Ravens Culture Under John Harbaugh Has Allowed Mike Macdonald To Thrive
When your organization is the best in football, other teams around the league will do everything they can to try and mimic your success.
That's the current status of the Baltimore Ravens as they prepare for the divisional round of the NFL Playoffs after earning the league's best record in 2023.
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Before they hit the field though next week, several assistant coaches are being scheduled to interview for head coaching jobs all across the country. Arguably the most popular name is Ravens' defensive coordinator Mike Macdonald.
Macdonald has been with the Ravens since 2014 and has had different runs with the Harbaugh family. After rotating as linebackers and defensive backs coach with the Ravens, the 36-year-old Boston native joined John's brother Jim at Michigan where he was named defensive coordinator.
After just one season, Macdonald was back with older brother John and has been running the defense since then.
Now, the architect of the NFL's more fearsome defense is garnering a lot of attention around NFL circles for head coaching jobs.
It's an honor that says more about the culture that the Ravens have instilled as an entire franchise.
"We’re so fortunate and lucky to be around, first of all, the organization," Macdonald said Thursday. "The organization, when you think about it, it’s made up of people, and the alignment that comes from the top here when I was an intern and [executive vice president] Ozzie [Newsome] being the general manager and starting with him, starting with [owner] Steve [Bisciotti] [and] now working with [executive vice president & general manager] Eric [DeCosta] – really everybody throughout the building."
Baltimore's front office has always been strong. They have gone through just three coaches in the 27 years of the franchise's existence. That kind of stability allows for growth and greatness to be cultivated everywhere.
The most important part of the entire machine though centers around the head coach. John Harbaugh joined the Ravens in 2008 and has won 160 games, a Super Bowl title, and a Coach of the Year Award.
To someone like Macdonald, Harbaugh's leadership has been everything to him and something he'll take with him if he ends up leaving for a head coaching job.
"The person that he (Harbaugh) is, and the leader that he is, you just have great role models that you look up to and that are high integrity [and] high character individuals and just phenomenal leaders," Macdonald explained. "So, they’re easy guys to follow. If and when that opportunity presents itself, obviously you want to model that behavior after them.”
No one knows if Macdonald will end up leaving Baltimore to run a team of his own, but with the way the Ravens run things, it would just be another chance for the next up-and-coming coach to be developed by the organization.
