That means that for now, on day two of the players practicing the defense on the field, there are inevitably some mistakes.

But Jenkins says he has appreciated how Macdonald has handled the occasional missteps.

“The main thing is he’s patient,’’ Jenkins said. “He knows that it’s day one, day two of OTAs right now out on the field and he knows there are going to be some mistakes. 

“… As far as just learning the game, he kind of just lets that happen organically. You might drop down or go somewhere you are not supposed to and he’s like, ‘You know what? Let’s learn from it. Let’s change it right here. You saw it, now I expect for you to kind of start cleaning it up.’”

Smith and the offense work more directly with Grubb and the offensive coaches. 

For Smith, it’s the third offense he has learned just since coming to Seattle in 2019. All the experience with different systems, Smith said, makes learning this one “a lot easier. …. 12 years (in the league) a lot of these plays I’ve run before.’’

Smith said what he’s learned of the offense so far has been to his liking.

“Overall, I feel like I’m a dropback passer and I feel like this is a drop-back offense, an offense that’s going to spread the ball around, trust the quarterbacks to make the right decisions,’’ he said. “That’s pre- and post-snap. I think that’s something that I’m really good at. Just want to make sure I’m doing the right things when it comes to that.’’

What Macdonald hopes is that a group of players and coaches who didn’t know each other a few months ago start to become a team in every sense of the word.

“Again, it’s a process,’’ Macdonald said. “It takes time. And there is no magic wand you can wave and everyone gets along and there is all this mutual understanding about how we’re going to operate. We’re just like chasing the mutual understanding of what kind of football team we want to be. It’s this constant chase of what we want.’’