Ravens' Mike Macdonald has become NFL's hottest young defensive coach in 15 months since Dolphins disaster
Dec. 29—By Childs Walker — childs.walker@baltsun.com
December 29, 2023 at 5:30 a.m.
As Mike Macdonald watched the football fly over and past his rattled defensive backs — 33 yards, 48 yards, 60 yards — he could not devise a way to make it stop.
He had vaulted up the coaching ranks, catching John Harbaugh's eye as a fresh-faced Ravens assistant, building a dominant defense in one season at Michigan and returning to Baltimore at age 35 to take command of a hallowed defensive culture built by the likes of Ray Lewis, Ed Reed and Rex Ryan.
His predecessor and former boss, Don "Wink" Martindale, was a swaggering presence whose play-calling — all-out blitzes, cornerbacks on islands — fit his personality. Macdonald arrived with a more buttoned-up tone and the promise that he might bring more subtle shadings to a defense that had come apart after three excellent seasons under Martindale.
Instead, it was blowing up right before his eyes as the Miami Dolphins roared back from a 35-14 deficit at the start of the fourth quarter to stun every person on the Ravens' sideline and every patron in the stands at M&T Bank Stadium. The final numbers from Sept. 18, 2022 — 28 fourth-quarter points, 469 passing yards and six touchdowns for Tua Tagovailoa — were ugly, and so were the postgame assessments of Macdonald's work.
"They don't know what they're doing," Ryan barked the morning after on ESPN. "This new hot-shot coordinator is terrible."
Macdonald did not believe that but knew this was no time to get defensive. "That's not who we want to be, that's not our standard," he said four days after the catastrophe. "It wasn't good enough."
Fifteen months later, as the Ravens prepare to play the Dolphins again in a game that will likely determine the AFC's No. 1 seed, estimations of Macdonald have changed remarkably.
The Ravens have allowed the fewest points in the league, the second fewest yards per play, and they're first in sacks despite having entered the season without a superstar pass rusher. Macdonald's defense painted its "Mona Lisa" on Christmas night, forcing five turnovers and rolling up 32 pressures against the previously unstoppable San Francisco 49ers.
In a rare display of unbridled emotion, Macdonald pumped both his fists, bellowed and nearly took defensive line coach Anthony Weaver's hand off with a high five after the Ravens clinched their 33-19 win with a final interception.
"You're just juiced about the guys, and the performance that the guys put out there, and it just came out," he said Thursday in typically understated fashion.
The performance threw jet fuel on Macdonald's growing reputation as the finest young defensive mind in football.
"MVP of the Night @Ravens DC ! Mike McDonald," gushed ESPN analyst and former NFL defensive end Marcus Spears on Twitter. "Man put together a Masterpiece tonight!!!"
"That game was much more about Mike Macdonald putting Brock Purdy in pure hell than anything else," USA Today's Doug Farrar tweeted after watching the All-22 film. "One of the most amazing, diverse and sequential defensive game plans you'll see all season long."
With at least seven NFL teams likely to be looking for new head coaches over the next month, Macdonald's name is one of the hottest on speculative candidate lists.
"It's hard to ignore, and it's an honor to hear about it," Macdonald said. "It's such a unique opportunity when it does come up. For guys that know me, I'm a one-track guy. It's very difficult for me to do two things at once, so you try your best to focus on the things we need to focus on, which is the next game and getting our guys in position to win. To have that opportunity or have your name come up like that, it's really a reflection of our coaches and our staff together."
He laughed and shook his head when asked if he's received any phone calls from interested teams.
"We've got to finish out what we started here, but if that were to happen, it would be much-deserved," safety Kyle Hamilton said. "He's a young, bright star in our league. Just like the players are executing at a high level, so is he. He's got a great plan in place every week, and he's open to criticism for sure, when we're being a little sensitive and bratty about stuff. But he hears us when we're talking to him, and I think that's a great quality."
Ravens fans revert to gallows humor each time they see another adulatory post about their defensive coordinator. "No, he's terrible," they mock insist, hoping to chase suitors off the scent.
But they know the truth, that the 36-year-old Macdonald, with considerable help from a rising group of stars led by Roquan Smith, Hamilton and Justin Madubuike, has built a defense that might stand among the best in Ravens history. And he will likely be rewarded, if not this offseason then sometime soon, with his own team to shape.
Macdonald's tactical signatures have become familiar. He's more deceiver than bully, spinning "lies" to the offense in the form of cornerbacks blitzing from the edge and 350-pound nose tackles dropping into zone coverage. Defensive tackles stunt around inside linebackers. Nickel backs delay an extra beat before rushing from the slot. Was that 338-pound Travis Jones lining up at defensive end against the fleet 49ers? Yes, and he helped bother Purdy into an interception.
"They do a lot of varied defenses," Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel, one of the best young offensive minds in the sport, told Miami reporters. "I've been so impressed with the defense now compared to the last time we played them, and they were a very good defense then."
Players dig the unfamiliar roles Macdonald thrusts them into, the way he asks them to attack at the moment the offense least expects it. Even if an opponent gouges them early, as the 49ers did, they trust they'll get in more licks by the end of the night.
"The way Mike called the game is second to none in this league," Smith said after the win. "I just love playing in this defense."
The Pro Bowl linebacker, who speaks Macdonald's plans into existence on the field, expanded Thursday: "I just think he's a wizard. He finds out what teams struggle with, teams' weaknesses and our strengths, and he's able to make those into a game plan situation. And just having everybody on the same page throughout the week and on game day, just ready to rock and roll. I think it's pretty sweet."
Players gush about how tactics that look complicated on game day sound simple during the week when Macdonald teaches them.
"He just makes sense," outside linebacker Odafe Oweh said. "If something works, why would you not want to do it?"
The Dolphins loss last year was an early nadir for Macdonald, one that could have signaled a rocky debut season. Instead, his defense, boosted by the midseason addition of Smith, turned into one of the best in the league in the second half.
Harbaugh said the Ravens took the right message from that collapse against the team they'll face again Sunday.
"It was a tough pill to swallow for us, and all credit to them for the way they executed and made those plays," he said. "We learned a lot. We learned a lot about ourselves [and] our coverages. We weren't anywhere near where we needed to be execution-wise at the time, and they're capable of doing that to anybody at any time."
As the Ravens prepare to deal with the same Dolphins playmakers (and a few new ones) who can score from any point on the field, Macdonald said he hasn't explicitly referenced the last meeting.
"Personally, of course you're going to learn from that game last year," he said. "Definitely, that game, you look back and we made a lot of corrections after that game to take strides for the rest of the year. Unfortunately, [games like that] are going to happen in the NFL, and it's about how you respond as a team and taking responsibility for things you can improve on. I think as a team, and definitely individually, that was our approach, but that was a long time ago, man."
Baltimore Sun reporter Brian Wacker contributed to this article.
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Week 17
Dolphins at Ravens
Sunday, 1 p.m.
TV: CBS
Radio: 97.9 FM, 101.5 FM, 1090 AM
Line: Ravens by 3 1/2
