The most attractive aspect of the Seahawks’ play-caller job is one that did not exist with the previous guy — but should have.
It’s why Mike Macdonald fired Ryan Grubb on Monday.
“You can be ‘Head Coach of the Offense,’” Jori Epstein, senior NFL writer for Yahoo! Sports said.
Yes, many around the league see being Seattle’s offensive coordinator for defensive-minded head coach Macdonald as a prime opportunity for a playcaller.
“There are definitely guys who would want something like that,” Epstein said.
Macdonald just finished his rookie season as a head man calling the Seahawks’ defensive plays. He says he will do that again next season.
He is seeking a new offensive coordinator who reflects the physicality Macdonald wants across the entire team. Not just in practices, meetings and in planning, but then coaching games and calling plays that way.
Grubb often prepared his Seahawks game plans to do that. His downfall with the Seahawks was that his calls during games this past season didn’t reflect the physicality Macdonald demands.
The Seahawks in 2024 were middle of the NFL pack in yards rushing per carry, 17th. But they were at the bottom of the league, 29th, in rushing attempts. Geno Smith spent most of the season throwing more than any NFL quarterback. Grubb was among the league leaders, eighth in the NFL, in using shotgun formations that led to all that passing. Seattle was among the teams that used direct snaps to the quarterback, the trigger for power, running football, the least. That’s why Smith was only 16th in play-action pass attempts, something Macdonald said last month Seattle’s offense should be doing more of.
Can Macdonald find a new playcaller that he trusts to do what he wants?
Doe that mean full autonomy or would Macdonald like to be more involved in the offense?
“I think the answer to that is both,” he said.
It’s perhaps the chief lesson he’s taken from the 10-7 season Seattle just finished. They are out of the playoffs for the second consecutive year for the first time since 2008 and ‘09.
“I think there’s a lot more opportunities to get our coaches in front of the players more, and there’s a way that I can allocate my time through all three phases (better),” Macdonald said. “When you’re building a defense with a staff that you haven’t worked with on 90% of those people, that takes a lot of time.
“Ultimately, I want to coach the whole football team.
“So my time will be allocated more throughout each other phase, which is great. That’s all good stuff.
“But, empowering our coaches and how I allocate my time.”
Possible Seahawks OC candidates
The Seahawks have multiple requests in to teams to interview candidates for the job open for the fourth time in six years. According to NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero, as of Thursday morning, the Seahawks were planning to interview Chicago Bears interim coach Thomas Brown and Lions offensive line coach Hank Fraley.
“We’ve put in a couple slips right now,” Macdonald said Tuesday, without naming names. “We’ll kind of let that play out.”
Who are possible candidates? Macdonald outlined parameters for who and what he has in mind.
They are, for now, all external. He said there are no internal candidates. That eliminates Jake Peetz. The Seahawks’ 39-year-old pass-game coordinator this past season was LSU offensive coordinator in 2021.
Macdonald said he will give leeway to the new offensive coordinator to hire his own assistants. That has Seahawks line coach Scott Huff and others on notice, waiting uncomfortably.
Macdonald also said having previous experience as an NFL play caller “is not a prerequisite” for the job. Grubb was the first Seahawks offensive coordinator in 30 years to have no coaching experience in the league before Seattle when he arrived from the University of Washington and two weeks at Alabama 11 months ago. Bob Bratkowski went from the OC at Washington State in Pullman to Seattle’s wide receivers coach to Seahawks play caller in the mid-1990s.
Hugh Millen on w/us @933KJR on #Seahawks GM John Schneider: To me, he’s the Aaron Rodgers of general managers…He was great once, but he’s a shadow of what he once was.
“Ryan Grubb is absorbing the failure…of the offensive line.
Grubb is the only Seahawks offensive coordinator to come straight into the play-calling job from college coaching with no NFL, even position-coach, experience. Given the results, that might not repeat in this OC hire.
For this hiring, in Macdonald’s first full offseason as Seahawks coach, think: Harbaugh coaching tree.
Macdonald loves John and Jim Harbaugh. He loves what his former bosses stand for. How they train and coach their teams. Their philosophies on football and life. He loves how they demand rugged football — and running it.
Macdonald was an assistant under John Harbaugh for 10 years with Baltimore. The only year of the previous 10 he didn’t coach for John Harbaugh, he was Jim’s defensive coordinator at the University of Michigan. That was in 2021.
Macdonald often recites the Harbaughs’ credos and ways. He did that again Tuesday talking about Jim Harbaugh’s saying that every team is entirely dependent on its offensive line — the Seahawks’ weakest spot this past season.
“I mean, you know how I feel about Jim,” Macdonald said about the coach of the Los Angeles Chargers, who are playing in the AFC playoffs Saturday at Houston. “And, I mean, that’s a pretty wise statement is what he said. So I have a hard time disagreeing with that.”
Tee Martin
The Ravens’ quarterback coach for Lamar Jackson, the previous league MVP and candidate for it again this season, worked on the same Baltimore staff with Macdonald in 2022 and ‘23 under John Harbaugh. Martin’s play-calling experience was at USC in 2016-19, beginning the season after the Trojans fired Steve Sarkisian as head coach.
Martin, 46, was a national championship quarterback at Tennessee in 1998, after Payton Manning’s reign there. Martin played three NFL games, one for Pittsburgh and two for Oakland in a short-lived NFL playing career.
David Shaw
The former Stanford head coach for 11 years (2011-22) and three Pac-12 championships is now a senior personnel executive with the Denver Broncos.
He was Jim Harbaugh’s offensive coordinator at Stanford for four seasons. Shaw became the Cardinal head coach in 2011 after Harbaugh left Stanford to become the San Francisco 49ers’ coach. In 2006, Shaw was the passing-game coordinator and wide receivers coach at the University of San Diego for … Jim Harbaugh. It was Harbaugh’s first head-coaching job.
You get the picture.
Shaw, 52, is getting talked about for NFL head-coaching vacancies. NFL Network reported the Chicago Bears have asked the Broncos for permission to interview Shaw. There have been conflicting reports whether he will interview with the New Orleans Saints for that head coach job.
Josh McCown
The 45-year-old quarterbacks coach for the Minnesota Vikings would be the opposite of Shaw. He has very little coaching experience. This is his second year in the profession.
But he is getting praise league-wide for what Sam Darnold has become as a fill-in quarterback (for injured No. 1 rookie draft pick J.J. McCarthy) in Minnesota. The Vikings went 14-3, and beat the Seahawks last month. They have a NFC first-round playoff game at the Los Angeles Rams on Monday night.
McCown was an NFL quarterback for 19 seasons. That included a brief stint with Jim Harbaugh’s 49ers in 2011.
Seahawks general manager John Schneider could get a personal reference on McCown from Panthers head coach and former Seahawks assistant Dave Canales. Canales hired McCown as Carolina’s quarterbacks coach for 2023.
Doug Pederson
The 56-year-old native of Bellingham who grew up in Ferndale got fired as the head coach for the Jacksonville Jaguars on Monday. He was the Super Bowl-winning head coach for the Philadelphia Eagles during his stint in that job from 2016-20.
Pederson would be the OC Macdonald could give full autonomy to on the Seahawks’ offense. He’s done it, and won it, at the highest level of the sport. Pederson would also have his own guys to bring to a Seattle offensive staff.
But would Pederson want to come home to coach under a 37-year-old first-time boss?
Epstein brings up another issue some in the league wonder about: How much was Pederson’s success, and failure in three declining seasons in Jacksonville, dependent on Press Taylor? His 36-year-old Jaguars’ offensive coordinator had sway on the Eagles’ offense as Pederson’s quarterbacks coach and passing-game coordinator in Philadelphia.
“I think that would be an interesting question,” Epstein said. “If I were the Seahawks looking at Doug Pederson, I would want to make sure that Doug Pederson rather than Press Taylor is calling his plays. I think that was a big question, first in Philadelphia and then in Jacksonville where he continued to let Press Taylor call his plays, perhaps to others’ chagrin.”
Mike Kafka, Frank Smith, Mike LaFleur
Grouped because they fit the same profile: a sitting NFL offensive coordinator working under an offensive play-calling head coach, who presumably wouldn’t mind the autonomy Macdonald wants to give in Seattle.
Kafka, 37, impressed the Seahawks interviewing with them this time last year for Seattle’s head-coaching job Macdonald got. Kafka is from the Andy Reid coaching tree with the Kansas City Chiefs.
Smith is the offensive coordinator in Miami, where head coach Mike McDaniel calls the plays. Smith, 43, also impressed the Seahawks interviewing with them last January for the head job in Seattle.
LaFleur is in his second season as Sean McVay’s offensive coordinator with the Seahawks NFC West-rival Rams. LaFleur is 37 but has already been an NFL assistant coach for 10 years. He was the Jets offensive coordinator in 2021 and ‘22; he called the plays for rookie quarterback Zach Wilson for New York in 2021. He was the 49ers pass-game coordinator for four seasons before that.
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