Seahawks’ ‘ego-less’ Super Bowl ride behind Harbaugh disciple a Giant lesson

SANTA CLARA, Calif. — The Seattle Seahawks’ postgame celebration at Levi’s Stadium on Sunday night was unnerving.

This was not like the Philadelphia Eagles’ ebullient release of relief and validation one year ago in New Orleans. The Seahawks’ players were just exuding confidence, nodding, collecting in groups and sitting and high fiving, like they’d be ready to whoop someone else next week if they had to.

“This is an ego-less football team that honestly believes in the other side of the ball,” backup Seahawks quarterback Drew Lock, a former Giant, told the Talkin’ Ball with Pat Leonard podcast at his locker. “There’s never a sweat. There’s never a nervous feeling. It’s always, ‘If we go do what we’re supposed to do, we’re gonna win a football game.’”

Seahawks defensive tackle Leonard Williams, the former Jets first-round pick and standout Giant, went as far as saying that while the Super Bowl victory was a thrill, he was more grateful to be on a team like Seattle’s.

“I’ve been on teams where guys are grown men and we’d have our own why sometimes,” Williams said. “Sometimes it’s family. Sometimes it’s money and things like that. And the special thing about this team is our ‘why’ is each other. And you can really feel it.

“That’s what makes this moment that much more beautiful,” he continued. “It’s truly not about the end goal. This is an amazing experience, don’t get me wrong. But the journey we’ve had this season, the connection we’ve built, the brotherhood we built, that’s really what we do it for.

Williams then saw some teammates preparing to pose with the Lombardi Trophy and cut the interview short.

“I’m gonna go take a picture with them right now,” he said, and stepped off.

Sunday was another gut punch to the Giants on their mistakes in team building under GM Joe Schoen.

Saquon Barkley, Julian Love and Williams all were popular, high character teammates and leaders. Schoen let Barkley and Love walk in free agency and traded Williams away, and all three players now have played key parts in leading an NFC foe to a Super Bowl in the past two years.

It takes a special kind of ignorance to make those mistakes and even more of it for the organization not to hold Schoen fully accountable for it. Love even had an interception in this dominant 29-13 Super Bowl LX win over the New England Patriots, for crying out loud.

There is a helpful lesson from Seattle’s ascension under head coach Mike Macdonald, however, that could be a good sign for the Giants’ future:

Macdonald, a branch of John Harbaugh’s Baltimore Ravens coaching tree, convinced his players that they would be able to celebrate their individual journeys at the end if they worked to get to the mountaintop together.

Love was able to reflect on his individual triumph after being undervalued earlier in his career, for example.

“Obviously I’m biased, but everything I’ve gotten in life has been truly earned,” the veteran safety said. “Nothing has been handed to me. I had to work to get to this point, I had to battle through some adversity — as you know — to get to this point. And getting out to Seattle, they just embraced me fully from the jump. It was just all love.

“To think about how I was a kid dreaming of this, and to be on this stage with the confetti falling, it was very emotional,” he added.

But Love was only able to share that perspective because he was part of a group effort to put the whole before the individual that extended even to Super Bowl week.

“Somehow, through all this chaos of the Super Bowl, we were able to just maintain our process,” he said. “Practice felt like practice a few weeks ago. Practice felt like it did Week 2. We knew we were set up for success.”

Macdonald, who learned under Dean Pees and Wink Martindale in Baltimore, then uncorked exotic blitzes on Patriots quarterback Drake Maye that probably looked pretty familiar to Giants fans who enjoyed that 2022 run to a Wild Card playoff win with Martindale as defensive coordinator.

From a personnel perspective, what stands out most about the Seahawks’ team is their size. Seattle GM John Schneider assembled a team that looks imposing when it gets off the bus and walks out of the tunnel and then pushes its opponents around.

The Giants should be leaning into that emphasis under Harbaugh as he applies an AFC North eye to their roster, too.

Seattle’s assimilation of so many players that had previously been underestimated or counted out or pigeonholed, though — starting with former Jets first-round quarterback Sam Darnold — into such a dominant whole is rare.

Don’t be surprised if they are back on this stage next season in Los Angeles. That’s how they comported themselves after winning this championship. They believe.

“Some people called me crazy throughout my career for believing in myself so much and having so much confidence, but it was because of my parents,” Darnold said. “Because of the way that they believed in me throughout my entire career, and it allowed me to go out there and play free and have a ton of confidence.”

Thanks to that belief and their victory, they were able to reflect on what mattered and what they’d sacrificed to get here.

Lock, whose father, Andy, tragically passed away at 57 years old last spring, said his father was on his mind and heart.

“Always,” he said. “I’d say national anthem, standing there, I found the family, knew where they were, always have my whole life. I always know where they’re sitting, to be able to look up.

“This year was different, especially today,” he added. “But I had a peace. I had peace about it. I cried a little bit during the national anthem. But I had peace. He was here today. Shoot, even deciding to come back [to Seattle], doing this, doing that, he was always a part of it. That’s how I feel in my heart, and it feels good inside.”

The Seahawks set a culture: Once they accomplished something as a team, they could enjoy the personal journey, reflect on how it completed the whole.

Macdonald, the Harbaugh disciple, got them to buy in.

“Philip Rivers talked about it, but being able to look your kid in the eyes one day and know that personally in your career you battled the ups and downs, enjoyed the success, learned from the defeats,” Lock said. “Yeah, I want to look my kids in the eyes and tell them that, but I really want to do it for myself.

“I wanted to look back and be like I gave everything I had to this sport, my family did everything they could for me to be where I’m at today,” he continued. “And it’s really up to me to do them justice, fight through the bads, live through the goods. It’s just crazy. Crazy.”