Normally a 10-win regular season in the NFL, particularly with a 7-1 record on the road that tied a franchise record, is worthy of a feast with the finest meats and cheeses, as Kenny Mayne of Kent and ESPN often hyperbolized. But many Seahawks fans feel on this occasion that they have been served eggless omelets.
The 30-25 win Sunday in Los Angeles over the nemesis Rams concluded the season for Seattle absent playoffs. The seasonal outcome was known a week earlier, when the Rams clinched the NFC West title, reducing an anticipated winner-moves-on, loser-goes-home event Sunday to a stakes-free exhibition. That’s why Rams coach Sean McVay declined to risk playing his starting quarterback, running back, two best receivers, three top offensive linemen and a passel of defenders.
And yet the Rams almost won in the final moments.
Some say McVay’s dominance in the rivalry was a part of the rationale club ownership used a year ago for the surprise firing of coach Pete Carroll, following 14 mostly successful seasons. The Seahawks replaced him with Mike Macdonald, who is half Carroll’s age and 100 percent bereft of Carroll’s experience as a head coach at any level.
For a rookie new to finding the office bathroom, building a coaching staff, and reading too late the NFL rule book on pre-snap procedural penalties, Macdonald did well enough to set a club record. The 10 wins in a first Seattle season beat by one the mark shared by Chuck Knox and Mike Holmgren. Unfortunately for him, the feat was diminished because the Seahawks were the first 10-win team to miss the playoffs since the NFL increased the number of qualifying teams to 14 in 2020 (going back nine seasons, only one other 10-win team, the 2020 Miami Dolphins, was similarly denied).
More galling, the NFC West was unusually winnable. The perennial meanies, the San Francisco 49ers (6-11), were beset by injuries as well as doubts about QB Brock Purdy. The perpetually mediocre Arizona Cardinals (8-9) were status quo, despite (or because of?) QB Kyler Murray. The Rams started 1-4 and still managed to win in Seattle 26-20 in overtime Nov. 3 and eventually tied the Seahawks record at 10-7, the division winner determined on the fifth and final tiebreaker (strength of victory).
So a postseason berth escaped by the narrowest of margins. It’s fair to say that, given the deep green hue of many new employees at the Renton football plant, the Seahawks did all right in 2024. However, what drove many fans to dyspepsia is the club’s past — as in the personnel-acquisition shortcomings of the new/old boss, John Schneider.
Freed from Carroll’s final OK on personnel matters, the roster the newly empowered Schneider handed his new coaching hire nevertheless contained the flaw the franchise has failed to fix seemingly since the departures of Hall of Famers Walter Jones and Steve Hutchinson.
Offensive-line failures in pass protection and the run game rippled through everything all season, compromising the skill-positions players’ above-average talent. It even hit special teams. Recall the agonizing 29-20 home loss to the New York Giants, who blocked a field goal attempt in the final minute that would have tied the game at 23 but instead was returned for a touchdown that sealed a loss to one of the NFL’s worst teams. The line’s failures also put more pressure on the defense, which was forced consistently to play from behind.
Another target of public ire was offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb, who, like Macdonald, was new to the job: In his case, he’d never been in the NFL. He was hired away from the OC job at the University of Washington, where he helped take the Huskies to the College Football Playoffs title game. He operated there with what was one of the top-five O-lines in college ball. To then come to the Seahawks . . . he may as well have been asked to win the Indianapolis 500 with an AMC Pacer.
But since a team can’t fire its entire line, it did the easy thing Monday morning and fired Grubb. On his weekly radio show on Seattle Sports 710, Macdonald broke the news using the standard NFL banality of needing a new direction: “I felt the direction our offense was going was different than the direction that I had for the rest of the team.”
In other words: Fall guy found.
The acme of futility came when the starting center, Connor Williams, 27, retired from football at midseason during a bye week. He was hired after training camp was underway, available only because he was still recovering from major knee surgery in December 2023. Yet he apparently was better than Olu Oluwatimi, a 2023 fifth-round draft choice who was in over his head.
Longtime football fans know that all NFL general managers have their resumes larded with such mistakes. Choosing successful talent is always art more than science. And Schneider deserves credit this season for having the guts and skill to fire the linebackers he hired, Tyrell Dodson and Jerome Baker, and replace them with upgrades. Ernest Jones IV and rookie Tyrice Knight helped elevate the defense into a top 10 outfit. Prior to Sunday, the defense rose from 29th in points allowed per drive to fifth, and in points allowed per game from 25th to 10th.
Nevertheless, given the big losses to the best teams this season, the Seahawks may have been among the worst 10-win outfits in recent NFL history, continuing to wallow in mediocrity. The fact is that in Schneider’s first seven seasons in Seattle, the Seahawks won nine playoff games. In the past eight, they won one, barely (17-9 at Philadelphia after the 2019 regular season).
It would seem Schneider is out of personnel mulligans, the worst of which was the 2020 trade with the New York Jets for strong safety Jamal Adams. The Seahawks gave up safety Bradley McDougald and a 2021 fourth-round pick plus first-round draft picks in 2021 and 2022, and a third-round draft pick in 2021.
That immense treasure turned into just 34 games over four seasons, only the first of which was productive, when he set an NFL record for defensive backs with 9.5 sacks. But his 215-pound body was a poor match for the job of box safety. Injuries piled up, as did suspensions. He never had another sack. The Seahawks released him in March. He played a total of 40 snaps this season with Tennessee and Detroit. The Lions released him from their practice squad on New Year’s Day, at age 29.
Since there was never any public daylight between Schneider and Carroll regarding personnel decisions, we may never know who has to wear the ghastly Adams trade. We do know Carroll is no longer around the team to answer for it.
The belief seems to be that Schneider will not follow Carroll out the door. So this off-season represents a grand opportunity for him to make fans forget the sour taste of the Adams deal, weak drafts and the blocked field goal by adding back eggs into the omelet recipe.
Art, can you elaborate a bit more than just “fall guy found” on the firing of the OC? The reader responses on the ST website are 99% agreeing that it was a mistake and he should have been given another year. But how does a bad O line sync up with all the times Geno took 4+ seconds to unload a pass? Or the multiple picks, red zone mishaps, fumbles and overall bad decisions. Picking on the O line is fine but seems to me there’s more to it than that. Your thoughts?
A sub-standard O-line shrinks the playbook, rushes the QB and generates more 3-and-outs that force the defense to stay on the field longer. Most successful playoff teams try to hold over 3-4 quality linemen per season because continuity is critical. The Seahawks had more contributors to the shortfall than just the big uglies, as Keith Jackson called them. But without quality in that unit, the Seahawks can’t get past that vast middle of NFL mediocrity.
There are only two explanations I can imagine. 1) Macdonald and/or Schneider didn’t mesh with Grubb, and were looking for any reason to part ways with him. 2) A big-name OC is or will be available, and the Seahawks are clearing space for him, like how they got rid of Jim Mora as head coach after one season before people knew Pete Carroll was leaving USC.
Otherwise, I don’t get this firing. This was clearly a team in transition, and new coaches and coordinators need a few years to fully implement their systems. A new regime should keep consistency unless its first year is an utter shambles, and 10-7 is certainly far from shambles.
Macdonald has always been a defensive coach, and needed an experienced NFL guy as OC to cover his weakness. I never understood the Grubb hire. I can only speculate: Because the Seahawks wanted Macdonald so much, they had to wait until the Ravens were eliminated to hire him. The Seattle vacancy was the last one filled a year ago, which meant that good OC candidates had taken jobs with other teams. Macdonald had never hired an OC, and probably heard that Grubb was unhappy going from Washington to Alabama, then poached him. Not a good fit, especially having to make up stuff to cover the O-line weaknesses.
Clearly a John Schneider move. With Pete Carroll no longer having final say in personnel decisions Schneider has free rein to be as impatient as he wants to be. Fact of the matter is when your QB finishes 4th in passing yards but 13th in TDs (half of what league leader Joe Burrow finished with) the issue isn’t the offense. Fact of the matter is Tyler Lockett clearly lost a step and DK Metcalf was was not always in sync with the plays that were called. Throw in the injuries that Kenneth Walker had and that Geno was the 3rd most sacked QB and 6th most pressured the offense performed as expected all things considered. To immediately terminate Grubb is a scapegoat move that isn’t surprising from a desperate organization. They know that Seahawks fans sports dollars can shift over to the Huskies, Kraken or Sounders in a moments notice. (They don’t have to worry about the Mariners based on their offseason moves.) Maybe instead of firing coaches they should follow the Patriots business model of bringing in veterans who fit in like Randy Moss and Corey Dillon. Players who will set aside personal accolades to win. Something that the players that Schneider has brought in have been unwilling to do. Until that changes the Seahawks will only be a one hit Super Bowl wonder like the Jets, Saints, Bears and Eagles.
Doubtful, John. Schneider is not the kind of boss to micromanage a coaching staff. And it would be a poor move to put on a rookie head coach. Given the O-line weaknesses, and the Metcalf/Lockett slides you mentioned, plus RB injuries, Grubb had to try to win the pot holding a pair of treys. And being an NFL rookie at 48 means you have a lot to learn, yet believe too much that you know what you’re doing.
Spot on Art.
The REAL culprit here is John Schneider and his former partner in crime. The Seahawks have not drafted a quality offensive lineman since literally Max Unger, but – as you mentioned – have had ongoing infatuations with (and spent four 1st round draft picks) on fool’s gold type players like Percy Harvin, Jimmy Graham and of course the aforementioned Peacock. The first-round O linemen they did pick (Germain Ifedi, James Carpenter) ended up being below-average journeyman. The jury on Charles Cross is still out.
Borrowing from the Mariners’ repeatedly unsuccessful strategy, every offseason the Seahawks Oline fix is to retrieve a bunch of tired, old, mediocre O linemen for whom Seattle’s their last bus stop on way to the glue factory. Prior to the season, JS suggested that interior offensive linemen are generally overpaid and overrated. The Seahawks went on to finish 30th in the league in rushing. It was clear (as you alluded to above) that the OL group was so bad it was completely incapable of converting even a 3rd and 1 via the run.
Every year the results are the same – an offense so one-dimensional the Seahawks can’t compete with playoff teams. The quickest solution to this ongoing fiasco would be to sign proven veteran O linemen, but JS has so grotesquely mismanaged the salary cap they can’t afford to do this. According to Overthecap.com the Seahawks are currently 30th in cap space for the 2025 season.
They say the definition of insanity is continually repeating unsuccessful actions/behaviors. This is also the definition of incompetence. Most playoff caliber NFL teams have better-than-average offensive lines manned with several players taken after the first round (in fairness, Abe Lucas would probably become this type IF he stay’s healthy). The Seahawks have been an abject failure in this regard.
The problem with the Seahawks isn’t Ryan Grubb. The reason he didn’t “establish the run” first (the most tired axiom in football) is because he knew the OL sucked and tried to compensate for that. Ryan Grubb’s main fault is he couldn’t convert water into wine – an impossible task given the muddy cistern handed to him by John Schneider. JS is the one who needs to be held accountable for this multi-year fiasco.