New coach. Brand new training methods (camps).
Seahawks coach Mike McDonald plans to have his new team practice with the Tennessee Titans for two days in Nashville in August during this preseason, just as he did as a longtime assistant with the Baltimore Ravens.
The Seahawks announced Tuesday that they will complete their usual training camp practice at team headquarters in Renton on the evening of Aug. 13 before traveling to Tennessee to practice and play against the Titans on Aug. 14 and 15.
Then, on Saturday, August 17th, the Seahawks and Titans will play a preseason game in Nashville.
This will be the first time the Seahawks have held joint practices at training camp since the Seattle franchise first began playing NFL games in 1976.
It’s a league-wide trend, but McDonald’s predecessor, Pete Carroll, didn’t want to join him in his 14 years leading the Seahawks until January.
“There’s a lot of good things,” McConald said. “We respect the way the team is run. We know a lot of the coaching staff over there and we know how they run things.”
McDonald’s Ravens were a familiar opponent to the Titans in the AFC, plus Titans defensive coordinator Denard Wilson was McDonald’s defensive backs coach on Baltimore’s defense last season.
“This is really an opportunity to control the tempo, control the practice, and get the guys in a high-focus environment to be ready for the season opener,” McDonald said. “It’s more controllable than an actual game practice.”
In Nashville, Titans coach Brian Callahan said he made visits around the league before and after the draft in late April and has begun looking for teams to hold joint workouts in August. Callahan also noted that the Titans staff is familiar with McDonald from his time in Baltimore and that the NFL has scheduled the Seahawks and Titans for the second preseason game.
“It’s great,” Callahan told reporters in Tennessee. “(We) were looking for guys that we knew well, and sometimes the league grants that request, sometimes it doesn’t. But for the most part, if you ask to work with a team, they try to make it happen. … So we asked to work with Seattle, even though we knew they were likely going to be a preseason opponent.”
“Then I had a little chat with Mike in the spring and they were all in favor.
“I’m really looking forward to it. We’re going to have some great practices. I love the joint practices. I’d love to do two or three weeks of them if I could. It’ll add some variety to the training camp and put the players against other players and other strategies.”
McDonald is implementing an entirely new strategy for the Seahawks on offense, defense and special teams heading into next season.
“We’re still figuring out who will play in the preseason and at what cost,” McDonald said, “but if we do it the right way, (joint practices) will create some really good competition and be a great opportunity to keep each other sharp and get ready for the regular season.”
McDonald was set to be the Ravens defensive coordinator for the 2022 and 2023 seasons. Baltimore held two joint practices with Washington last August.
He served as an intern coach with the Ravens under John Harbaugh in 2014 and was a defensive assistant with the Ravens from 2015-2020.
“That’s what we did pretty much every season that I was there,” McDonald said. “Again, if you handled it right, you had some great experiences. And to say the least, there were some that weren’t. So it’s really about controlling the environment and understanding what the overall team is focused on.”
“We can get it done. We’re with the right team.”
Seahawks new left guard Laken Tomlinson, who has been doing a lot of joint drills in training camp, played nine seasons in the NFL with the Detroit Lions, New York Jets and San Francisco 49ers.
“Oh, that’s familiar to me,” he said. “It’s another tool to hone my Ironman, so that’s great.”
The Seahawks open their 2024 preseason game against the Los Angeles Chargers on Aug. 10. Seattle’s new special teams coach, Jay Harbaugh, is the son of new Chargers head coach Jim Harbaugh, who hired McDonald in 2021 for one season as defensive coordinator at Michigan.
The Seahawks will return from a preseason game against the Chargers, have Sunday off, then practice at training camp in Renton on Monday, Aug. 12 and Tuesday, Aug. 13 before departing for Tennessee. The Seahawks will hold two practices in Nashville on Aug. 14 and practice there until their preseason game on the 17th. They will return home and return to training camp in Renton on Monday, Aug. 19.
“It’s tough to always be playing against yourself, especially all through OTAs,” McDonald said. “It’s good to see another offense and it’ll be good for our offense to see what they’re doing defensively. It’s good to see a different style and it’s good for us as a team to just step away and do some team-building.”
