Less than 24 hours after coaching the Seattle Seahawks to their second Super Bowl title in 12 years, Mike Macdonald already has his eyes on the 2026 season.
Macdonald had the luxury the last two seasons of he and his Seahawks floating under the radar as one of the other teams in the NFC, unheralded and unproven.
After Sunday's 29-13 demolition of the New England Patriots in Super Bowl LX, Seattle is now the team to beat, and Macdonald knows it.
"We use the term 'chasing edges' here in Seattle," Macdonald said Monday at the Super Bowl handover news conference. "You have to live like that, you know, you can't be copying everybody else. We want to be on the forefront of things. We know that -- we know that we're target No. 1 now.
"But again, it's really gonna be our mentality for us to keep pushing the envelope with our personnel, where we can take things at our speed, you know? And so, there's gonna be times where we feel like teams get a beat on us, and we're gonna have to move and shake, and that's happened several times throughout this season as well. And that's just how we operate."
The Seahawks entered the 2025 campaign with 60-to-1 odds, barely on any one's radar to win the Super Bowl, conference or even the NFC West. That won't be the case in 2026.
Seattle put on an all-time display in Super Bowl LX, shutting out the Patriots for the first 47 minutes of the game and sacking MVP runner-up Drake Maye six times in an overwhelming performance.
"It's funny, I told the team, on Saturday night, you know, I got a bad habit of hemming and hawing in my office, and with the rest of our coaching staff, thinking about plays and what we're gonna run, and how it's gonna go," Macdonald said Monday, "and then you get around the guys, and you see them, and all of a sudden, all those worries kind of go away magically.
"I think that speaks to how they played. Became very clear very early that they were a determined bunch that were gonna play our style ball last night. At that point, really, you know, the place became irrelevant. It was really the style of how the guys played, just to play that relentlessly throughout the game was really impressive, and really proud of those guys. That was a remarkable game by our defense."
Macdonald and the Seahawks brass will take some time before turning the page to the 2026 season. Sam Darnold and Super Bowl MVP Kenneth Walker III have to return from Disneyland. The team needs to have its well-deserved parade, scheduled for Wednesday in Seattle.
But with the NFL Scouting Combine in two weeks and Seattle down its offensive coordinator -- Klint Kubiak confirmed Sunday he's joining the Raiders as their next head coach -- Macdonald and Co.'s next title pursuit will begin in short order.
"We're gonna enjoy this one, I can promise you that," Macdonald told NFL Network Insiders Ian Rapoport and Mike Garafolo. "We do have to hire an offensive coordinator, so that is a process we're going to probably start as early as tomorrow, but we're gonna enjoy the heck out of it in the meanwhile.
"If you don't enjoy it, I mean, what are you doing? What are you doing this whole thing for?"
