1. Be honest

It’s time to accept the reality. This team is not on a path to glory. They’re not being honest with themselves again.

A year ago they beat the Cleveland Browns and the 49ers were slumping. They were top of the NFC West and made a very aggressive trade for Leonard Williams — using a second round pick to rent the remainder of his contract from the Giants. A few days later they were blown away 37-3 by the Baltimore Ravens, an actual contender, and within a few weeks the Niners had re-established control of the division because they were the clear best team in the NFC West.

This season, they spent a fourth round pick on Ernest Jones IV weeks after he was traded to Tennessee by LA for a ham sandwich. They again used a pick to rent him for the remaining 10 games on his contract. I heard similar arguments last week about the NFC West ‘being there for the taking’ after the win in Atlanta. The Seahawks were in first place with the 49ers injured and struggling.

It’s incredible that history has repeated. A few days later they’ve been humiliated by the Bills at home 31-10. The Falcons win is placed in the context of a run of four defeats in five miserable games. Meanwhile, the Niners handled the Cowboys and suddenly if the Seahawks lose next week to a resurgent Rams, they’ll be in last place in the NFC West.

For years the Seahawks have deluded themselves into thinking they’re constantly in contention. It’s time for honesty. They have enough good players to have the occasional good win like we saw in Atlanta. I suspect they’ll win seven or eight games and be around the same mark they’ve been for the last two years.

They are not one more off-season, one more draft, one more in-season trade away from being a contender. The sooner this is accepted and the work begins to create a team that can be, the better. Otherwise they’ll just carry on as they are — never being bad enough to force change and never being good enough to get you dreaming about a post-season run.

Performances like we saw on Sunday against a serious team like the Bills, the Ravens a year ago, or any time you face the 49ers, will continue until this team embraces that change is required to remake aspects of the roster.

They say they want to be tough and physical. You have to build a team to be that and it starts up front.

2. Embrace they’ve taken a disastrous approach to the offensive line

Most of the NFL is struggling to put together a functioning, competent O-line. College football is not creating a lot of solutions and average pro linemen are getting paid elite salaries in free agency.

If creating an offensive line is a system, it is broken.

That still doesn’t excuse the terrible, ham-fisted job the Seahawks have done.

They knew going into the last off-season they’d have holes to fill. So what did they do? They basically waited for whatever was left in the bargain bin to sign a left guard. Laken Tomlinson was added because he was the best of what was left. They drafted a right guard who, by Ryan Grubb’s own admission, isn’t strong enough to start in the league. It means Christian Haynes and Anthony Bradford play a weekly game of musical chairs at the position, where nobody stands out and gets any closer to being given the full-time gig.

At center they opted to go with late round pick Olu Oluwatimi and Nick Harris, signed as a free agent. When it became clear this wasn’t going to cut it, they signed Connor Williams — fresh off a very serious knee injury — on August 6th. Williams was a big name but there was an air of desperation about the move.

The line they’ve put on the field has been a shambles and it isn’t surprising. None of the teams with competent offensive lines build them this way.

For far too long now the Seahawks have drafted players and failed to develop them into effective starters. They haven’t signed a home-grown O-liner to a second contract since Justin Britt seven years ago.

They change center every year. It’s incredible. They are swapping players in and out annually. That might happen again next season, given Williams is only on a one-year deal and isn’t showing ‘must keep’ form at the moment.

If you spoke to John Schneider about this he may be ask, ‘what would you have done differently?’. My response would be this. For a team that traded away so much for a box safety and paid him a fortune, for a team that has happily given out significant contracts to under-performing players in recent years, and a team that has recently spent two second round picks on running backs — why weren’t they prepared to go above and beyond on offensive linemen? Either in the market when good players have become available — Joe Thuney for example — or via trade.

Why haven’t they been able to identify the players in the draft that have become established starters, re-signed to new deals? Nobody expects every pick to hit. But to not have any hits over many, many years? They had the opportunity to draft some of the better current linemen in the league and passed — only to draft for other positions, such as receiver, and watch those players amount to nothing.

From the first minute Jim Harbaugh arrived in LA to take over the Chargers he made it very clear they were going to be an O-line team. He was going to recreate Stanford, the 49ers and Michigan. Their first pick was a right tackle, when better players at the skill positions were available, and he committed to the identity of his team. They moved on from expensive skill players like Keenan Allen and Mike Williams.

I bet anything that this time next year, the Chargers will look like a classic Harbaugh outfit and will be a very challenging, physical opponent.

The Seahawks need to learn from that. They appointed a protégé of the Harbaugh brothers to be their Head Coach. They need to re-shape their roster to be a Harbaugh-style team. They need to make a firm commitment to the O-line — being aggressive in any way necessary to create an identity through the trenches.

If that means sacrificing other players to make it a reality, so be it.

Drastic measures are needed. It’s time to stop paying lip service to the offensive line while shouting about the identity you want as a team. Mission #1 in the upcoming off-season has to be to fix the O-line and put down some long term plans and investments. No more cheap guards, a conveyor belt at center and a carousel at right guard.

Enough. This team has been bullied in the trenches for far too long.

3. Add more leadership

I had no problem with Jarran Reed getting into it with Derrick Hall on Sunday. Reed is one of the few serious leaders on the roster.

Don’t just take my word for it. K.J. Wright, who at least had some connections to the locker room last year gave an infamous interview on 710 Seattle Sports a year ago questioning how many leaders the Seahawks actually had.

Wright said you need four legit leaders. When pressed as to who that could be in Seattle at the time, he could barely think of any — name-checking only Reed. He scoffed at the idea people like Geno Smith could be placed in that category.

Nothing has changed. They still lack presence and leadership. You can see it on the field and on the sidelines. When things start to unravel, that’s it. Nobody stands up to be counted.

Here’s more from Wright:

“In my locker room, players, we handled it. We handled each other. If you’re doing this, you’re pushing (against) the grain, we handled each other. When I look at this team right now, no brother is holding the other brother accountable.”

It is the same with the current group.

If anything, the Seahawks need more Jarran Reed’s. They need more people willing to get into it with a team mate and say get your head in the game.

They also need to establish exactly what leadership is.

I talked about it in this short video:

The Seahawks have drafted a lot of high character players since 2022. They’ve doubled down on being risk averse with character. They’ve added a lot of players with high football character and work ethic.

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that but what they haven’t been able to find is an edge. Sometimes you need edgy players. People who aren’t what you’d call traditional leaders but for whatever reason, everyone gravitates to them.

The Seahawks have a dearth of individuals who fit that bill right now and it shows. They are not difficult to play against, nobody is standing up to be counted when the going gets tough, there does look like a lack of accountability within the group and there’s too much sulking and pouting and not enough action.

How do you fix this? For me there are only two ways. Find non-typical leaders like Kam Chancellor and Marshawn Lynch who create your soul through physicality. Or your personality and leadership needs to be driven by the type of team you are — namely being tough, physical and dominant up front with strong leadership from an alpha at quarterback.

4. Add more experience to the coaching staff

In 2017 the Rams appointed the youngest coach in the NFL. Sean McVay hadn’t even been an offensive coordinator before. One reason the 30-year-old McVay convinced the Rams to take a chance on him is because he famously threw his phone down on the desk during his interview, told them Wade Phillips was expecting a call and he’d agreed to be his defensive coordinator.

Not only had McVay secured the architect of Denver’s Super Bowl winning defense from the 2015 season, he’d also secured someone with legit NFL Head Coaching experience to be his right hand man.

Now let’s look at the appointment of Mike Macdonald. He was also made the youngest coach in the NFL this year. However, he didn’t appoint a vastly experienced coordinator to his staff. Instead, he brought in Ryan Grubb who had never even coached in the NFL before to run his offense. Then he added Aden Durde to be defensive coordinator — someone who’d only previously been a position coach.

The addition of Leslie Frazier was rightly applauded to add some experience and support for Macdonald. Yet Frazier, as far as we know, is not running either side of the ball for Macdonald. He’s more of a sounding board.

With hindsight, the Seahawks probably needed more experience around their young Head Coach. Preferably an offensive play-caller who’d been there, done it and got the T-shirt. Someone who knew the job and could be relied upon, like Phillips in LA, to look after his brief.

There was some chatter that Arthur Smith was set to join Macdonald if he got a Head Coaching gig but the timing of Baltimore’s run to the AFC Championship meant he had to accept a job in Pittsburgh before Macdonald became Seahawks Head Coach. Looking back, Smith might’ve been an ideal candidate given his prior experience coaching in Atlanta.

Instead they went with a very different alternative. They went with someone with zero NFL experience.

This isn’t all on Grubb and he doesn’t need to be made a scapegoat when Macdonald, Durde, Frazier and everyone else are not exactly doing a stellar job. However, it’s fair to wonder whether the Seahawks got this one wrong in the off-season and whether they should rectify the problem for next year by adding more proven NFL experience to the staff.

I must admit I have some concern about Macdonald too. He only had two years’ experience as a defensive coordinator in the NFL. It’s clear, with hindsight, that he didn’t have great connections in the league to build a staff. Virtually everyone who came in hadn’t worked together before. It’s very difficult to throw a whole bunch of coaches together as strangers and expect everything to click.

I didn’t want Dan Quinn to replace Pete Carroll and wouldn’t go back in time and change that now if given a chance. However, it’s clear that he had his staff lined up and ready to go based on years of networking and NFL experience. There was a built in chemistry that Macdonald doesn’t have at the moment.

The chances are that behind the scenes, the coaches might not be as connected as you’d hoped because they’ve been thrust together. And they’re all working for a boss who, if we’re being honest, is not experienced himself.

There’s an even bigger concern I have based on the performance of Seattle’s defense so far. The Ravens’ defense benefitted from weekly scoreboard pressure applied by the NFL MVP, Lamar Jackson. In most games last year, Macdonald’s unit played with a lead.

I noted this in an article before Macdonald emerged as a leading candidate to replace Carroll. Within that piece we highlighted that Baltimore had just 88 total snaps in 2023 when trailing — an incredible benefit to Macdonald and the defense.

When Seattle’s offense grabs the lead, as we saw in Atlanta, the defense can thrive. Yet the Seahawks’ offense is streaky, inconsistent and prone to tripping over its own feet. When they can’t apply scoreboard pressure, the defense has looked totally useless.

We’re weeks into the season now and there are no solutions to fixing the run defense (they tried the trade route and it hasn’t made any difference). The pass rush is mostly unimpressive. Players like Devon Witherspoon are regressing badly.

I’m starting to wonder if, actually, it’s not just the offensive coordinator position that needs more experience. Maybe they need to go and get someone like Wink Martindale out of Michigan, who Macdonald sees as a mentor of sorts, to help run the defense?

5. Learn from contract mistakes

I had no problem with the Dre’Mont Jones signing. I celebrated the decision to be pro-active in free agency like everyone else. However, it was very clear after his first season in Seattle that it might’ve been a mistake.

The Seahawks ignored that, spoke about switching his position around to play more off the edge (a risk), then doubled down on his contract — re-working it to make it harder to move him. They did this before they’d even seen how he fit in the Macdonald scheme.

Why?

Why do they re-work these contracts so often? They did it to Quandre Diggs and Jamal Adams too when they were clearly coming to the end of the road. It just creates financial pain.

Also, why did they re-sign Noah Fant? It’s pretty clear they have no intention of using a dynamic pass-catching tight end. They seem to prefer to use AJ Barner, a fourth round pick. Did they not think about how they intended to utilise this position before bringing him back?

I would trade Fant now for whatever you can get if possible. You’d save a little bit of money now and the dead money for 2025 will be the same if you trade him today or in March. Maybe someone will swap a token pick for him.

Either way, it feels like the Seahawks have made a lot of questionable contract decisions over the years and too often have doubled down on them. They need to be better here.

6. Do not extend Geno Smith’s contract

This needs to stop. Please.

Smith is contracted for 2025 on a cap hit worth $38.5m. There is absolutely zero pressure to extend his contract into 2026, when he’ll turn 36, or beyond.

There are basically two options for the Seahawks in the off-season. Either you carry on with Smith under his current deal and accept he will be the starter again next season, or you move on and make a decision to go younger and cheaper at the position.

I am open to either.

Smith is not the raging disaster zone that some fans will have you believe. Equally, he is not a ‘legit franchise quarterback’ who is destined to lead the Seahawks to the promise land. For me, he’s been an above average bridge who has enabled the Seahawks to be more competitive than they otherwise would’ve been transitioning from the Russell Wilson era.

He has some games where he looks excellent because he’s a physically impressive player. The games against New England and Atlanta in particular showed off Smith at his best. He was superb in both games.

Yet as we noted over the summer, Smith has been up-and-down in all three of the most significant seasons in his career. That is continuing this year.

The objective has to be to find a young, long term solution at the position. Not youth for the sake of it — you need someone with the quality to drive the team forward. Someone who can tilt the field, as Schneider would say, and compensate for issues elsewhere on the roster.

If the plan is to stick with Smith on a year-to-year basis while they wait to find that individual, that’s fine by me. Provided they are looking, which I believe they are.

Equally if they decide for the purpose of an overall roster re-shape the best thing to do is be younger and cheaper at quarterback to save money and invest in other areas, I wouldn’t be opposed to that either. I think major surgery is needed to the way the roster is constructed and resources used. I can handle a year of Sam Howell or a rookie, for example, if it means finally fixing the offensive line.

The idea of paying Smith around $50m a year, eating up a huge chunk of cap space, to be financially committed to him as he approaches 40, is so unbelievable I can’t believe it is broached as a serious subject. Look around the league. There are a bunch of teams currently paying way too much for their quarterbacks, achieving the square root of nothing. Why would you want to join them? Especially for a player who is already in his mid-30’s?

Finding a great young quarterback is so difficult I can understand why the Seahawks are being patient and not forcing things. Sticking by a veteran like Smith during the process is fine and I’ve no issue with the year-to-year approach they’ve taken with him.

This has to be a means to an end though. It has to remain a year-to-year venture. The Seahawks are not a tweak, a nudge, a nurdle away from Geno Smith, armed with a mega-contract, leading this team to a Super Bowl. Yesterday showed they’re miles away. Extending Smith to massive money would be the ultimate act of hubris — implying they think they’re closer than they are and that they can afford to invest so much in the quarterback position and just tweak other areas.

Sunday’s game against the Bills and the recent sixth-straight loss to the 49ers highlighted the vast chasm between the Seahawks and legit contention. They need to re-shape and restructure their roster, not invest more money in the status quo.

Smith is a bridge to the future — but the future must be sought.

Join Jeff and I at 2pm PT for a live stream debate on the state of the Seahawks: