Patriots HC Mike Vrabel, Browns HC Todd Monken, and Seahawks HC Mike Macdonald join the show from Indy

Joining us now, the 2025 NFL Coach of the Year in his first year with one of his former teams, New England Patriots, the great Mike Vrabel. How are you guys? We're doing great. Not as well as you, though. I don't know about that. Congrats, though. Thank you. I appreciate it. It was an awesome year. It was. It was a lot of fun. Enjoyed it. Enjoyed building it and bringing people together and the players and the staff that were there and the ones that we brought in really enjoyed it. Yeah, we're big fans of you and what you do. I don't think you give a shit what we say about you. You can say that, just no F-bombs. Exactly right. Say, hey, look at that. He saw that on there. He's paying attention. Yeah, they worry about that. But, yeah, we do. I feel like you're a chip off the old Baca. Sometimes I say Bill Parcells in that way. But the first thing I wanted to ask you is just your time away from head coach a little bit. Was there an adjustment you made in your own approach there? I don't know if there was an adjustment. I just tried to figure out what my role was in Cleveland and how I could help and also spend time with my family and get away on the weekends and during football season but try to invest in their staff and their players. You realize that's what's important. It's about the players. It's about making connections and keeping those connections and try to develop players. And sometimes when you get into this thing longer than a few years as a head coach, you start to, you know, a lot of the other things wear on you more than just, you know, the players and the coaches. It's everything outside of that. And try to focus on what's important and where you can make an impact. One of the things that impresses me about you, because I say all the time, every NFL team is a football machine and every part is going to be removed at some point, replaced with another part. And so it makes it hard to have an emotional connection. But you seem to have that with all your players, the way you greet them after the games, the way you're trying to prop the guys up after the Super Bowl. And how do you strike that balance between the reality? All these guys are going to be gone at some point. But while they're here, they're my guys. Well, I think I lived it. And I can explain to them that I didn't start a game in Pittsburgh for four years. Had an opportunity to come to New England on an opportunity contract. It wasn't about the dollars. It was about opportunity. But also then built into a player that was compensated well for his position, that was expected to perform, was a player that asked for a new contract. And if he didn't, maybe the best thing is to trade me. And that's what happened. I got traded. And so I take them through that journey. And I also take them through the personal side of this thing, and I take them through the professional side of it. And the professional side and the personal side, they can coexist, but there's a line there. And we want to care about them, the things that they care about, the things that they think are important, the things that they believe that are important, their families, their careers. We want to help them do all that stuff. But then there's also a professional side that we have to maintain, and we have to make decisions that are in the best interest of the Patriots. Who's the coach that's maybe? Honesty normally helps, and being genuine and being authentic and being honest. Right, right. Who's the coach that's maybe made the biggest impression on you in your life? I think I'm lucky. I saw Mike McCarthy and I saw Omar the other night, and I said, just please tell Mr. Rooney I appreciated every minute of the four years that I spent with that organization of just the veterans that were there, about the guy, you know, Dermani Dawson and LeVon Kirkland and Mark Bruner and Will Wolford and, you know, LeVon Kirkland, all these guys. Carnell Lake, I got to watch these guys. I mean, these guys are Jerome Bett. I mean, they're unbelievable players. Greg Lloyd developed, but also pushed me and helped me in the organization and the way that there was the consistency. And I never started a game. I didn't start a game for four years. But I was ready. When I left there, I was ready. And so getting that start really showed me what professional football could be. You know, the time with Bill was great. The time at Ohio State to going through those growing pains as a coach and not really having an idea of what I was doing, but learning and making it about the players and have been able to see some of those guys here recently. Bill O'Brien helped extremely a lot just from the standpoint of preparing me for the role of a head coach and the things that go into it. So, you know, I've just been lucky to be around a lot of great coaches and a lot of great organizations. Something else that impressed me this year, and it's along the lines of that personal-professional relationship, but having a true personal relationship with your players. After Marshawn Nealon died, your comments about the importance of the teammates. And, you know, it comes to the forefront again with Rondell Moore. And your comments were just very impactful, And I wish more coaches would live it and realize it and understand that, you know, you're in charge of the whole room and all the guys are in charge of each other. And I say this all the time. We are in contact with so many people in our own orbit, and sometimes we don't think of it that way. But we all have to be on the lookout. And the way you put it was just perfect. We read it word for word because I think everybody connected to really any business needs to be thinking that way about the people that they're around all the time. And I have to remind myself, too, when you – I get to see these guys every single morning when they walk in. I get to see them. Hey, morning, morning, training room, locker room. I see their faces. So, you know, after a few weeks, you know when things – you know, and so this was later on in the season. And a player walked by, and I was like, hey. And he was like, hey. And then I was like – and I literally ran. And I was like, that's not the same response. I was like, hey, what's going on? He's like, eh. Don't just ask somebody how they're doing. Yeah. You know, there's a follow-up to that. You know, you can ask somebody how they're doing and not stop. Right. You know, I mean, like, be intentional. Stop. Like, you're going to get some information. And it's, listen, this is a high-pressure business. We love what we signed up for. We love to be able to take our talents that we were blessed with to play this game, to coach this game, whatever it may be. But there's also, I mean, you're judged. I mean, that is, you have to be okay with being judged. And so we all need people to talk to. We need people that, you know. And, again, not everybody's going to end up being a star. Not everybody's going to be a starter. And everybody's journey looks a little different. But you just can't, you know, don't be afraid to sit there and stop the next time you ask somebody how they're doing. I want to go, like, a little specific, right. Again, I know you don't give a damn what I say either way. But I'm amazed by your game management. Okay. Right. And we talk about that a lot. During the AFC Championship game, and I think one of the most underrated plays of all the playoffs, is you with the slow substitution. Well, that's not slow. That's not deemed slow. I know it's not. That's in a timely manner. Right. Okay. Okay. That's not slow. Well, okay. But you know what I'm saying with this grin on your face. Well, they're defensive linemen. Like, how fast do you want to run out there? The field's snowy. They could slip. They could injure themselves. So they want to make sure that the footing was accurate. That's the first time I've heard him speak full of crap. That's the first time I've ever heard you speak full of crap. I didn't know that. I did not know that came out of your mouth before. But, okay, so I just thought that was amazing. Well, we want to try to make sure that our players understand what the rules are. Again, good teams know the rules. And great teams can use them to their advantage. And whatever they are, we'll play by them. And if they say to change our behavior, this is what I tell our team. if the ref warns you and you don't change, they should take the flag and they should hit you over the helmet with it because they warned you. They warned you. And if we're doing something that they warn us, then we need to change our behavior or we need to change what we're doing. Right. D-tackles, be careful substituting. Don't fall down. It's funny how you say it, but what's impressed me is, and I've believed this for years now following you in Tennessee, you know the rules intimately. You know how to use them to your advantage, but I never get the sense that you take it too far. We don't want to be gimmicky. We don't want to be some sort of gimmick. And you can get into that. You can go down that rabbit hole at times with the rules, with the timing, with the situations, with any play that you could dial up at the end of the game to do something. You don't want to be gimmicky. And the most important thing is that the players understand it. And as long as they understand it and it's practiced and they're comfortable and they're confident in it, then I think it's okay. But once it becomes a gimmick and are you just doing things just to try to be different, I don't think that's the right way to go. You've got a reason for everything you do. Try to be intentional. And you know it's within the rules. Right. And it's all toward the ultimate goal. And I think you just have to continue to show the players, hey, this is how this is going to help us. And I don't know. Like, it is hard. It's hard to go through a 30- or 45-minute jog-through practice of situations. It's hard. It's hard for me. I can only imagine how hard it would be for a player. And you just try to remind them that one play that we're going to do today, you have to believe somehow that is going to make a difference in the game. Like this is going to come up. I don't know when, but you have to tell yourself that it's going to come up and we're going to be able to nail it. We're going to be able to stay in bounds. And, again, as you go through the course of the season, sometimes you're going to need one of those plays or you didn't get it early in the season. Hey, get another opportunity. Now we're going to get the first down. We're going to stay in bounds, and we're going to force them to burn a timeout. Or, hey, we need to execute this situation to win the game, and we can do it. The whole after the game, outside the locker room, as an ex-player, it's really cool you do that. Well, I've done that since I got to Tennessee. It's just that there wasn't maybe the whatever. That was something that I just felt like that's a heck of a lot easier way for me to greet the guys than it is to walk around the entire locker room. It's a tough game. It's a physical game. Sometimes we win. Sometimes we lose. But it's my way of just looking them in the eye, thanking them, whether it's a great job or, hey, we've got to get back to work or we've got to stick together. Just try to protect the locker room and make sure that they got something on their mind, win or lose, that they can go in there and try to tell each other. If you don't mind, real quick, I'd like to just go back with one other question because I wanted to ask it before, but just your experience like college and NFL, right? The differences between it, right? Other than compensation, and I don't know how much different that is now, but that's what I said when I got to Houston. Right, right. I was at Ohio State for three years. I went to Houston, Coach Brian Cushing, Coach Jadavion Clowney, Coach Whitney Merciless, Coach Benarjik McKinney, and these guys were young. They were just getting their careers started. Cush had been there a few years. He was the oldest player that we had in the linebacking group. But somebody asked me, I said, I don't coach them any different. They just get paid a little bit more. I coached them hard. I made relationships, connections with them, tried to be creative with the drills, tried to be authentic, tried not to waste their time, tried to give them exactly what they needed. I didn't feel like there was anything that I did any differently from Ohio State to going to Texas. You didn't think the Ohio State's, the college stuff, I just sometimes I think about it and just go, man, it's a lot of other BS you've got to deal with. I mean, not as a position coach. I think the one thing that Urban Meyer told me was you need to approach this job like you're the head coach of the defensive line. And that means you have an assistant, you have a graduate assistant, or you have a student coach. You're responsible for his development. You have players that you recruit. You have players that you're responsible to develop, but you're also responsible for how they act off the football field and what they may need away from football. The message after the Super Bowl, I think 307 days, is that the... That was from the time that we started. That's your time. And this is all we doing Like this is it We still getting started Yeah I just want to try to keep things in perspective And you talked about protecting the locker room because I assume you trying to build that shell ahead of time because who knows what they going to hear after this game right We need to keep everybody together and keep everybody on the same page. It was, hey, it's okay to be upset. It's okay to be pissed and disappointed. But we have to be all those negative feelings together and not, hey, this is... Yeah, point fingers. I just know my job is to protect the team. And I think that those guys were disappointed and mad and upset, whatever their personal feelings were. I just wanted to make sure that they were going to do it together. But I wanted to make sure that they knew, like we really had only been doing this for 307 days. Yeah, that's a cool message. And for us to look and try to make a positive out of it and what we were able to do in a short amount of time and know how difficult it will be going forward. All right, something fun. All right, just a fun one here. Just that came across naturally. He'll decide whether it's fun. Well, I know. I'm always scared of him. You may think it's fun. I'm always scared of him. It's so great, Mike. Mike, he squirms. Anytime you come around, he squirms. I wish I could bring you with me everywhere. The year I lost my spleen. I saw him in the pregame that year, and he scared me ever since. Come on, let's go. What do we got? What did you do to Jake Plummer? Jake Plummer in the Rose Bowl, he's still mad about some hit you gave him. Something I did. I don't know. I probably gator-rolled him or something. I don't know. I know. I just came across this week, and he brought it up like the Ohio State Rose Bowl game. I don't know. He's probably had one too many mushrooms. I'm not sure. That's what I thought you might say. Yeah, he might have. I think he definitely looked like he was. He was a competitor. They had a great team. They were a good team. They were a very good team. Right. Jake was an excellent college player, and he was a really good professional player. Yeah, he definitely was. I got one more. How do you manage being caught between this crossfire, between Belichick and the Crafts? Oh, man. And it's more Belichick towards the Crafts, as far as I can tell. And again, I think that that's just part of my job. And I think it is a unique thing that I played for a guy that had a lot of success. But also, you know, sometimes these endings to these coaches and owners, they don't end well. Divorces sometimes don't end well. And I have a responsibility to Robert and Jonathan, who I appreciate their support each and every day, but also can understand that I played and grew and had a lot of success under, you know, Bill. How much longer are you going to be able to be hands-on, physical, like I'm going to mess with the lineman guy-to-guy here? We'll see. I mean, we'll focus on April or whenever we get back out on the field. But if I can do it in May, then I'll do it in June and see what happens. So you're just playing and you're buying up because you're getting up there. There's days where I'm like, this is not going too good. That's what I wanted to hear. Right. I would think so. Yeah, there's days where I'm like, yeah, this isn't feeling good. Yeah, yeah. It's usually the next day. The next day, right. Yeah, we're at that age where that's what happens, definitely. But I think that's another thing. Even when I talk to players and other coaches around football, man, I mean, they see you do it. And I think everybody thinks it's really cool. I think it's just a way to teach and it's another way to explain things. And if I can help and if I have experience, like you're never going to see me, you know, I mean, go up to Drake and be like, you know, hey, here's how you want to throw a ball. Like that's not something that I'm going to do because I don't have any experience nor do I want to, you know, say that. But if it's talking about in-line play or, you know, a release with a receiver or something tackling and then I try to show guys or O-line or D-line, And I think I can provide some input from there. All right, don't get hurt. We've got to let you go. Coach of the year, AFC champion, Mike Frable, everybody. We'll be back this morning. He can't wait. He's like, I want to get out of this chair. Get away from him. All right, we're back at the Scouting Combine. Joining us now, the brand-new head coach of the Cleveland Browns. He's Todd Munkin. He's with us now. Coach, congratulations and welcome. Appreciate it. Thanks for having me. I mean, first off, we've got to just address the elephant in the room. All right? I mean, Jordan gear here, just looking cool, casual. Actually, there's a story behind it. Oh, okay. So I had like $500 worth of Nike gear from the Ravens. Right. And before they fired me, I thought I'd spend the money. So I found this outfit in there and I bought it. It's a true story. I'm going to shut my account down. I said, better use the money. Got to get that a lot and then out of the way. Yeah, I love it. I love it. All right. Well, why don't we piggyback off just something we were talking about off camera, right? But, you know, week 18, I saw you on the field in Pittsburgh, right? I know I said nice things to you. I've always thought a lot about you. Did you wonder if you would ever get the chance to be a head coach in the NFL? Sure. It's the main reason I left Georgia. Right. To come to the Ravens was for that opportunity, obviously, to work with Lamar. Right. I mean, let's be real honest about it. With a great organization, work with Lamar and give myself one more chance, an opportunity to be a head coach in the NFL. and I've had interviews, just didn't get the job. That's okay. Right. And if it wouldn't have gone that way, being an offensive coordinator in the NFL is really cool. Yeah. I mean, it really is. And so if it wasn't going to ever go that way. Yeah, you were okay with it. I was good. Yeah. Just the way it is. Yeah. Well, we're glad it happened for you. That's for sure. What have you learned? Give me one thing you've learned from working with Lamar Jackson that will be transferable to your work with whoever the quarterback is in Cleveland. I would just say that one size doesn't fit all. There's not one system that fits any given quarterback, and it's your job to make it fit for the quarterback that you have. That's your job. You can't just say, well, he doesn't fit our system. Well, then you've got a shitty system. That's just the way it is. Your system, sorry. That was a five-second delay. Sorry. No delays here. You're fired. No delays here. So the reality is just you've got to make the system fit the players that you have, especially a quarterback. And that was a lot of fun. It was a lot of fun building that with and for Lamar. And, you know, so now it's on to the next chapter. Yeah, I've had some coaches that were like, no, this is what I do. And I was like, what? Okay. But that's always frustrating. Your current quarterback situation, you've got one of the more intriguing ones in football. You've got Deshaun Watson, who hasn't been on the field a lot at all. You've got Shadour and Dylan Gabriel, who are young but got potential, right? So how do you kind of view what you're coaching here and what you're about to get into? Well, it's interesting. When you watch the back half of the year and you look at Shadour, what you do see is a little bit more mobility than I thought. Right, right. He has a knack for getting out of trouble. Yeah. He certainly has playmaking ability. That you do see. I do think there's something there to work with. Yeah. I wasn't here during the year, so to be able to drill down at preparation or what they were doing offensively with him. And also, you've got to be able to surround your quarterback with weapons. Right, right. And guys up front, allow him to protect him. And then you have Deshaun, who at one time played at an elite level. Where he's at now, it's hard to say. Probably his best game he played in recent memory was 23 at Baltimore. Right, right. He won the game and then got hurt. So obviously being able to keep him healthy and on the field, I don't think you lose that part of playmaking ability, play the game of football. Now it's just a matter of what will we see here in a few weeks. And I'm excited to get a chance to work with him because we've seen it. And then Dylan, anybody that's done it at three different schools, UCF, Oklahoma, and Oregon, there's something there. And he's done it at three different places at an elite level. So I'm excited for the room that we have, and yet not opposed to add to that room. Obviously, it doesn't matter what position, But especially that position, you're constantly trying to find the guy. Are you more likely to have a truly open room, or do you want to go to OTAs, training camp, at some point, before we really get into competition, with a 1, 2, 3, 4 pecking order on your depth chart? Optimally, you'd love to go to training camp that way. I don't think we'll be able to do that through OTAs in the offseason. I just don't see that happening. There's not enough there recently with any of the three that we have currently on the roster to say that we've got our starter right now. But hopefully through the weeks that we have in the offseason, we'll get a little better view of what we've got. Right. You brought up the college, the NFL thing because you were hoping you'd get one more chance, right? I'm a total pro guy, so I get it. But, like, you know, tell me the difference between, tell our viewers the difference between college, the NFL, and why the NFL appealed to you so much. Well, first off, I'd rather be winning in Alaska than losing in San Diego. So I don't care what level it is. If you're losing, it sucks. So that doesn't matter. I would say that there are some things about college football that are really cool. Yeah. College campuses. Right. fight songs in the locker room. Yeah, the bands, all that. The walk band, the pageantry of the fan of it being their school. That's really cool. And the SEC, when you're in that league, or the Big Ten, the venues are unbelievable. The one cool thing about the NFL is you're doing football every day. I mean, that's really what you're doing. You're constantly trying to master your craft. If you love doing football every day. But it's certainly more businesslike. You're not in the recruiting end of it. You're not on the road visiting with families. You don't have junior days on Saturday with families. But, again, both levels are great. I've been so lucky to be a part of both. And like I said, you'd rather be winning than losing. It doesn't matter what level. Yeah, and you're a psycho, and you like being in the lab doing coaching stuff all the time. I know that about you. Yeah, it's a lot more fun to do that part of it. But it's the positive and the negative. And the positive in the NFL is you can win every week and the negative is you can lose every week. So that's the challenging part of it to try and do it at the highest level. One item of old business, it was in the news yesterday, and we were talking about it earlier today, a couple of calls from the Steelers-Ravens Week 14 game that the league is acknowledging may not have been accurate. Do you look at that and feel the knife twist a little bit? Are you like, I've moved on, it all worked out, I got another job. Who cares how that shook out? I moved on the next week because that's life. I mean, officials make mistakes. I make mistakes. Calls, players make mistakes. That's life. I mean, that's just part of it. That's never going to end. And it probably happened even as often as it does now with less scrutiny because you didn't have replay. You didn't have a chance to fix it. Obviously, that's going to be the frustrating part of it is the opportunity to fix it. But I don't know how that game would have ended. I still don't know at the end. Any one given call certainly could have impacted the end of it, but I try not to go down that road. I think that's fool's gold. I think that gives you a built-in excuse of why we didn't do things, you know, throughout the game better and throughout the year. Certainly missed a field goal. We fumbled here. We didn't play well enough when we needed to play well. So that's just the way it is. All right, well, that's what we're here for. We're here to say it was the three of the dumbest calls we saw in one game the whole year. That's what it was. But you move on. All right, so where are you at right now? Because I know you're probably, free agency is the biggest thing on NFL's team's radar right now. How do you take this, like, the combine approach? How much film have you watched these guys yet? Or is this just the first part of getting to know them, right? Because everybody kind of seems to dabble their own way in this whole little process. Some. Yeah. Some. Right. Obviously, we've been trying to put a staff together. So that's first. Yeah. You're dealing with that. Right. But you've had a chance to watch some of the prospects and certainly the free agents. Yeah. You've had a chance to, you know, take a look there. Right So it all part of the process because if you don have a good roster curl flat and four verts doesn matter So when I took the job I said that I took the job because of the roster And first thing, putting a roster together gives you a chance to win every week. And then putting a great staff together because no one can do it alone. Nobody can do it alone. It allows you to call the game freely if you've got great players and a great staff that help you. And then game day becomes a lot easier to call. Right. Something you mentioned during your introductory press conference, you don't have to worry about Myles Garrett twice a year. Everybody else in the division has to worry about him twice a year. That's a hell of a difference. Oh, it's an unbelievable difference. I mean, that's one thing that is different. We talked about college and NFL is the edge rushers and how those guys change the game in affecting your quarterback and then affect your spacing and your route concepts because you always have to have in your mind, And how am I going to chip this edge rusher, whoever it might be? How are we going to slide there? How are we going to get the ball out of their hands? So it's a hell of a lot more fun to be on this side of it than it is on the other side preparing for guys like that, especially Miles. One of the, if not the greatest pass rusher in the history of the NFL, certainly in that conversation. Yeah, I mean, he's like he said this week, right? He's going for it. He wants the all-time record. He wants 200 sacks over Bruce Smith and all of that. Man, this is like the third time today it happened to me where I got on one subject and I was about to ask a question. You're getting old and forgetful like me. I am getting old, and I totally have banked out on what the hell I was going to say. Damn, I forgot what I was going to say. Help me out there. Gary says it's the fifth time it's happened today. You've even forgotten how many times it's happened. I mean, it really is. I've gotten to spots. I've listened to you. I wanted to ask a follow-up question. You said something interesting, and I go, Damn, what the hell did I just want to ask him? And I totally, totally, oh, here it is. I got it. I knew if I talked to Phillip Buffett. I'm not going to have to come back to them. I love it. The state of the college football right now, just because I feel like you're great to ask about this. What's your assessment of all this, the NIL, the movement, the transfer portal, all the money, all of it? It's certainly different than what we three grew up in. Well, coaches started it. That's refreshing to hear a coach say that. I mean, we started making a ton of money. Moving around? We could move wherever the hell we wanted. And we started it. It just eventually became like, well, wait a minute. And when I was at Oklahoma State as the offensive coordinator and I was making X amount and Brandon Whedon and Justin Blackman were getting just a scholarship, if this is a business, that's an awful business model. Those two guys made it go. I mean, without those two guys, I mean, you've got to be kidding me. And then you would hear of coaches that would, when the portal started, forget NIL, just the start of the portal, where you'd have Coach X, say to three players that were thinking about entering the portal, say, well, if you enter the portal, you're off our team. And then that coach is interviewing for other jobs. It's a hypocrisy at the highest level. So the reality is players deserve a piece of the pie, as do the coaches. The problem is until you get contractual obligations that holds people accountable, it's not going to be fixed. You want to sign a long-term contract like we do, you're bound to that contract and the organization owns you they own you and you are capital you'd have to be traded to change jobs right till it gets to that it's complete chaos there's no other way to put it and no one there is no cap who knows three years ago when i was leaving georgia kirby was fired up we have three million dollars holy cow we're fired up for three million dollars right like monroe freeling's coming out this year i think he was getting five thousand a month Monroe, if that was wrong, sorry. But I think it was $5,000 a month. $5,000 a month won't get you anything now, just in three years, just where it's gone. And I don't know if anybody knows where it's headed. But I do know that they've got to get it under wraps in terms of just the revenue sharing is great. The players deserve to get paid. They're the product. Where they go from here, good luck. But I certainly feel like the players deserve to get paid. What's your goal in year one with the Browns? Well, first off, I'll never put a cap on winning or losing. I think that's unfair to the players that we have and as an organization. All I'll say is this. When I looked at it, the back half of the year, for a team that at that time had three wins, only had three wins, you lose to the Bills at home by three, you beat the Steelers at home, and you go on the road and beat the Bengals, two divisional teams to finish with five wins. To me, that's all I needed to know right there and then. You're not really that far away. What if those were the three games to start the season? What if they had just lost the Bills by three like we did, whatever it was, or a field goal? Then you win the next two. You're 2-0 in the division. Momentum's a powerful thing, right, and belief in where you're at. That's all I needed to see with where they were at to say, we're really not that far away. Right. All right. I know we've got to let you go soon, but I'm just interested in this. This is kind of just a broad topic, philosophical offensive question that I'm just interested to hear. We always see these phases or themes in the NFL. We were in the, you know, a few years ago, it was the spread, throw screens, and teams were getting small and fast on defense, right? Like any themes or something that jump out to you in football right now that you just go, hmm, I think the game's going this way? We've certainly seen the resurgence of the running back in the run game, right? But anything that jumps out to you, an offensive genius guy? Well, I wouldn't go that far. I would just say that years ago there was a lot more. It was made a point like middle of the year. I think when I got to Oklahoma State in 11, the air raid offense was like pure progression. Is he open? Is he open? Is he A, B, C, D, 1, 2, 3, 4, cross the board. They didn't even half the time talk about coverage. Is he open? So I'd see Brandon Whedon when I got to Oklahoma State and make a throw to somebody that I would have never had his eyes even in that position. Well, he was open. I'm like, well, damn, you threw curl flat like a cloud look, or you threw this look. Well, he was open. They made a mistake. Well, so there was a lot more years ago pick a side. One-eye, two-eye, man, where you go with the ball. It was coverage first dictated throws. Well, it's come full circle now where it's much more sweep-the-board concepts, which is in college. coverage is a second piece of it that allows you to progress faster and move on. But it's really a lot more one, two, three, and move across and sweep the board than it is. And with all the disguises and the different looks and the time clock, because it's really a race against the rush, it's really not against coverage. So you're trying to spot that and be able to move on your progressions much more than it's ever been, just that part. That's a great answer, actually. And I do think that laterals are going to be a bigger part of our game. They seem like they're getting there. I believe that you get these zone looks. Now you've got to throw it to the guy you trust because you don't want that damn thing on the ground. But I do think that is going to become more and more in vogue with teams as you see more and more success with your ability to, first off, get the ball in someone's hands as the defense starts to collapse and get yourself an explosive play. You're talking about hook and ladder. Not just on third downs. Not just on fourth down. Not just as a gimmick play. Obviously, Ben started doing that a lot in Detroit. Give credit where credit's due. And then others have started to do that a little bit more. And it takes some stones to do it because if the ball ends up on the ground, you're going to get critiqued for it. But I can see the game going that way where plays have built in laterals. It seems like it. It just feels like it can go that way. You heard it here first from Todd Monk and more hook and ladder plays in 2026. Congratulations. Congratulations on your success. You've been a call this year now that you've said it. That's what I said. Now I'm stuck. Right now it's been like the guy talked about it. He's Todd Monk and we'll be back with more from the combine. All right, joining us now, the man who is currently the toast of the National Football League and only his second season as a head coach. He has his fingerprints all over the newest Lombardi Trophy, Super Bowl champion, Seattle Seahawks head coach Mike McDonald. Welcome. Thanks, guys. How are you feeling? Great. Great. Also a little bit behind, but yeah, but great right now. Do you feel like you didn't have time to enjoy what you've accomplished? Should you get thrown right back into the mix? No. I mean, what do you get one day? You get the parade. Yeah, you're right. Next day you're trying to find new offensive coordinator. Seriously. Seriously. All right. So did you take the Super Bowl trophy home at all? Do you get to take it home for like a night or anything like that? It should be. It should be passed around to the team, right? That should be a thing. Yeah. I actually haven't seen it since we left the party, so hopefully it still exists somewhere. But I don't know where it is. I think you should start that tradition. I think you should start it like the Stanley Cup, where it's like, you know, you take it for a night. Some people I'd be a little worried. Well, I'd be worried. If Devin Witherspoon got it, I'd be a little worried too. You don't know what he might do with it. Let's bring it back. There's some other ones I have in mind. Well, Sean Payton slept with it after Super Bowl XLIV. That's where I was kind of – I remember him saying that. And then Rob Gronkowski put a dent in it because he tried to take a bunt. On a baseball. Yeah, and he dented the Super Bowl. I remember that. Yeah, exactly right. All right, so you ended 2024 on a pretty high note. You guys played good football at the end of the season, just missed the playoffs, right? When during this year did you kind of look at it and go like, okay, or maybe it was before the year, but when did you go like, well, we got a chance here to be one of the top teams in football? Well, I didn't know what it felt like to be a top team in football as the head coach. So I think what made our team unique and our experience was, hey, this is our vision, what we were trying to create. This is the type of team we want to be. And shoot, as the head coach, I'm in this thing with you guys about learning and growing and trying to hit those daily standards that we wanted to hit and just really kept it that simple. And the guys just kept answering the bell, their spirit and attitude every day, the intent that they operated with, the environment they created. It was a fun environment that we could get after, but also have a good time. It just was pretty special early on. They started in the offseason and just kept stacking them really throughout training camp and into the season. So you didn't have experience to know that this is like a Super Bowl type of team. Yeah, it's like when do you know you win the Super Bowl? I don't know, like five seconds left in the Super Bowl when we were playing is getting tackled and bounced. That's when you realize it. Right. How were you feeling the night before? I asked John Schneider about this yesterday, but you know the game's the next day. Scale of 1 to 10, what level of confidence did you have that you guys had pulled it off? It felt like I normally feel probably maybe up maybe 10% of your anxiety rate for a defensive guy. That's kind of how I think. I'm always worried about plays and stuff like that. So it felt normal. won't. So I think one thing that we wanted to get across to our team was, I thought, early in the year to try to make them understand that, hey, we've earned the right to expect to win games when we play our best football. And so we're always going to be really confident going to games, assuming that we're prepared and we can go play our style of ball and then go let it rip and trust the results. Yeah. Do you ever also just take a seat back or a second to go like, holy crap, my division. Holy crap, the coach is in my division. It's pretty awesome. It's unreal. Yeah. I think we all kind of take pride in the fact that we've got a really tough division. It'll be exciting to see what Mike does down in Arizona. Yeah, it's going to be, as long as we want to do it, it's going to be a lot of great battles. What's the mindset? Like when you know like, okay, it's this week. I've got to deal with, you know, Psycho Shanahan. Yeah. Psycho McVay, right? Yeah. How does that go for you? A lot of high blood pressure, you know. Right. It's the NFL, you know, but, like, this is what you sign up for. This is why you do it. It's not exactly fun sometimes, you know, on how you prepare. But it what it is I mean it just like hey like let go You know we played some good games against those guys We played some not games And I think it like the fun part is how you going to evolve how you're going to respond, how you're going to build your systems to counteract what they do. And they're probably doing the same thing against us. And you've got to try to stay ahead of the game. You've mentioned that the Thursday night game, Week 16, against the Rams was kind of the turning point, like a key moment in the season as it pushed you guys into the number one seed and it kind of went from there. Key moment in that game, the two-point conversion that Zach Charbonnet picked up in the end zone. What are your thoughts on the Rams' proposal that they've made? And there's two aspects to it, obviously. How a backward pass is handled if it's deflected past the line of scrimmage and the amount of time before they can press the button to start a replay review. Any thoughts on what the Rams are proposing in the aftermath of that game? I heard that they proposed a rule change to it, but I actually have no idea how it works. I can tell you what it is. I don't know the details. For a backward pass that is deflected by the defense and goes past the line of scrimmage, it gets treated like a fumble. So if you're under two minutes, if you're on a try, if it's fourth down, it can only be recovered at the spot by the person who initiated the backward pass. There's a lot going on. And it's never going to happen again. That's the other part of it. When's this ever going to happen again? The backward pass gets deflected past the line of scrimmage. From my experience with the rule changes, that there's always unintended consequences behind rule changes. Yeah, definitely. So you do have to take it through the process and vet it out and stress test it and all that. So I'm sure there's something going on, and there's something more to it. I don't know. There's a time mechanism to it. That's what I thought it was really more about, the time mechanism. And that's the key. And I think it's either 40 seconds or a minute that there's a hard limit on when they can initiate a replay review. And just from your perspective, as this is all happening, and you think it's a failed two-point conversion, Yeah. All right, we got to go kick. How did you process the information? How did you even know something was going on where you may end up with those two points? Yeah, I was like, all right, we're down two. Like, how many more minutes are left in the game? Let's go. You know, we're about to go back on defense. So I'm thinking, you know, how we're going to treat that drive. So it was kind of par for the course at that point. We're going to have several possessions left in the game. And then, you know, one of the officials came and kind of pulled me aside. hey, we're taking a look at the plays. This is probably a possible consequence of what's going on. This is what's going to change. And so then, all right, new information. Let's go take that. Okay, now it's a tie game. Let's rock and roll. We still got to go play great defense. You can't just let them go right down the field. Right. Yeah, I mean, it's probably shocking. You're probably like, what, huh? You're reviewing what? Yeah, you're definitely surprised. Yeah, for sure. I mean, we knew that Zach picked the ball up. Yeah. But you weren't saying, like, hey, we picked the ball up good. And from the ball's on the ground, I'm like, ah, pick it up. Right, right. How do you – one of the things that is a pet peeve of mine, as he knows this, is we've gone out of hand with fourth down. Fourth down. We're just going to go for it. The analytics, I've yet to see it say not go for it. It's never. Never. Every game I watch, the analytics say go for it. 51-49, it's fourth and 27. Go for it. But whatever. I'm being funny there. You kick the field goal. The whole damn Super Bowl. You never did it, right? I mean, so, like, what's your approach? Do you always listen to analytics in those departments? Yeah. You do? You do. I think, yeah, it's funny. Like, you're so conservative on fourth down. I'm like, oh, I didn't know that we were conservative on fourth down. I mean, we have a fourth down model that we go into games with. Okay. And there is a go on, like, 95% of our drives at a certain point. And, you know, throughout wherever the ball is. And there's a formula behind it. and the great thing about being a defensive guy is the offensive play caller doesn't have to worry about what the go is on fourth down. He can call the game, and then I can let him know as soon as possible on what the go is so he can call it accordingly, and it's kind of a seamless communication. I think it's actually helpful in that point, but there's very frequently that we're up for a go to say those things didn't hit, and those decisions there, it was like, hey, look, to win the game, the model doesn't really suggest us going for it, so let's kick the field goal and let's rock and roll. So, yeah, you didn't buck the system there and go, like, it's saying go for it, but I'm just going to kick the field goal because I think this is the way the game's going to go. That's happened a few times, but I don't remember it being like that. Those tough decisions throughout the game, those are pretty straightforward. Right. You mentioned the play caller, and you said earlier the day after the parade you had to go find a new offensive coordinator. You went outside the building with Brian Florey. Right. Tell us about what his role will be and how important of a hire that is in a system where the head coach is the defensive guy. Right. Well, we went into the process thinking continuity, and so your initial reaction is, hey, if we can keep it in-house, great. We also want to do what's best for the team. And Brian was someone that was kind of in our periphery for a few years via relationships that I have had on the defensive side of the ball. And then we finally had the opportunity to talk to him. And as you start to visualize what our staff could look like, where we could take our offense, his vision for how we want us to operate, just felt like, man, we're really aligned on this thing and we can keep the continuity that's so important with the system and take this thing kind of the next evolution of our offense. So I'm really excited about it. Again, as a defensive guy, there's been a lot of times where Brian's leading the charge on offense, and I think he's a great man for the job. And we've got a great rest of our staff, too, that's going to play a huge part of kind of pushing everything forward. And that process is about to start. I'm like, I'm really fired up for March to get going so we can see what this thing's going to look like. How would you best describe the Seahawks system offensively? Decisive, shocking, relentless. We want to operate with pace and take the ball fast and run off the ball and shock you with our effort and finish plays in a dominant position. We're obviously going to be a wide zone team. I mean, if you want to get into all the schematics behind it, but how we play should stay the same. and really that's my job to make sure that comes to life. Yeah. Did you watch the – have you watched the Super Bowl back yet? Yeah, I haven't watched it yet. No? I can't do it yet. I haven't that much time, but something about it, like I just can't pull the trigger. You can't do it yet. I do plan on watching the TV copy and watching the commercials and sitting down and watching the whole thing through. Okay, this is why I'm bringing this up. I want to tell you this story. I think you'll enjoy it real quick, right? The pregame show, did you know Kyle Shanahan was on this year, the pregame show? Yeah, I did know. And he's my buddy, and we go way back. But either way, they ask NBC, ask him to do the pregame show. And then he calls me up, and, hey, I'm going to do the pregame show. And I'm like, cool, cool. And, hey, we'll talk about some stuff, and we'll talk about Mike McDonald and the defense. And he was actually very self-deprecating about himself playing. Like, I don't know if I'm the guy to talk about it. The last two times we played him, I haven't scored a touchdown, right? But at the same time, he was like, I don't know what I want to say because I don't know what I want him to know that I might know. Whatever he says, we're going to be listening. And he goes, if the roles were reversed and I was in the Super Bowl, and he goes, if Mike McDonald was doing the pregame show, at some point after the game, I'm going to watch to make sure to see what he's saying about my offense, right? So I thought that was hilarious that he was there. It's just constant gamesmanship between two competitors. Look, I mean, this guy's an all-time great coach in our league, and I think hopefully he shares the same sentiment, but we have a ton of respect for him. He does. And there's plenty of times where I can think of many plays in games where he's come in and put up quite a few points in yards too that we're looking at our wounds as well. So it's going to be a great back and forth for years to come. He knew you guys were going to win. He didn't want you to win because you're in his stadium and all that. But his pick at the end was the Seattle's going to win, but I'm going to root for New England. So you can have that on them. I can respect that. And you were in their locker room. That made it even worse. Fred Warner was doing segments from the 49ers locker room that you guys were in. He was in front of his locker room that someone else from the Seahawks was using. Wow, that's kind of crazy. It was Twilight Zone-y for sure. Yeah, it was. It was kind of weird. Normally you're used to the other locker room. Right. All right, so now how do you readjust your schedule here? Yeah, you're a Super Bowl winner. Like you said, you feel like you had four seconds to celebrate, and here you are. Do you just have to kick everything down the road a little bit here? How does it all work out for you? Well, we're definitely going to have to adjust some things on timetable, and I think there's an opportunity to get creative with how we're going to build the off-season program, which is exciting. It's going to be fun to work with our strength guys and see how we can design it when guys come back and how we build them back up, how many practices we want, when we do mini camp, all that type of stuff. So that's kind of what's going on in the back of your mind. Yeah, right. Trying to visualize what it's going to look like. But using all the expertise, too, like getting with Sam Rams in and kind of getting everybody in the same room when we have that opportunity and say, hey, like, what would this thing look like? And let's go make this thing come to life. Yeah. There's something unfolding that I've never seen in the 50-plus years I've been following the NFL. The Super Bowl champion is for sale. How do you keep that from distracting others? How do you keep it from distracting you? Well, I don't think much has changed after the announcement as people might anticipate going in. I mean, this is something that we knew was going to happen at some point. And then, you know, obviously there were rumors about going through the Super Bowl. And so our day-to-day operation is going to remain consistent. So that's what we're focused on. And I think our players have done a great – like they really just – it's been seamless with them. It hasn't really been even a point of conversation. So there will be a time at some point, whenever that happens, where that's going to change. But right now, it's just, let's rock and roll. Let's go become the best team we can. You've got, oddly enough, too, a lot of cap space for a team that won the damn Super Bowl. Yeah, it's pretty cool. Yeah, it really is. I mean, it's rare, I feel like, to come up here and go, what? The team that won the Super Bowls in the top six in football? Yeah. Right? So, I mean, I know you don't want to make any proclamations, but, you know, Any areas of your team you're willing to share here where you want to address? I think the exciting part about this week is the behind-the-scenes conversations with all the people, all the players, and all the stakeholders and all the things. Many of those conversations I'm not part of right now. So when we get back, be able to huddle with John and everybody and say, okay, this is where we feel like we want to move forward or progress this conversation or whatever. and then take it from there. So it's going to be a fun process, and I think we're just getting started with it. But I think you've just got to stay disciplined to what you do, what you believe in, taking it step by step. You get out of hair yourself, I think that's kind of dangerous. Super Bowl MVP is going to be a free agent. Yeah, it's part of that process. How do you navigate those waters? Let's go through the process. We clearly want Ken back, and I think Ken loves being a Seahawk, But let's stick to the process behind it and see what happens. All right, last thing, because I know you're like, all right, to hell with you two. I've got to get out of here. But I am always interested in this. I think I even asked you, like, you haven't gotten to watch these guys on film yet, right? So you just take this as a part of what, just getting to know them in person, some of the college guys? Yeah, normally you're like, hey, it's a face to a tape. Now it's the tape to a face in the person. So it's flipped a little bit. I'm watching the clips. I'm like, that was a pretty good play. This guy's pretty good, you know? Right. But it's a great opportunity to get to know these guys, you know, at a different level, as brief as it is. It's just like, hey, it's just a little edge that you're trying to chase. Maybe get an extra data point to help you make the best decision possible. The look test. The look test is big always, right? Yeah, I don't know. I think also you've got to go in with the mindset of, like, our scouts are on it. They nail these things. They've been working with these guys for years. We're just here to try to help out the process. Right. And let's go from there. Well, you've been nailing it so far after only two seasons. The Super Bowl champion with a team that I know you probably don't want to go there, but looks to be good enough to be right back there again. You can win a Super Bowl in another division rival stadium next year at SoFi Stadium. Wouldn't that be something? I've heard about that. Yeah, here we go. All right, he's Mike McDonald. We'll be back with more from the Combine. Great, thanks.