Tom Rock: Seahawks' coaches know what type of coach, person the Giants are getting in John Harbaugh
Seahawks head coach Mike Macdonald watches from the sideline during the first half of the NFC Championship against the Rams on Jan. 25, 2026, in Seattle. Credit: AP/Lindsey Wasson
SAN JOSE, Calif. — It’s easy to look at the Patriots in this year’s Super Bowl and call them the template for what the Giants want to be next season. Maybe not all the way to this level on the brink of a championship, but the similarities are intriguing. The Patriots turned their fortunes around quickly from a three-win season a year ago, they did it on the back of a second-year quarterback who had very similar rookie stats to what Jaxson Dart put up, and they added a veteran, established coach who had a proven organizational system.
But if you really want to see what the Giants could — perhaps even should — look like moving forward under John Harbaugh, don’t watch New England in Sunday’s big game.
Watch the other guys.
“Mike (Macdonald) has brought a lot of the elements of what we did in Baltimore under John out here to Seattle,” Seahawks assistant head coach Leslie Frazier told Newsday on Wednesday. “The way we practice, our meetings, the food trucks after wins. There are a lot of things that he learned under John. There are a lot of things that we do here that make this like Baltimore Northwest.”
In other words: Harbaugh Northwest.
Macdonald began his NFL career as a coaching intern under John Harbaugh in 2014 and other than one season in which he was defensive coordinator at the University of Michigan (under Jim Harbaugh) he spent his entire time in Baltimore until he became head coach of the Seahawks at the start of the 2024 season.
“I don’t think it’s possible to overstate his influence on me,” Macdonald said. “I love John Harbaugh. He is one of my biggest mentors. He was willing to take chances on me when other people weren’t and invested in me and my career throughout. He stretched the things I felt like I could do. He had a vision for me and my career that I probably didn’t have for myself. All of those principles that are part of his program, that he is about as a person, resonated with me. Those are a lot of the foundational principles that we brought to Seattle.”
The Seahawks even have one of their own Harbaughs. Jay Harbaugh, son of Chargers coach Jim and nephew of John, is their special teams coordinator. He described a Harbaugh-led team as having certain traits: Stopping the run, playing with physicality, always being smart and sound situationally. It’s what the Seahawks have become. What he now expects the Giants to become too.
“He is a great builder of locker rooms and teams and cultures and all that stuff,” Jay Harbaugh said. “From the outside it looks like (the Giants) have a lot of talent there, some players who really stand out, so I would imagine there is going to be a feeling of togetherness, taking that talent and really turning it into a team. That’s one of his superpowers. I am super excited for him.”
Jay added that in conversations with his uncle he’s sensed that he is too.
“He is the type of person who will take whatever the situation is and make it really good,” Jay Harbaugh said. “He’s gonna crush it. He has been in one place for a long time but he is really adaptable. He seems really excited and energized. That’s not to say that he was lacking any of that, but he just loves a challenge. He loves when people maybe don’t believe in things being possible. That is an energizing thing to hear in our family in general. He is more than up for the task and I think he is going to do a really great job.”
Jay, of course, is used to all of that. He grew up in it. It is in his blood all the way back to his Grandpa Jack, the patriarch of the coaching family.
“It’s like water to a fish,” he said of football. “You are just in it. It’s what you know.”
Clearly not everyone does. So, besides simply watching the Seahawks play and see how they function, what would those who worked under Harbaugh in Baltimore tell the current and future Giants about what they will get from this experience?
“You are going to be part of a very disciplined football team because he stresses discipline,” said Frazier, a former head coach himself with the Vikings who spent the 2016 season as the secondary coach for the Ravens. “But you are also going to be in a place where you are going to grow as a man. You will get better as a football player for sure, but because of the way John goes about it you will become a better man also. That to me is unique to John. He invests in the person not just the football player.”
“You are going to hit the ground running,” Jay Harbaugh said. “There is going to be a focus on real substance, football and other things that help you win and none of the things that don’t. He’s really ruthless in terms of making sure that the main thing stays the main thing. It’s going to be tough but intelligent. You are going to work hard but not to the point where you are wearing the guys out too much. You are going to be coached but not unfairly and not without compassion. He really is in the sweet spot in terms of being challenging but fair and compassionate, being honest but not cold-hearted.
“If there is a better guy out there at striking the balance at all the things that are the responsibility of a head coach I’d like to see him because he is really good.”
Macdonald and the Seahawks are trying to replicate that and doing a pretty good job of it. It may even win them a Lombardi Trophy.
The Giants won’t have to be a facsimile, though. They’re getting the original.
Seattle may be “Ravens Northwest” but the Giants are now Harbaugh on the Hudson.
Tom Rock began covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and became its NFL columnist in 2022. He previously was Newsday's Giants beat writer beginning in 2008.
