1 of 5 | New England Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel (R) said he prioritized improving his communication skills in recent years. File Photo by CJ Gunther/UPI | License Photo
Mike Macdonald does not care — about preseason expectations, perceptions about his coaching style or even about his players likening him to an AI robot cosplaying as a human.
After all, the coach’s admittedly militaristic approach has his Seattle Seahawks in Sunday’s Super Bowl.
On the other Levi’s Stadium sideline will stand a man with the same first name, who oozes authenticity and passion, while constantly finding ways to express love and forge connectivity with his players.
The contrasting styles bred nearly identical results for Mike Vrabel’s New England Patriots (17-3) and Macdonald’s Seahawks (16-3), who will meet in what the former deemed an “identity war” in Super Bowl LX in Santa Clara, Calif.
“You’re not waking up in the morning trying to be a players’ coach or not be a players’ coach or I want to be this type of coach,” Macdonald said.
“We have a vision about where we want to go. And we’ve all decided we want to go there. And if the intent of our team is right, we’re right alongside you. I want you to go rip it in practice. I want you to go prepare your tail off, but then go play.”
Macdonald, who ditched a lucrative finance career to become a football coach, grew up listening to military stories from his father Hugh, a West Point graduate and Army veteran. It’s no accident the lessons learned in those tales seeped into the Seahawks’ facility.
He often philosophizes about “commander’s intent,” cited by the Marines as a concise statement detailing the end state of a battlefield, which can include a purpose of operations, enemy actions or intentions and identification of the enemy’s critical vulnerability.
He also has brought his players into contact with Army Green Berets and Navy SEALs at the Seahawks’ facility and at their bases.
“I have a ton of respect for my dad, but a lot of my family are also military members and served in wars,” Macdonald said. “So you’re exposed to it your whole life, and as you learn more about it, I mean, those are the people that are protecting our freedom on a daily basis, put it on the line for us. And they also happen to be some of the best operating teams in the world.
“Why wouldn’t you want your team to embody a lot of those principles?”
The second-year head coach influenced players to follow mantras of “MOB” or “mission over bull [expletive],” as well as “chasing edges.” A wall in their facility reads “a style nobody wants to play.”
It’s easy to see why players are now bought in, as they don Super Bowl patches on their jerseys. But the investment started in the daunting days of training camp, with players facing grueling conditioning tests, including six 150-yard shuttles, with a time limit depending on their position. If they failed to complete any of those legs in their allotted time, they were forced to start over.
Militaristic blueprint
Some players playfully embraced the tactics by saying “hooah” in response to the coach, another nod to the militaristic blueprint.
Macdonald says the buy-in wasn’t immediate for the Seahawks, who were coached by Pete Carroll — known as a players’ coach — for 14 years before his arrival. They began with an initial goal to be “tough and connected.” Now, if you turn on the tape, it’s immediately evident that the swarming and gang tackling Seahawks are elite in harmonic harassment.
Macdonald was the architect of a unit that led the NFL in crucial advanced metrics, including defense adjusted value over average, or DVOA. The Seahawks also were great by conventional statistical standards, allowing the fewest points and second-fewest yards per play in the NFL.
“Is it a moment where you snap your fingers? No,” Macdonald said. “I think it’s the buy-in at the beginning of the process. It’s the daily inputs that the guys did. And then I think over time, you feel the belief in the team.”
“You feel what happens in our execution and training camp. You felt the team throughout the season, in the preseason games and it’s one of those things where you just have to keep chasing it every day.
“The guys [who] believed in it deserve a lot of credit for having faith in their teammates, and it’s a thing that just you know it really does take every day all the way up until today. You know it’s going to take all the way all through Sunday, as well.”
Like many championship-driven rosters, Seahawks players mimic many of their coaches beliefs and echo his words. Linebacker Ernest Jones IV called Macdonald a “maniac behind the scenes” who can act “a little crazy” when players aren’t perfect in practice.
“I say this all the time. We work harder than any team in the league because it’s a strict regiment and he never lets up on us,” Jones said. “When times got hard, he preached and he kept us going. I owe a lot of our success today to Mike, and the way that he just kept us into it, regardless of the situation.”
Defensive tackles Jarran Reed and Leonard Williams said Macdonald demanding greatness and discipline from himself leads to a desire for his players to want the same from each other. But despite the somewhat robotic facade, Seahawks players still feel a familial touch from the coach.
“We joke around and say that he’s pretty much like an AI [bot] and that he’s learning how to be human,” Williams said. “It’s just an inside joke, though. But, I think he’s just a really smart guy. He’s just all about football. I mean, the way he treats us in the building is like his family.”
Coaches’ influence
Macdonald cites the many coaches who influenced him during his rise, including New York Giants coach John Harbaugh, whom he calls one of his biggest mentors. He said he brought many of Harbaugh’s “foundational principles” — that he learned with with the Baltimore Ravens — to Seattle.
Seahawks assistant coach Leslie Frazier is key to Macdonald’s success. Macdonald and Seahawks players refer to the veteran coach as their “rock” and praise his communication skills. Frazier, 66, balances the Seahawks’ scale against the weight of their 38-year-old head coach’s intense style.
But Macdonald remains a unique coach in his own right, according to NBC commentator and former Dallas Cowboys coach Jason Garrett, who said players can tell immediately if they sense calculation over authenticity.
“I’ve talked to Mike about it,” Garrett said. “He said ‘I can’t copy [Harbaugh]. I can’t copy what they did. We are our own team. I have to be my own person.’ If he was trying to have someone else’s personality, everybody would look at him like ‘what are you doing?’
“Mike is being who he is. He is building that program with the things he believes in and the kind of people he believes in and they are responding accordingly.”
Former Indianapolis Colts coach Tony Dungy recognized the differences between Macdonald and Vrabel, but pointed to their similarities.
Belief in the coach
“I’ve watched both teams practice,” Dungy said. “I’ve been around both locker rooms, and I think the common denominator is that the players believe in their head coach.
“They feel very good about the direction he is taking them. Both of these head coaches know their players really well. They are disciplined. They don’t make mistakes. They don’t beat themselves and they have a strong belief in how they do that.”
With a victory, Vrabel can join Dungy, Mike Ditka, Tom Flores and Doug Pederson as the only men to win a Super Bowl as both a player and a coach.
The former linebacker, who won three Super Bowls as a Patriots player under Bill Belichick, also picked up lessons from his former coach, but forged his own identity through experience. Vrabel, who earned NFL Coach of the Year honors Thursday, said improving his communication was key in his growth.
“I think coaching is about reaching people, finding ways to connect with them and being knowledgeable and figuring out the right things to say and when the right thing to do is for each particular player,” Vrabel said.
Patriots players say Vrabel makes considerable efforts to reach them, whether its by strapping on pads and taking hits in practice, frequently sending them text messages, showing them 1980s wrestling and movie clips, or by simply asking about their off-the-field lives and families.
“That man texts us all the time,” defensive tackle Christian Barmore said. “If anything is going on in life, he will call you.”
Different style
Several current and former Patriots players said Vrabel’s style is “totally different” than that of Bill Belichick, who used a military-like approach similar to Macdonald’s. They also credited his versatility.
Vrabel’s willingness to socialize with players off the field also is unique in Foxborough, Mass. That trend included a 4 1/2-hour barbecue dinner with rookie offensive tackle Will Campbell before the Patriots made him the No. 4 overall pick in the 2025 NFL Draft.
“I played for a guy that, I love him, but he’s socially awkward,” former Patriots defensive back Devin McCourty said of Belichick. “That’s not his go-to thing. I think we all knew how much he cared about what we were building, but he wasn’t a guy you were going to grab dinner with and talk about your wife and kids for the next hour.”
Another example of Vrabel’s genuine interest and support of his players was when he sent running backs coach Tony Dews to Las Vegas in March to spend time with and offer support to Rhamondre Stevenson after his father’s death.
“He knows the relationship I had with my dad,” Stevenson said of Vrabel, according to NFL Network. “It was a very close one. I think he was just trying to be kind of like that second father figure to make sure I’m good.”
Praises other coaches
Vrabel said he is thankful for the knowledge he soaked up from Bill Cowher, Belichick and other coaches en route to his second stint in Foxborough, Mass.
It forged a belief for his team to play as one, but to embrace differences.
“Our players have different personalities,” Vrabel said. “I wouldn’t expect them to all act like me and they don’t expect me to act like them either.”
He said his biggest takeaway from 2024, which he spent as a consultant for the Cleveland Browns, was that there was “nothing I wanted to do more than to coach this football team.”
“Being around players is so critical and the connections that you make and you can’t lose sight of that,” Vrabel said. “No matter how long you’ve been a head coach, you know, finding ways to make connections with the players, it’s important.”
Consistency the key
Several Patriots players said “consistency” when asked about Vrabel’s most important personality trait. Linebacker Robert Spillane, who also played for Vrabel when he was coach of the Tennessee Titans, said he noticed his increased emphasis on communication since his first year (2018) as a coach, when he also was a rookie.
“Even though he made that an emphasis in the past, he makes it more of an emphasis now,” Spillane said. “Getting to know people, getting to care about what you care about as a player. For me, that’s my family and my young daughters. When I walk in the building, he says, ‘How are the girls doing?’ You know, just little things like that to show that he really cares about his players.”
Vrabel, who went 54-45 over six seasons with the Titans, is attempting to become the first coach to win 18 games in his first season with a new team. With a win, the Patriots — who have the league’s No. 8 defense and No. 3 offense — also could become the third team since league realignment (2002) to win a Super Bowl a year after finishing last in their division.
A victory for the Seahawks would avenge their 2015 Super Bowl loss to Belichick’s Patriots. Macdonald also could become the third-youngest head coach to win the Super Bowl, trailing Sean McVay (36 years, 20 days) and Mike Tomlin (36 years, 323 days).
He also could become the first head coach under 40 to win 17 games in a season and stop the Patriots from becoming the first franchise in NFL history to win seven Super Bowls.
“I never thought when I came up here in 2001 that any of that would happen and you know certainly didn’t think when I was started coaching that this would be the end result,” Vrabel said.
“But you know, sometimes things are meant to be and if you just are in a right position at the right time and you do things the right way, they come to you.”
NFL: Patriots, Seahawks attend Super Bowl LX opening night event
New England Patriots quarterback Drake Maye (L) and Seattle Seahawks quarterback Sam Darnold chat on the stage at the Super Bowl LX Opening Night media event leading up to Super Bowl LX in San Jose, Calif., on February 2, 2026. Photo by John Angelillo/UPI | License Photo
