Practicing on the field alone didn’t help the Seattle Seahawks bring the Lombardi Trophy home. As revealed by the team itself and safety Julian Love, there was an in-house tradition that fueled their championship run. Turns out, head coach Mike Macdonald took “stacking wins” too seriously, turning it into a visual tactic all season long to keep his players locked in.

“…I think maybe they’re calling it the bone temple or something of our stack of helmets,” Love said on the Up and Adams Show. “…And basically, each win, we would have a stack of the opponent’s helmets. This is a good visual of just kind of the progress we’re making, the steps that we were taking, and it was cool to see. And each week, everybody got excited to see another helmet stack…It’s a cool visual. And it was something to put his own flair on what we wanted to see.”

Julian Love opened up about the team’s secret when asked about Mike Macdonald’s best motivational strategy. The Seahawks kept a spear-like pole in their facility on which they stacked the opponents’ helmets, as Love mentioned. It was based on the coach’s core philosophy of “stacking wins.” It’s not just about winning each game, but also about stacking steady progress and winning moments from practices and training camps all year round.

Love revealed that the team harbored this secret from the public and the media. In fact, they would cover the pole wherever the media arrived for press conferences. Moreover, it was more of an internal reminder for the team to keep tabs on their progress. According to the safety, they kicked off the tradition around Week 3 after their game against the New Orleans Saints.

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Love also admitted that it would have been embarrassing had they won only a few games. Meanwhile, reports suggest that Seattle’s tactic became public because of a team video that briefly featured the pole in the background. It didn’t go unnoticed, and screenshots of the picture quickly circulated online.

After capping their championship season with a Super Bowl victory over the Patriots, the Seahawks finally unveiled the completed helmet stack to the public.

On Tuesday, the team’s official account posted the picture of the pole on X. The helmets can be seen stacked from bottom to top in the order of their wins in the schedule.

“Stacked wins,” the caption read.

Interestingly, the tradition is inspired by Mike Macdonald’s longtime mentor, John Harbaugh.

Mike Macdonald explains the origin of his unique tradition

The theme of “stacking wins” runs deep within the Seahawks organization. Inside their practice facility in Renton, they covered one wall with pictures of every single win in the franchise’s 50-year history. On another wall, they displayed images from each win during the 2025 season under a large “stacking wins” banner. Speaking about its origin, Macdonald explained that the idea came from John Harbaugh.

Before joining Seattle in 2024, Macdonald spent almost a decade working with the Baltimore Ravens. During this stretch, he and Harbaugh often exchanged ideas while Macdonald served in various roles on the Ravens’ staff.

“Harbs [Harbaugh] had a thing in terms of stacking, which was when he was talking about like compound interests and things like that we did at Baltimore,” Macdonald said. “So, that got me thinking about, ‘OK, well, how does that apply to how we want to operate from day to day?’”

The message stuck with Macdonald all these years, and he addressed it again after winning Super Bowl LX. He explained that it requires a belief in the long-term payoff of consistent effort. In his view, it can be applied to everything from practice habits to game execution. As the Seahawks navigate an offseason after the big win, the challenge becomes stacking it all over again.