THE CHEAP SEATS with STEVE CAMERON: Maybe Mac was worth the Seahawks wait

Finally.

If you were thinking that the Seahawks were fiddling around needlessly with this business of hiring a new coach, well, no.

They won’t step up and say such a thing, but Hawks GM John Schneider and his staff weren’t wasting time playing Monopoly while all those other NFL teams were reeling in coaches for their open jobs.

Nor were they struggling in disagreements with team owner Jody Allen over taking the team in a totally new direction — as rumors around the league seem to imply.

That also was false.

The whole gig belonged to Scheider, and now we can say, with almost total certainly, that the general manager was waiting and waiting and waiting solely because those are the rules.

I don’t know if he wanted Ravens defensive coordinator Mike Macdonald right from the very start, but once Baltimore was knocked out of the Super Bowl picture by the Chiefs last Sunday, there was zero delay. 

Schneider leaped into action like a high school kid who was waiting for a prom date, and needed the young lady to get permission from her father.

Once that hurdle was cleared, Schneider was off buying a corsage.

PLEASE don’t take this to mean that all those other interviews the Seahawks conducted in the search for Pete Carroll’s successor were meaningless.

It’s just that John was smitten with Macdonald all along, and both parties knew that — barring something truly strange — a job offer was coming whenever the Ravens season ended.

The Seahawks organization did a fantastic job of keeping information about the coaching search inside the building, and Macdonald (whenever he was asked about all those teams out looking for a head coach) insisted he was concentrating completely on getting the Ravens to the Super Bowl.

And no doubt he was.

Even in the 17-10 loss to the Chiefs that put Macdonald on the open market, the young defensive wizard showed his stuff after Kansas City exploded for two long scoring drives to open that AFC championship game.

Baltimore made appropriate adjustments (despite some key injuries) and held the Chiefs scoreless in the second half.

Unfortunately for Macdonald and the Ravens, their own offense made too many mistakes to wipe out that early deficit.

I can picture Schneider exhaling in relief when the Chiefs closed out their victory.

If the Ravens had rallied to win, the Seahawks would have had to wait another two weeks to make an offer to their No. 1 choice.

As it happened, however, Macdonald became free to interview on Tuesday in Baltimore — and then fly straight out to Seattle for the official coronation.

(We’ll know more about this later, but there are sources who claim Macdonald was on the same flight west as Schneider on Tuesday night — meaning that the whole thing was done, start to finish, in a single day.)

Either way, the Seahawks had an offer waiting, and the only things left for Wednesday were signing a contract and going through the announcement process.

DESPITE the Hawks’ obvious desire to hurry and land the ninth head coach in team history, there were reasons to believe that Macdonald might not be the right fit.

Jody Allen had gone public with the demand that the organization’s “progressive culture” — a hallmark of Carroll’s 14-year tenure — be kept in place.

Even though Schneider hasn’t spent nearly as much time as Pete in the public eye, he’s also a character who manages to work like crazy and still maintain a loose, lighthearted personality.

Macdonald, on the other hand, is described as more of an X-and-O guy who’s great working with a defense and conversing one-on-one — but his future ability as a leader (and public face) of the Seahawks still feels like a bit of a mystery.

He’s even called himself an introvert, which certainly will be a switch from Carroll.

Nevertheless, this University of Georgia grad — who never played college football — has made it clear he wants to be part of the Seahawks’ family culture.

"We are super excited to be here,” Macdonald said at the Hawks’ Virginia Mason Athletic Center — along with his wife, Stephanie.

“Just getting to know John and the rest of the folks, the reputation of this place, what drew us here was the people.

“That's why we're here, to bring a championship back to Seattle. "We're going to have a lot of fun, we're going to work our tails off, and it's going to be an incredible ride.”

Wait.

Did he say FUN?

Maybe Macdonald was worth the wait, after all.

Email: scameron@cdapress.com

Steve Cameron’s “Cheap Seats” columns appear in The Press four times each week, normally Tuesday through Friday unless, you know, stuff happens.

Steve suggests you take his opinions in the spirit of a Jimmy Buffett song: “Breathe In, Breathe Out, Move On.”