Last spring into summer, it was what Mike Macdonald ended up pointing to as the foundational reason his Seahawks ultimately won the Super Bowl.
Veterans fully bought into the team’s 2025 voluntary offseason program at its Virginia Mason Athletic Center. The players’ 100% participation blew away the head coach and his assistants. The Seahawks to get ahead on the playbook in those spring days in Renton. They created a culture of togetherness in the locker room. The team sustained that through winning the NFC West in January, and Super Bowl 60 in February.
“We’re bought into the goal and the mission,” linebacker Ernest Jones said while participating in Seattle’s voluntary practices last spring.
One year later, as newly minted NFL champions, they are doing it again.
Monday was the first day of the Seahawks’ voluntary offseason program. This phase one last two weeks and includes weight training, position meetings and on-field exercises.
After the Seahawks won their first Super Bowl in 12 years then had a massive celebration into mid-February, Macdonald told the team’s veteran starters they could skip this first, two-week phase of the offseason program. The coaches were set to focus on developing younger players these next two weeks.
Yet Monday there were three-time Pro Bowl cornerback Devon Witherspoon, 33-year-old veteran defensive tackle Jarran Reed and fourth-year linebacker Derick Hall in the building and on the field with their younger teammates for day one of the offseason. “Guys that just wanted to be around the guys again,” Macdonald said.
More than just cool. The coach said he was “blown away.”
The 25-year-old Witherspoon is entering the final year of his rookie contract. He’s next up to get a huge payday with an extension, likely by training camp starting in late July. Witherspoon will follow fellow 2023 first-round draft choice Jaxon Smith-Njigba. The NFL offensive player of the year and All-Pro for 2025 got his $168 million extension with Seattle last month in the richest deal in NFL history for a wide receiver.
Reed will be entering his 11th season in the league, his age-34 season.
Hall, 25, will be in the final season of his rookie contract in 2026. They being on the field with teammates for voluntary work in April two months after they won the Super Bowl, when their coaches told they could blow it off, may prove to be more important to their defense of the title this year than the draft that begins Thursday.
That is, if it’s anything like the spring of 2025 proved to be for the Seahawks.
“We tiered our offseason program from having a later finish this season. But I was blown away by some of the guys that showed up (Monday) and that we weren’t asking to be here at this point in time,” Macdonald, the team’s culture-setter, said.
“The energy is really great. There’s still a sense of urgency and spirit to the guys, which is exciting. It’s mostly just strength and conditioning at this point, and some individual meetings.
“This is one of the best times of year to see the guys again after the break.”