The position group that’s doomed the Seahawks for years has a new clarity. And new unity of purpose.
Offensive linemen were on the field Sunday inside Lucas Oil Stadium for their final drills of the 2025 NFL scouting combine. Head coach Mike Macdonald and his Seahawks assistant coaches were in the stadium in Indianapolis watching, for a change.
General manager John Schneider with his personnel and scouting staff had a clear system and direction from the coaches on exactly what they need in offensive linemen. For a change.
At this year’s combine, Seattle scouted from a synergy and coordination it did not have in 2024.
“Yeah, I think we’re just ahead of the curve,” Macdonald said at the combine this past week. “Just fast forward everything to now. We’re at the starting point. Just like, ‘Hey, we know what schemes we’re running. We know how it’s rolled out.’”
This time last year the defensive guru was still hiring his 21 new assistant coaches with new coordinators on offense, defense and special teams. He and his coaches did not attend the combine. They stayed back at team headquarters in Renton to install their new playbooks and training plans for the players.
Two of the most important assistant coaches last year were new to the NFL. Offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb and line coach Scott Huff arrived from wondrous runs leading the Washington Huskies’ offense to be college football’s best into the national championship game. But they lacked the pedigree and experience of running a clear, proven system in the NFL, particularly on the offensive line.
Not this year.
After a porous line doomed the offense again for most of the 2024 season and the Seahawks missed the playoffs for the third time in four years, Macdonald fired Grubb and Huff.
In the last six weeks he’s hired former New Orleans Saints and Minnesota Vikings play caller Klint Kubiak as the Seahawks’ new offensive coordinator.
He’s hired 19-year NFL coaching veteran John Benton, Kubiak’s line coach last season with the Saints, to be Seattle’s new offensive line coach.
Kubiak and Macdonald have also hired Rick Dennison, a former Denver offensive coordinator. He worked for Kubiak’s dad Gary and for Mike Shanahan’s Super Bowl-winning Broncos. He also was Peyton Manning’s offensive coordinator with the 2015 Broncos.
Dennison is the Seahawks’ new senior offensive advisor. It’s a position Macdonald didn’t have last year.
“I just felt like it was a great opportunity for us to hire a heck of a football coach, you know, and kind of lead our run-game unit,” Macdonald said. “He’s got experience in all the different positions.
‘He’s kind of the nexus, you know, behind Klint, some of the guys up front.”
Last season’s Seahawks didn’t have a run-game coordinator on offense, either. In turn the running game wasn’t, well, coordinated.
They do now.
Macdonald hired Justin Outten to be Seattle’s run-game coordinator. Outten is a former college center. He is also from the Broncos/Mike Shanahan/Gary Kubiak system.
All of them — Kubiak, Benton, Dennison and Outten — have decades of experience dating to when Bill Clinton was president, all in one offensive-line scheme: Outside zone blocking.
“It’s cool to kind of have things settled, too. Because last year through our offseason process, we were late with our hire, then Mike was hiring a staff and getting people together throughout the draft meetings,” Schneider said at this combine.
“So this year, to be able to keep talking the same language, having the position coaches come in and present to us now before we start each position, like, ‘Hey, this is what I want, this is what I’m looking for,’ it really helps.
“We’re constantly talking about that holistic approach of acquisitions, sports science, player development, just bringing that whole thing together. And obviously coaching is the number-one priority, especially on that side of the ball the way we finished (last season).”
At this combine, Schneider and his personnel plus scouting side knew exactly the type of offensive linemen Seattle’s coaches needed.
Ones that could block the outside-zone scheme.
“I’ve gone through this on defense where, ‘Yeah, OK, hey, we want to play quarters (coverage, four defensive backs in zone across horizontal quarters of the field), but how are we rolling it out? What’s the footwork? What’s all the holes you got to live through, all those things?” Macdonald said. “That takes time.”
Now, with the Seahawks’ offensive line Macdonald said: “Everybody, coaches are on the same accord. We lived that a little bit in some of these games we were doing last year on defense.
“So to be able to kind of, not skip those steps, but understand what the language and how we want to do it on the front end, guys that have done it together, I think it’s going to help us.”
Seahawks’ new scheme
Mike Shanahan’s, then-guru line coach Alex Gibbs’ and Dennison’s Broncos won two Super Bowls in the late 1990s running the outside-zone blocking scheme. Terrell Davis became Denver’s all-time leading rusher in the system.
“When we got here in 2010, Alex Gibbs was here for a minute with us,” Schneider said at the combine. “And I had a little bit of exposure in Green Bay with the wide-zone stuff. Alex and Mike Shanahan, those guys were going to Super Bowls with it in Denver. So watching that over the years, that system, a proven system — and Rick Dennison was there, he’s been involved with it — so to have a number of people, especially with our offensive line, John Benton, Rick Dennison, Klint’s focus on running the football, and Justin Outten played center and was a tight end and run game guy for the Packers.
“It’s fun. It’s good.”
It’s needed.
Outside zone requires the offensive linemen to, as Macdonald put it, “run off the ball” laterally, outside to the tackle and where a tight end would normally be. That causes the defensive linemen to chase those blockers and the ball outside.
Outside zone blocking attacks spaces instead of specific defensive players. It requires its offensive linemen to wall off and control areas instead of mauling a defensive tackle, end or linebacker out of a hole.
Asked at the combine what he likes about outside zone, Macdonald said off the podium in a corner of the Indiana Convention Center: “Well, the first thing is it lets the offensive line run off the ball. So that’s just you’ve got — defensive lines nowadays, it’s just too hard to consistently move a guy that’s just right on top of you 60 plays a game. So you got to get these guys (on the offensive line) running, trying to get the defensive line moving. …
“You feel it. It feels a certain way on defense. And that’s what we’re trying to create offensively.
“To get the guys running off the ball and show that thing’s really important. And then all the other schemes kind of complement off of that.”
Macdonald also pointed out how the NFL’s rules limiting players’ contact in practices during the offseason, training camp and regular season means teams don’t have as many opportunity to train and perfect physical drive blocking that gap-and-pull line systems require.
“Nowadays with the way that you can practice by not being in pads all the time…some of the gap schemes and the pulls get a little hairy,” Macdonald said, “if you want to stay within the rules throughout the summer and stuff like that.”
The outside zone Kubiak, Benton and Dennison are installing for the 2025 season, that informed how Schneider’s scouts and personnel guys viewed this combine’s prospects, will have quarterback Geno Smith on the run more. The 34-year-old Pro Bowl QB will be doing more bootleg plays and quick throws while on the run outside the tackles than Smith did under Grubb’s drop-back passing system.
Grubb’s system often had Smith holding onto the ball a looooooong time. Too long. That exposed the weaknesses in Seattle’s linemen having to pass block longer.
The result: Smith’s 15 interceptions in 17 games, second-most in the league. His five interceptions in the red zone inside the opponents’ 20-yard line were the most in the NFL. They turned wins into losses. That included the interception into the end zone the Rams returned for a touchdown in Seattle’s loss in overtime at home to the eventual NFC West-champions Rams, after Macdonald’s defense held Los Angeles to 13 points in regulation.
“This scheme has a track record of the quarterback playing fast,” Macdonald said. “I just feel like if you can get the quarterback play to set decisive and fast it builds confidence. It’s hard to defend on defense when the ball is out on time. And then all the play actions and the movements to be able to protect him that way, take pressure off the O-line, it’s going to help us.
“So both the track record of how Klint coached the quarterback, and their success, (were) really important. This scheme as a whole, you just think of all the guys who are coaching through this scheme.
“And, so, yeah, I think Geno, the things we know about: He’s tough as crap. He’s smart. He’s accurate as hell. I mean, he throws a great ball, sees the field. Plays with anticipation. Ultimate competitor.
“I mean, you line those things up with things that we doing, you’ve got to be excited.”
Smith turns 35 this year. The extension Schneider worked on Friday while negotiating with Smith’s agent Chafie Fields in Indianapolis is likely to be short-term.
Schneider and Macdonald said at the combine they are looking at drafting a quarterback this year. That’s something Schneider has done just twice in his 15 years running Seattle’s drafts, and never at the top of a draft: Russell Wilson in the third round 2012 and Alex McGough in the seventh round in 2018.
Mississippi quarterback Jaxson Dart is seen as something like Smith: a strong thrower who isn’t a running threat, per se, but who moves and throws well outside the pocket.
Most NFL evaluators see Dart as a second-day draft choice, below the top tier that will go in round one. The Seahawks picking 18th in round one aren’t high enough to draft one of the top, ready-to-play QBs in this class that will go early, as they do every year. And some believe Dart’s performance at the combine took advantage of Cam Ward and Shedeur Sanders, the perceived top quarterbacks in this draft class, not throwing in Indianapolis.
Dart said Friday he had a formal interview with the Seahawks at the combine.
“It’s been great to build a relationship with them,” Dart said, before he threw in the stadium here Saturday. “They have an elite coaching staff. They have a ton of talent on their team. So it’s been a lot of fun sitting and talking to them.”
What, who Seahawks are seeking in O-linemen
So what traits were the Seahawks looking for as Macdonald, his coaches, Schneider and his scouts all watched this combine’s offensive linemen on the field Sunday at Lucas Oil Stadium?
“I think the common threads are there, but what’s exclusive to that is you’ve got to be able to move. You got to be able to change direction, think on your feet,” Macdonald said. “These guys have a great track record of evaluating guys and developing them.”
The Seahawks met at the Senior Bowl in Mobile, Alabama, in late January with Grey Zabel. The 6-foot-6, 312-pound tough guy from North Dakota State of the lower Football Championship Subdivision was primarily a tackle in college but has played four of the five line spots, including center.
He was the Senior Bowl’s practice player of that week on a vote from coaches there scouting. That got him a lot of attention from scouts and media at the combine.
Center and both guard spots are need spots for Seattle. The only proven starters who are sure to start on the line in 2025 are left tackle Charles Cross and right tackle Abe Lucas.
The News Tribune learned at the combine the Seahawks are becoming likely to pick up Cross’ fifth-year option for a 2026 contract guaranteed at a mandated $17 million for the first-round pick from 2022. That’s not necessarily to have him play in 2026 at that guaranteed cost, but to buy time for the team to between now and then negotiate a longer-term deal at future salary-cap charges that would be more team-friendly.
The Seahawks have through May 1 to decide whether to use their fifth-year option, which they rarely do on first-round picks, on Cross.
Seahawks coaches feel they have a Zabel-like asset in-house, one of his teammates at North Dakota State. Jalen Sundell impresses the Seahawks with his ability and experience at all five spots on the O-line. Seattle’s coaches and scouts believe their new outside-zone scheme fits the 2024 undrafted rookie better than last year’s.
“We’re excited about him,” Macdonald said.
“We have some people in house, too, that really… I’ve spoken to this at length, but the guys that we have on our roster are good at this scheme,” Macdonald said.
“I’m excited to develop these guys and see where they go.”
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