After years of going against each other as division rivals, Saturday's preseason game will mark the first head coaching battle between Cleveland's Kevin Stefanski and Seattle's Mike Macdonald.
Macdonald had been with the Ravens since 2014, outside of the 2021 season, which he spent as the defensive coordinator at Michigan. His Ravens defense was one of the best in the NFL last season, his final as Baltimore's defensive coordinator.
Now, Macdonald enters his first season as Seattle's head coach, making him the youngest active head coach in the NFL at 37.
"Mike Macdonald's a very, very good coach, as we've seen firsthand, got a ton of respect for him," Stefanski said on Monday.
For the Browns, it will be their rookies' first time playing in a road environment. Meanwhile, it will be Seattle's first-year players' first outing in front of their home crowd.
"I'm excited for it. I'm excited to see the 12s, excited to see Lumen [Field]," Seahawks rookie TE AJ Barner said Wednesday. "And, yeah, just excited to get a feel for what it's going to be like at the home stadium."
In preparation for traveling to one of the toughest road environments in the NFL, the Browns used speakers placed behind the offense to simulate crowd noise during practice this week.
Stefanski said that the two head coaches had exchanged texts over the course of the week laying out what their general plans are for playing starters in Saturday's game. While it will be the rookies' first road trip, on Monday, Stefanski said that starters should "expect to play."
Macdonald said Thursday that "a lot of starters" will begin Saturday's game, but as far as snap counts, he is taking it on a player-by-player basis. The Seattle head coach added that it will be the first time the offense will get a chance to have "everybody out there." QB Geno Smith, WR D.K. Metcalf and several other offensive starters have not played yet this preseason.
"There's something to putting the pads on to actually go out and move the ball before we do it for real," Macdonald said.
Macdonald added that because defensive starters only played six snaps last week, Saturday will be a good opportunity to build confidence going into the regular season.
After the Seahawks hired Macdonald to be their head coach in the late January, Macdonald announced he would be calling the plays on defense.
Macdonald's flair on defense will serve as a good test for the Browns offense. In Baltimore, Macdonald called a lot of Cover 2 defenses, a zone scheme in which two deep safeties divide the field into halves, but often disguises his coverages to confuse the opposing quarterback.
While in Baltimore, Macdonald also used simulated pressures, four-man rushes with one or more rushers coming from the second or third level while one or more defensive linemen drop into coverage. This often tricks offenses into thinking a defense is blitzing, when in reality they are only sending four rushers.
"There's a lot of calls where we're all playing things that we've never played in our careers, and we're still learning those things," CB Tre Brown said Tuesday. "I think it's going to be very fun because it's going to be confusing offenses and they're not really sure what we're going to be in."
Will Macdonald employ his usual bag of tricks in a preseason game? It would be atypical of an NFL head coach, who typically save their best stuff for the regular season. But the challenges Seattle presents will be a growing experience for the Browns, nonetheless.
"It'll be a great challenge for our football team, especially to go on the road playing in a stadium that we know is very loud," Stefanski said.
