Mike Macdonald is now the league’s youngest head coach at 36-years-old, following a 10-year journey from Ravens intern to premiere defensive coordinator. Schneider discusses when MacDonald arrived on his radar as a potential successor to Pete Carroll.
“The first thing was,” said Schneider. “Going to Michigan when the news was going on there that there was a linebackers coach with the Ravens going to work with the (Harbaugh) brothers. Felt like they were swapping teammates or something. But that was like, ‘Okay, who is this guy?’. We’re doing what we do, we’re always trying to be on it and see what’s going on around the world of football. Whether it be college football, XFL, USFL or obviously, the pros. That was the first time I was like, ‘Hey, who is this guy?’ Then he goes back to the Ravens, and they have all this success. Obviously, we played them this year—it was really rough, that was a really rough day. There aren’t a lot of players that are like ‘Who is the coordinator over there? What was that all about?’ I talked to a couple of guys after the game that are like ‘That was impressive, what just happened?’ Mike’s talked about it too, ‘We want to play so it looks like there’s 14 players on the field.’ It felt like 14 players that day.”
Schneider gave insight on the process of interviewing coaching candidates before the hire, along with how he communicated with Macdonald that it was his show to run. But with questions looming about a first-time head coach with a young staff, Schneider assures the pair that he doesn’t feel like the big changes will result in a step back for the franchise in 2024.
“I don’t view a step back,” said Schneider. “I think when you have all of these new ideas, philosophies, ways to teach, schematics, all of the coach-speak and football talk that goes into this – I think everybody coming together of course it’s going to take time. It’s going to take time for everybody to get to know each other. I think, when you look at it – how can we bring this together and really merge this as quickly as we possibly can? The coaches at this time of the year are usually getting ready for free agency, getting some names for draft guys to study. I’m sure it’ll be a little bit of anxiety from that point of view for the coaching staff, but it’s like, ‘We got that right now, we’ll get caught up with that later. Let’s get this staff together, let’s build this continuity. And build this whole…
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