In Pete Carroll’s last season in Seattle, his platitudes and vague descriptors about what needed to be fixed on the defense had worn super thin and it was so obvious that he really had no idea how he was going to fix the weakest part of his team after years of failing. That’s why it is so refreshing to hear Mike Macdonald quietly but confidently talk about how elite his defense is going to be. He outlines it so clearly that you can just see it happening — and not taking long either. Whether he is talking about how expectations lead to Super Bowl wins, about his motto of Chasing Edges or about ..read more

“Guys get overdrafted at (guard) and, in my opinion, they get overpaid.” – John Schneider on Seattle Sports 710 The NCAA tournament begins this week, and Seahawks fans are enduring their annual March madness over John Schneider’s disinterest in building a strong offensive line. Schneider just doesn’t like to spend on the unit. In eight of the last 10 years, the Hawks have ranked 26th or worse in money paid along the line, according to OverTheCap. This year, just like 2016, the Seahawks have the cheapest offensive line in the NFL. And it very likely will remain that way. The situation is so ..read more

As fans across social media debate the Sam Howell trade, perhaps the best way to frame the discussion is thus: Did the Seahawks just trade for Matt Hasselbeck or did they trade for Charlie Whitehurst? In other words, did they add a potential franchise passer or a second-tier backup? Or maybe something in between? A few weeks ago, we set the table for the transition from holdover quarterback Geno Smith to a new QB who becomes Mike Macdonald’s guy. In that post, we retraced how Mike Holmgren landed Hasselbeck in Year 3 (2001) and how John Schneider took a swing on Whitehurst in his first year ..read more

By the end of the first day of the new league year, the Seahawks had used over $35 million in salary cap space to address four of their six positional needs – and they still didn’t look like they had improved their roster. After free agents flew off the shelves in the first two days, we thought John Schneider might be preparing to make a trade to improve his roster. Instead, he stuck to his typical MO and overpaid role players who gradually ate up almost all of Seattle’s cap space. There certainly were good moves. The Hawks accomplished their top priority: keeping Leonard Williams. They also ..read more

John Schneider has not been very lucky with a lot of his big trade acquisitions, but he is betting – as he had to – that Leonard Williams will become the second successful extension out of the five he has made since 2010. The Seahawks sent a 2024 second-round pick and 2025 fifth-rounder to the New York Giants for Williams last October, and they managed to re-sign him on Monday to a three-year deal worth $64.5 million. Williams is the eighth player Schneider has acquired using at least one Day 1 or Day 2 pick. In 2010, he swapped seconds and sent a third to San Diego for Charlie Whitehurst ..read more

Jamal Adams’ long anticipated release this week ended the worst trade/signing of John Schneider’s 14-year tenure in Seattle. We actually had written off Adams 18 months ago, when he suffered a season-ending quadriceps injury in the 2022 season opener against Russell Wilson and the Broncos. So, for us, his release this week was just the official word on what we expected to happen ever since that Monday night game. This is the result some feared from the day in July 2020 that Schneider sent two first-rounders and more to the Jets for the All-Pro safety. Those people hated the trade and dreaded ..read more

Just a few days after Geno Smith’s 2024 salary became guaranteed, the Seahawks made a mildly surprising move to give him even more guaranteed money, converting his March roster bonus into a pay-now bonus to add $4.8 million in cap space. Why did they decide to pay the $9.6 million now, three weeks before the league year begins and 25 days before it was technically due? On his weekly radio show, John Schneider said it was just a cap maneuver that was baked into Smith’s contract, something the team could do at any time. But why at this time? The GM did not answer that, but the obvious thought i ..read more

Geno Smith is still the Seahawks’ quarterback, but there certainly are signs that he might not be for a whole lot longer – if John Schneider gets a trade offer he likes. It was no surprise Smith was still on the roster as of Feb. 16, which triggered the guarantee on his $12.7 million salary. That means he will be Seattle’s QB in 2024 — unless another team trades for him. Where does this trade talk come from all of a sudden? Directly: From Adam Schefter. Indirectly: From Mike Macdonald and new OC Ryan Grubb. Schefter reported last week that Smith was informed by the team “that he will remain o ..read more

The Seahawks might not have hired Dan Quinn as their coach, but John Schneider and Mike Macdonald sure took a couple of pages out of his coaching manual as they selected Macdonald’s coordinators. The obvious tie is new DC Aden Durde, who worked for Quinn in Atlanta from 2018 to 2020. He now becomes the first British-born defensive coordinator in NFL history, and Macdonald surely is counting on his teaching abilities to help fix Seattle’s front seven. More on him later. The more intriguing – and significant — hire is OC Ryan Grubb, who oversaw UW’s high-octane offense the past two years. There ..read more

If history is any predictor, Geno Smith will lead the Seahawks to the playoffs in Mike Macdonald’s first season – and then be replaced shortly thereafter. John Schneider has been involved in a new Seattle coach’s transition period with a lame-duck quarterback twice before and been instrumental in finding the franchise quarterback both times.   In 2000, Schneider joined the Seahawks in Mike Holmgren’s second year. Holmgren’s team had made the playoffs in his first year with inherited quarterback Jon Kitna leading the way. But then the Hawks sank to 6-10 in 2000 (Kitna going 6-6 and Brock ..read more