3 Takeaways from Jon Gruden's Seahawks Preview

I'm starting to think the Seahawks are a "great frickin' team, man"

2008 was Jon Gruden’s last year as head coach of the Buccaneers and Mike Macdonald’s first year as a football coach in general. Gruden was let go at the end of a 9-7 season, which also forced out Tampa’s 22-year-old assistant Sean McVay from his first year as a coach. At the same time, Macdonald was the linebackers/running backs coach at Cedar Shoals High School.

10 years later, Gruden was hired by the Raiders for a second time, McVay went to the Super Bowl in his second year as the head coach of the Rams, and Macdonald started coaching linebackers for the Ravens.

Four years after that, Gruden was fired by the Raiders, McVay won the Super Bowl with the Rams, and Macdonald got his first defensive coordinator position in a one-year schooling at Michigan.

Cut to today, Macdonald just bested McVay to win his first Super Bowl, and Gruden is previewing both head coaches — the two biggest favorites in the NFC — and their teams for his YouTube channel. There’s no telling where these coaches are headed in the future, but the Seahawks and Rams are expected to be in the Super Bowl conversation again in January.

3 takeaways from Gruden’s preview of the Seahawks:

He loves the Seahawks’ regime

Gruden had a lot of nice things to say about Mike Macdonald, John Schneider, and even the untested Brian Fleury.

“What a job he did calling plays and putting this defense together,” Gruden said of Macdonald.

“I give Macdonald a lot of credit. They have this mantra MOB: Mission Over Bullshit. Isn’t that a great freakin’ mission? The four tenets of MOB are: Work, Brotherhood, Violence, and Trust. If you’re a young football coach out there, get your guys to work. Get them to have a brotherhood, man. They gotta trust each other and they gotta have a VICIOUS playing style.”

From Brady Henderson’s article about MOB last December:

Inside team headquarters, culture is far from a nebulous concept. It's spelled out in acronyms and mottos that are written on walls and printed on team-issued apparel. It's evident in how the Seahawks play and how they talk about the connectedness of their locker room. And as they see it, it's been no small factor in their jump from a 10-win team that fell short of the playoffs in Macdonald's debut season to one that now looks like a Super Bowl contender.

When Macdonald talks about his desire to be “tough and connected,” this was an example.

“We’ve got a bunch of tough guys that are out on a mission, pun intended,” the coach said. “I think they’re together. We have a fun time doing it, and we hold each other accountable.”

Nobody can separate the value of a mantra or a culture shift from the slightly more tangible difference of simply getting better players—which the Seahawks have done in the last 3 years—but it wasn’t hard to see how disjointed Seattle’s team had become (especially on defense) at the end of Pete Carroll’s career.

It wasn’t just that they didn’t communicate well, but many Seahawks didn’t even seem to really care that much about the Seahawks or Carroll’s seemingly outdated philosophies.

The shift to go from Carroll to a head coach half his age could be cited as the catalyst to get Seattle’s young players to buy into the mantras again.

That shift came from Schneider, who Gruden praised profusely for building on a “Hall of Fame resume” in the last few years.

“Guts to make tough decisions and a real feel for the football team,” said Gruden. He praises him for nailing first-round picks, and he respects making the decision to replace a legendary coach in Carroll with Macdonald, as well as trading for Ernest Jones, Leonard Williams, and Rashid Shaheed at each of the last three trade deadlines.

Schneider also had the “guts to find and get Sam Darnold” and Gruden loves past gutsy moves by the GM like trading Russell Wilson, Geno Smith, and DK Metcalf at various points.

Culminating in the Seahawks beating their playoff opponents by an average of 18.3 points per game, which Gruden proudly points out is the best postseason margin of victory since the 2002 Buccaneers.

And although nobody knows much about Fleury yet, Gruden calls him “a very interesting pickup”.

“Quality coach who has been well-trained in your division. It’s not just the plays and schemes with Fleury. It’s how you practice them and how you run them in games. We’re gonna come running off the ball, attack the defense, that’s this cat’s philosophy. Different tempos, lots of physicality, good pad level, concentration and detail.”

Gruden notes that on the one hand, Fleury’s experience in San Francisco will help him keep much of what Klint Kubiak did intact, but on the other hand Seattle’s offense must continue to evolve and not just run the same formations and plays from 2025. That Fleury must also challenge players to improve.

He liked that the Seahawks were a balanced 50/50 run/pass team and said that’s impressive, even when that’s something easier to do when you have commanding leads.

Gruden also hopes that Fleury continues to run a high-rate of under center passing plays.

“I love that they spend a lot of time under center. 31.4% of the time under center, second in the league to the Rams. 2 of the top 5 offenses are under the center the most. 5.9 yards per play under center (4th), 9.8 yards per pass under center (1st).”

Finally, Gruden is a fan of Seattle’s 12 personnel (2 TEs, 1 RB), noting 7.5 yards per play and 10.1 yards per passing play.

“I haven’t seen numbers that high in 12 personnel since 2016”.

If Elijah Arroyo’s training camp breakout carries into the season, we should see the Seahawks run even more 12 personnel in 2026.

What he likes the most about Sam Darnold

In Gruden’s career, he won a Super Bowl with Brad Johnson, he coached a first-team All-Pro and future MVP in Rich Gannon, and he also had Derek Carr, Jeff Garcia, among others.

Johnson, Gannon, and Garcia would all be examples of quarterbacks who, like Darnold, were given up on in their careers prior to having success. Gannon was 34 when he linked up with Gruden, having won 31 games in 12 seasons. Together, they won 30 games in three seasons and that was even before Gruden was traded to the Bucs in 2002, the year that Gannon won MVP.

So Jon Gruden knows first-hand what it’s like for a quarterback to have resiliency and that’s what he loves the most about Sam Darnold.

“This guy’s had a heck of a time in the NFL developing. What a great freakin’ story this is, Sam Darnold. He is in his prime and this is his time. The first QB from the 2018 class to win the Super Bowl, including Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson. He’s mentally tough. You gotta have that after a tough down, tough game, or tough series. Resiliency is what I love about Darnold the most. One year after getting sacked 9 times by the Rams in the playoffs, he throws for 356 and 3 touchdowns. GOODNIGHT! He’s physically tough. He takes shots. I didn’t even think he was going to play in the NFC Championship because of his oblique injury, but he played his best football because he’s physically and mentally tough.”

Gruden notes that Darnold’s 31 wins since 2024 are the most by any quarterback, plus he’s had nine game-winning drives.

And although Darnold needs to reduce his interceptions and turnovers, Gruden makes another good point:

“He has to reduce his interceptions. You’re not gonna throw many interceptions on bubble screens or quick screens. This guy doesn’t do that! He’s pushing the rock down the field. Some of the interceptions are not all on Darnold, but they do want to reduce those turnovers.”

Gruden also says that he likes the way Leonard Williams talks about Darnold, a quarterback he has known longer than any Seahawk, dating back to their days together at USC.

“He will tell you what an unwavering bad ass leader and how much confidence this team has in its quarterback. That says enough.”

Two things that I like about Darnold that don’t get mentioned enough:

• He’s so exceptionally good throwing while moving to his left, certainly top-five in the NFL, and this gives the Seahawks a lot more freedom and options when the pocket breaks down for Darnold to improvise that other teams don’t have; especially when one of the players in the scramble drill is the reigning Offensive Player of the Year

• He’s got no ego. Something that maybe Seattle’s last couple of starting quarterbacks lost sight of over the course of their Seahawks careers, especially as another contract extension offseason was looming.

Perhaps Darnold doesn’t get enough credit for his otherworldly plays from the media because not even he spends any time celebrating or saying “look at me, look at me” on the field. He’s just onto the next play, which is also how he treats a bad play, as he should.

Other Seahawks Gruden likes

Gruden talks about nearly every player expected to make the roster, but here are a few choice quotes.

Emanuel Wilson: “Another guy to keep an eye on. In the last 2 seasons, he played 34 games, and he has 228 carries for 998 yards, and 26 catches. I got him down here at the depth chart, don’t go to sleep on him. Between he and Jadarian Price, they have two distinctively different backs.”

Grey Zabel: “Grey Freakin’ Zabel. He was third in OROY voting. That’s only happened a couple of times. Quenton Nelson, Creed Humphrey, and Zabel. Best run blocker on ProFootballFocus. Great player. Excellent at point of attack, excellent on the back side, excellent at the second level, get him out on screens, and he’s a very good pass blocker.”

Dante Fowler, Jr.: “Can’t he do the same thing that DeMarcus Lawrence and Leonard Williams have done? Re-invent himself in Seattle and be great? I believe Macdonald can get a lot out of Fowler. He might be the PERFECT complement to fill in for Boye Mafe. They have four really good edge rushers.”

Byron Murphy II: “He’s climbing the charts, man. This past season, shit, he had seven sacks. No one saw that coming. Excellent run defender. His career is SKYROCKETING, man. He and Williams combined for almost 100 pressures.”

Rylie Mills: “Keep an eye on this name. He’s a former fifth-round pick out of Notre Dame. You saw that power rush sack he had in the Super Bowl? Good god. He hurt his knee, team captain at Notre Dame, 17 sacks. Last year he’s learning the defense, working himself back from the injury. He needs to work on his pad level and refine his pass rush, but he has a motor. He has heavy hands. He’s got length. I think Mills is gonna be a key contributor for the Seahawks moving forward.”

Drake Thomas: “‘(mocking others) he’s not big enough, he’s not big enough’ Bullshit. I love this guy. Hard-hitting instinctive bad ass. They got TWO excellent linebackers.”

Beau Stephens: “Does anybody do a better job of developing offensive linemen than (Iowa HC) Kirk Ferentz? No. In three years at Iowa, I couldn’t find one sack allowed. And zone running game? Ferentz runs it at Iowa. This guy is gonna battle Anthony Bradford. Keep an eye on #60 in preseason.”

Jon Gruden never coached with Mike Macdonald or worked with John Schneider or had Sam Darnold, but there are some clear parallels between his career and the experiences that he had with the Buccaneers and the Raiders. I’m glad that Macdonald is the head coach of the Seahawks and Gruden is doing commentary instead of coaching. Everyone seems in their right place.

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