Ask Mike Macdonald about the trio of outstanding free-agent signings the Seahawks made in March, adding quarterback Sam Darnold, receiver Cooper Kupp and outside linebacker DeMarcus Lawrence in a span of less than a week, as well as the midseason trade to add receiver and returner Rashid Shaheed and Seattle's head coach will quickly point to work done by Seahawks general manager and president of football operations John Schneider and his player personnel department to make those moves happen.

Ask Schneider about those players thriving this season, including Pro Bowl honors for Darnold, Lawrence and Shaheed, and Seattle's longtime GM will point to the connections the coaching staff had to those players—Klink Kubiak with Darnold in San Francisco and with Shaheed in New Orleans, Aden Durde with Lawrence in Dallas and Jake Peetz with Kupp in Los Angeles—giving the Seahawks insight into the type of players they were signing, beyond what is obvious on tape. Or Schneider would point to the job that Macdonald and his staff have done putting those players in positions to thrive with their new team.

"We had so many people that had worked with those players and knew the people," Schneider said. "So we knew exactly what we were bringing into the locker room. AD, Klint, knowing exactly the person, the competitor."

The same could be said for the numerous young players having great seasons for the Seahawks, from Pro-Bowlers like Jaxon Smith-Njigba and Devon Witherspoon to emerging stars like Byron Murphy II, AJ Barner, Grey Zabel and Nick Emmanwori. Macdonald will tell you that Schneider and company did a hell of a job evaluating and drafting those players, while Schneider would praise the coaching staff for helping get the most out of them.

And the fact that Macdonald and Schneider can't agree on who deserves credit for some of the Seahawks' biggest success stories in 2025 has a lot to do with why the Seahawks are one of the NFL biggest success stories heading into the final week of the regular season.

Already Seattle has won 13 games, matching a franchise-best mark also accomplished in 2005 and 2013, and with one more win, the Seahawks would earn the NFC's top seed for a fourth time, with the previous three instances, 2005, 2013 and 2014, all resulting in trips to the Super Bowl.

This year's team has a chance to join those other NFC champion squads as one of the best in franchise history, and at the heart of that success is the job Schneider and Macdonald have done together ever since Schneider hired Macdonald almost two years ago.

From the hiring of Macdonald to a pair of draft classes that have provided several key starters to making the very tough decisions to trade Geno Smith and DK Metcalf in the offseason, to the aforementioned additions of Darnold, Lawrence, Kupp and Shaheed, no executive in football has had a better 2024 and 2025 than Schneider. And in leading the Seahawks to 23 wins so far in his first two seasons, including 14 on the road, and a 19-5 record over his last 24 games, few, if any, head coaches have done a better job than Macdonald over the past two seasons.

In other words, Schneider and Macdonald have great cases for Executive of the Year and Coach of the Year honors, respectively, thanks to the Seahawks' success this season, and a big key to it all is that Macdonald and Schneider could not possibly care less about getting the credit for that success. That's just part of both men's makeup, and they've imprinted it onto what has become an incredibly connected and selfless group of players.

From the day Schneider joined the Seahawks in 2010, he and Pete Carroll began building a franchise that would thrive because of lack of ego. Schneider preached a "no walls" philosophy that would allow coaches and the personnel department to work together without one feeling like the other was the dominant voice in the room. That approach led to the most successful era in franchise history, one that included two trips to the Super Bowl and a dominant win in Super Bowl XLVIII, and it's helping the current version of the Seahawks establish themselves as an elite team.

"It's essential," Macdonald said of Schneider's no-egos philosophy. "To me it's critical, especially for a guy like me coming in—you're new, a lot of things you don't know, a lot of things you don't know that you don't know. I think a critical part of success is being able to be authentic and go through those experiences without feeling like someone is breathing down your neck, or 'So and so wants me to act a certain way.' No, all we're doing is just trying to chase this vision of who we want to become as an organization, and John, he's set the tone of that, from (Seahawks Chair) Jody (Allen), but John is kind of the living, breathing example here on a daily basis, and he's created an incredible environment to work.

"It's been awesome. I love working with him. He's got great perspective but knows what to say in those situations. He's obviously been through a ton. You kind of get fooled into (thinking) he's a younger GM, but he's been around forever and he's kind of seen everything. But it has been awesome. He's really great. He's really great. And he's probably uncomfortable with me talking about him like that, because (no egos) is how he wants to operate."

Enjoying a quick lunch break in the cafeteria at the Virginia Mason Athletic Center on a recent afternoon, Schneider is talking about the team he and Macdonald have put together when, mid-sentence, he glances up and says, "Hi Bry," before continuing with his thoughts on this year's free-agent additions.

The "Bry" in this case would be Brian Searing, whose official title with the team is office assistant, but who is known to most in the building as the mailroom guy. Every NFL team—heck, every successful big business—has a Brian, an indispensable glue guy of an employee who goes about his business daily with a friendly attitude, helping things operate smoothly behind the scenes. But what every team or big business does not have is someone at the very top of the leadership structure who takes the time to actually know all of those employees who make things run on a day-to-day basis, away from the spotlight. Schneider, however, is the type of leader who recognizes the importance of everyone in the organization, not just the people you see on TV on Sundays. It's why, in nearly every press conference, Schneider gives shoutouts not just to people in his personnel department, but also to people in the equipment room or in the PR department or on the kitchen staff. And it's why when Brian from the mailroom walks by in the cafeteria, Schneider knows his name and is sure to say hi.

Schneider operates without ego in such a high-profile position in part because that's just who is, but also because, in all of his varied experiences in different NFL front offices, he recognized that it's the best way to build a successful team and organization.

"I've worked for the Packers, the Chiefs, Washington (Commanders) and here," Schneider said. "I saw it where the GM was in charge, and the coaches didn't have a lot of juice, or the coach was in charge, and the personnel guys didn't have much juice. Or it would be like, 'Video, you just stay over there and you just do your job. And equipment, you stay over there.' Very sliced up. Or working for the Packers, where the president's basically the owner, just seeing all these different setups."

Working with those different front offices, and around some great head coaches like Mike Holmgren and Marty Schottenheimer, Schneider began to understand how he would want to run an organization if he got a chance to be a general manager. Schneider, who saw enough in his one year as Seattle's director of player personnel in 2000 to know he wanted to return—he initially hoped to get the GM job in 2005 when the Seahawks hired Tim Ruskell—and he had a vision for what he wanted it to look like.

"When Marty Schottenheimer and I got fired in Washington, I was like, 'If I ever have a chance to do it again… This is how we're going to be," Schneider said. "Egos are going to get in the way of success, and we can't have all these walls up and be heading in different directions. Everybody has to be headed in the same direction with the same goal in mind every single day. What are we doing to get better and improve?

"We used to call it, what's next? Mike calls it chasing edges, but literally ever since Pete and I came through the door in 2010, it was constantly harping on, 'What are you doing to get better every day?'"

As Schneider mentioned, so much of how he operates now started 15 years ago when he and Carroll got started, so when he was tasked with finding a new head coach two years ago, the goal was to both maintain the culture that has been in the building since Paul Allen bought the team almost three decades ago while also finding an innovator who could help get the Seahawks back on top after several seasons of being a competitive but not an upper-echelon team.

They found that person in Macdonald, and so far the Seahawks have, for the second time in Schneider's tenure in Seattle, a nearly perfect pairing of coach and GM that has the team back in the class of the league's elite teams.

"It's been great, because it ended up being really what Jody envisioned," Schneider said. "When we sat down and embarked on the search, it was like, 'OK, where do we want to take this thing?' And really the biggest thing, in her mind—everybody had their inputs—but she wanted to keep our culture, and she wanted to be cutting edge in moving this thing forward.

"So we go into the search, and we're interviewing all these people, and with Mike, it just became very apparent—chasing edges, and tough, bright, young, clear-thinking—this guy, changing the market, which he had already been doing on defense, but he also is taking the game to a different level. Where is the game going? So taking all his philosophies and his creativity and intelligence and football acumen, and then merging that with what's been in this building for years… I feel like Mike's really brought his world and what he believes, and merged that into what we had going on here, and we're still continuing to take it to a different level."

The current Seahawks culture, which is neither a carbon copy of what existed under Carroll and Schneider, nor a wholesale departure from it, is significant not just because it creates a positive work environment throughout the building, but because it has contributed to one of the defining traits of this year's team, one that, while hard to quantify, is a significant factor in this team's success.

After Sam Darnold threw his fourth interception in an eventual Week 11 loss to the Rams, players on Seattle's defense, led by linebacker Ernest Jones IV, went to their quarterback while he was still on the field to make sure he knew they had his back. Later, after the game, Jones put that support into words rather emphatically.

"Man, Sam's been balling," Jones IV said in a postgame press conference. "If we want to try to define Sam by this game—man, Sam's had us in every (expletive) game. So for him to sit there and say, 'Oh, that's my fault,' no it's not. There were plays that defensively we could have made, there were opportunities where we could have got better stops. It's football, man. He's our quarterback, we've got his back, and if you've got anything to say, quite frankly, (expletive) you."

It's no coincidence that, in a game where multiple mistakes by Darnold and the offense were a big factor in a loss, defensive players were quick to back up their quarterback. Just as it's no coincidence that the Seahawks haven't lost since that game in L.A., running their winning streak to six with last week's victory in Charlotte.

"The connection and the positivity and the love we have for one another here is unmatched," outside linebacker Derick Hall said. "I've never seen it before. And I told somebody else, I thought I really knew what a connection was until [this season]."

Said veteran outside linebacker Uchenna Nwosu, "This is the first time I've really been this close in the locker room before."

So many of the same traits that make Schneider such a good, egoless leader have rubbed off on the team, and as players have said all season long, that selfless approach shows up on gameday.

"Everybody is just selfless," defensive tackle Byron Murphy II said. "We're not just playing for ourselves. We're playing for one another, each man on the field, on the team. That's a good thing to have."

Macdonald, meanwhile, has done his part to help create an environment that, since OTAs in May and June, has stood out to players as unique. Whether it was encouraging players to get up in front of teammates to explain their "why" for playing the game, or sending players from different position groups on walk-and-talks around the Virginia Mason Athletic Center, or organizing off-the-field team bonding outings, Macdonald has found ways to make this team feel particularly connected. Macdonald came to Seattle best known as an Xs and Os genius who can make life miserable for opposing quarterbacks and offenses, and this year's defense has definitely done just that, but he is also proving to have a very strong grasp of what it takes to connect with players on a human level in order to help them be at their best.

"One of our key phrases is loose and focused, and if you build a culture of just hammering a wall all day, that doesn't create a loose and focused environment," safety Julian Love said. "You've got to throw us a bone every now and then. So yeah, those events, Top Golf, team dinners, all that kind of fun stuff that he promotes, it creates buy in, like, 'OK, he believes in the loose and focused culture.' On top of that, obviously he's the catalyst for allowing it, but it's also the people we have in this building. The players themselves are a ton of big kids, but when it's time to lock in and feel a certain way, they do, and pretty much any other time, we're just constantly messing around with each other, so it's a pretty cool vibe.

"This team now is extremely close. It's uncomfortable how close we are—the constant roasting, the constant messing around. Literally I was just talking to one of our coaches out there today, and said that, pretty much this is middle school, and when we go out there it's recess. In the locker room, it's just messing around in the hallways. That's the kind of energy we bring, but then obviously when it's time to focus, we focus."

Players have been sensing that this team has a special bond as far back as in May when the team was first on the field for voluntary organized team activities. And it isn't revisionist history to say the connectedness of the team helped them get to where they are. Before they had won a single game, let alone 13 of them, Leonard Williams, one of team's best players as well as a leader on defense, explained it in early June.

"I'm going into Year 11, so I've played a lot of football and been on a lot of teams, and not only am I seeing that we have a very talented team right now, one thing that stands out above the talent is just the connection," Williams said. "That's something I've been trying to talk to the guys about, that's really going to take us to that next level where we want to go. I've told them that I've been on tons of talented teams that we had great players at all positions, but we just didn't have that same connection. Those small things like having connection and being able to communicate on and off the field kind of helps you get to that next level."

Six months after Williams said that during offseason workouts, Darnold who is on his fifth team in eight seasons, doubled down on that sentiment days before he and the Seahawks will play with a division title and the NFC's No. 1 seed on the line.

"Just having some of our competition things that we did (during OTAs), with the coaches involved as well on the field, when we had those competition periods, it was so fun, and the guys were so close, especially guys that had been here for multiple years together," Darnold said. "Then you go into the locker room, and you see the kind of love that we have for each other, that's unlike anywhere I've been, and it's special to see."

The Seahawks head into Saturday's game with one of the NFL's best defenses, one that has given up the second fewest points in the league thanks to a combination of stingy run defense, a formidable pass rush, a diabolical pass rush that can bring pressure from anywhere, and playmakers at all three levels who have contributed to 24 takeaways, including 11 in the last five games.

Much like the best Seahawks teams from the last decade, this one is led by a dominant, playmaking defense full of young emerging stars as well as standout veterans who help lead it. This group has different personalities and plays a different scheme than those Legion of Boom era defenses, but the current defense, which has adopted the "Dark Side" moniker, but what they do share is the ability to suffocate opposing offense and take over games, having one hell of a good time while they do it.

Like any great defense, Seattle's has star power, including 2026 Pro Bowl Games selections Devon Witherspoon, DeMarcus Lawrence and Leonard Williams, other recent Pro Bowlers like Julian Love and Riq Woolen, and other young standouts like Ernest Jones IV, Nick Emmanwori and Byron Murphy II. But part of what makes this unit so special is that they have been getting contributions from so many players beyond the big names, highlighting both the roster depth built by Schneider and company, as well as the development of Macdonald's coaching staff.

When the Seahawks play the 49ers Saturday, they'll likely have Ty Okada starting at safety in place of Coby Bryant, who is doubtful due to a knee injury, which would be Okada's 11th start of the season, having previously started nine games for Julian Love. One of their starting linebackers for most of the season has been Drake Thomas, who, like Okada, came into the league as an undrafted free agent, and who also spent time on the practice squad before finding a bigger role. And there's also Josh Jobe, another former undrafted free agent who spent time on the practice squad before eventually becoming a starting cornerback.

Those three players aren't just fill-ins who are holding on until starters get back, they're all thriving as key pieces of Seattle's defense, playmakers who have made big contributions to wins this season. Those players embody the "70 not 53" attitude the Seahawks have when they talk about their roster, the 70 representing the players on the 53-man roster and practice squad combined as opposed to focusing solely on the 53-man roster.

"Just statistically speaking, it's a battle of attrition, where there are some pretty good teams, they are just beat up right now so that you maybe don't have quality depth, so then they're not in the playoff hunt or something," Schneider said. "So you have to have buy-in from the coaching staff, and we did this in our transition here with Mike and his staff, we're going to need all these guys… We're going to need everybody by the time we get to hopefully January and February."

And just as Schneider gives Macdonald and the coaching staff credit for getting so many big contributions from so many different players, Macdonald in turn praises Schneider for having the vision to make that all come together.

"We had several of these conversations last year, and now it's this year, and it's going to be every year. That's why it's so important to have depth on your football team," Macdonald said. "It's why the 70 matter, it's why we coach everybody all the time. It's why we do what we do.

"It's always been my personal philosophy of depth and growth and development, that's really important, but it was really John's vision of how he wants it to operate, and it meshes with our philosophy. It makes a lot of sense, and I think it's the best way to do it. I love how we do it."

With so many players coming through in big ways all season long, the bond of the team, and of the defense in particular, has only grown stronger. Players, who frequently sport sweatshirts or T-shirts with the team's "M.O.B. Ties" mantra on it—an acronym for Mission Over Bull(expletive)—take the field each week knowing not just that their teammates have their backs, but that, regardless of who is playing, they'll have and will have put in the work to get the job done at a high level.

"It's like a band of brothers," veteran defensive tackle Jarran Reed said. "These guys are more than teammates. These are friends, brothers, and people who are my friends outside of this building. That goes a long way when you've got a team that's connected like that."