Seattle sports fans have been on an incredible ride over the last calendar year. First, the Seattle Mariners won the American League West for the first time since 2001, and then they advanced to the American League Championship Series, getting within one win of the World Series.

Now? The Seattle Seahawks have won the NFC West and enter Saturday night's playoff (5 p.m. PT) game against the San Francisco 49ers as the No. 1 seed in the NFC playoffs and with homefield advantage throughout.

There are several similarities between the two organizations, from how they draft and develop, to how they utilized key trades to go on their runs, but there is one thing that really stands out above the rest: The similarities between head coach Mike MacDonald and Mariners' manager Dan Wilson.

Neither says a whole lot at the podium, but both of them have an unwavering commitment to their players, and an unwavering belief.

It's something we talked about on the most recent edition of the 'Refuse to Lose' podcast:

"As you watch the Mariners in ’25 and you continue to watch them in ’26, and you watch the Seahawks as you’ve watched them all season and now into Saturday against the 49ers, there is an unwavering belief from the coaching staff and from the head coaches and managers onto these players.

And I can’t remember which Seahawks player it was. I want to say it was Cooper Kupp. It might have been Jake Bobo. I’m not 1000% positive. But I saw the quote earlier this morning in which they were talking about Mike MacDonald, and they said — look, the, the best thing about him is that it’s positive coaching. Like, let’s focus on what we’re doing well. We’re still going to correct the things that aren’t well, but we’re going to focus on the things that are going well.

And that, to me, is the biggest tenet of what makes Dan Wilson, or what helped make Dan Wilson so successful in 2025. It is that relentless positivity.

Look, sometimes that can bite you. Right? A guy’s 0-for-18 and you just have a feeling that he’s gonna get out of it, or you believe in him, and he ends up 0-for-30. It can happen. Okay? Mike MacDonald might go to the well one too many times believing in Sam Darnold.

I understand he could have a 4-pick game like he did against the Rams earlier in the year. But Mike MacDonald chooses to believe in the positive in Sam Darnold, and Dan Wilson chooses to believe in the positive in his players. I mean, I think that is a huge thing.

Now, you can call it soft, you can call it babying, you can call it whatever, but when you look — even professional athletes — but I think all people. Look at you at your job, look at me at my job. We all prefer to be patted on the back in a lot of ways rather than just constantly beaten down. There’s a time for correction, there’s a time for constructive criticism, there’s a time for tough love. But the unwavering commitment to your players, the unwavering belief, I do think helps bring the best out of any employee, whether it’s me, whether it’s you, or whether it’s a player on either one of these teams."

And both teams will need that belief from their staffs as they move forward into their next phases: The Seahawks on a hopeful Super Bowl run and the Mariners on a hopeful championship run of their own in 2026.

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