Mike Macdonald Apologized to Sean Payton for Recent Comments, Says Video Wasn't Meant to Be Public

Seattle Seahawks head coach Mike Macdonald told reporters on Wednesday that he reached out and apologized to Sean Payton after a video of Macdonald recounting a story about the Denver head coach was leaked Tuesday.

In the video—which appeared to be Macdonald having an off-the-record conversation with Graham Bensinger separate from the interview the head coach gave on the show—the Seattle head coach talked about pulling footage posted publicly by fans on social media that showed plays and formations the Denver Broncos were practicing during training camp ahead of a Week 1 matchup between the teams in 2024.

Macdonald said the Seahawks pulled about 100 plays that were posted online and scouted them. Seattle won the Week 1 matchup, 26-20.

Per Macdonald's story, Payton found out what happened and threatened to publicly expose the Seahawks for what he claimed was a Spygate-esque breach. Seattle and Macdonald, in turn, said they would sue Payton if he made such claims, given that they weren't filing the training camp practices and were simply looking at things that fans had posted for anybody to see.

Macdonald said Wednesday that the story was "something I didn't intend for public use" and added that he believed he was having an off-the-cuff conversation with Bensinger in the moment. He did note that he needed to take responsibility for what he said, however.

"I thought it was the most appropriate thing to just reach out to Sean and apologize to him for having that be public when it wasn't meant to," he added. "Something they have to deal with in real time that wasn't on their end, so that's really where you're like, 'Crap.' But lesson learned, honestly. I gotta be better in that moment for understanding, look, I'm responsible for what I say no matter the circumstance. Whether you're mic'd up, whether you're not, whether you have a certain type of understanding... so I fell short in that moment. It stings for me, frankly, but it's definitely something I'm going to learn from."

Macdonald said Payton was "great" when he reached out to him to apologize.