Jan 27, 2026
3 min read
Brock and Salk discuss how the Seattle Seahawks showed buy-in to head coach Mike McDonald during their run to the Super Bowl.
Brock and Salk: Seahawks have embraced McDonald's message
January 26, 2026, 09:09 |Annotated: 9:28
As many coaches do, Mike Macdonald has a motto that he implements that is important to the program he runs.
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That's not that the players will always purchase, but the seatle season shows their work under their two years.
How the Seahawks took their coach's messages was on full display in their 31-27 victory over the Los Angeles Rams in the NFC Championship, according to Seattle's Brock and Salk.Hosts Brock Howard and Mike Salk discussed how Seattle stands behind the coach's comments Monday.
"We spent a lot of time this year talking to Mike McDonald and learning about the words that are important to him, because he repeats them over and over again," Salk said."And what are you always telling me about this?"
"I promise you it's in that locker room (Time 10) when coach repeats something to us," Hurd replied.
Salk said the two Macdonald mantras he saw shine through during the NFC Championship were the "12 as one" philosophy that Macdonald referenced several times after the game and the "MOB" philosophical mindset that has become a popular saying among players.
“Both of them blew me away in that game,” Salik said.12 as an element that I think is well worth showing off."
Salk admitted there was one bright moment when M.O.B.mentality wasn't followed when cornerback Riq Woolen was called for a potentially catastrophic holding down a third-quarter stop that allowed the Rams to drive and score a touchdown to make it 31-27 heading into the third quarter.
"But other than that, they found ways to refocus," he said."I thought they didn't care about the noise, they didn't care about the other team. They took care of themselves. They came back from bad games and made good ones. Those two mantras were very visible last night."
Huard agreed and added how the team got key contributions from unlikely sources along the way, pointing to the play of third-string tackle Amari Kight in the NFC Divisional Round against San Francisco and running back George Holani's return from injured reserve in the NFC Championship to help fill the void left by a season-ending injury to Zach Charbonnet.
Another example of the Seahawks buying Huard was how cornerback Devon Witherspoon bounced back and made big plays late against Los Angeles.After getting burned early in the passing game, Witherspoon threw Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford in the end zone in a row to force a turnover on the Rams' best chance to take the lead late in the fourth quarter.
"You don't do what Devon Witherspoon does without that buy-in, without having faith and belief in what Mike talked about about stacking plays and moving on to the next one," Huard said.“That secondary was never there, even in the game where (the Rams) had 590 yards the last time they were away (Week 16), it was a lot more of a middle of the field (offense), a Puka (Nacua) scrimmage zone, there are no-look passes (by Stafford).
“Yesterday (Josh) had Jobe (hit twice), Volen (hit twice) and Spoon (took a hit) three times.It was all about shooting and blasting them around, and we'll go one-on-one with you.
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