Grading Every Seahawks Move in 2024
The number one reason Seahawks fans should be more optimistic this year than usual
Whether you agreed with the decision or not, the number one reason to have more optimism about how the Seahawks will end their season is the fact that they have a new head coach. As phenomenal as Pete Carroll proved to be as far as getting the Seahawks above .500, the last nine seasons of his tenure (mostly the last three) emphasized just how poorly Seattle played on the road, especially in the playoffs.
That’s a bigger problem when the team is always going on the road in the playoffs because they’re a wild card or a low division title seed.
If the Seahawks had not fired Carroll, and the team sat EXACTLY where they do today, it would be harder to stay optimistic about their chances of a playoff run because fans have seen this story before. Seattle’s present situation is a lot like a typical Carroll season and that hasn’t been working out when it matters:
The Seahawks are 3-3 in wild card games and 0-3 in divisional round games since 2015.
As an “upstart team” that makes the playoffs at 9-8 or 10-7, Seattle hasn’t been dangerous since riding into the 2012 postseason on a high and nearly upsetting the Falcons in the second round. That was the pre-Super Bowl Pete, the one who could rally the team around the idea that the Seahawks were underdogs.
Whether or not Carroll could have still rallied Seattle’s roster and formulate a winning underdog strategy is something we will never know.
But if Pete was still the coach and even if the Seahawks were exactly the same as they’ve been under Mike Macdonald, the optimism just couldn’t possibly exist as it does with a new coach, because Macdonald hasn’t proven what he is — or what he isn’t — yet.
That could be blind optimism. It beats zero optimism.
January 10th - Pete Carroll OUT (Seaside Joe article)
We ran a poll just before the news broke and two-thirds of Seahawks fans said that Carroll should not be fired. To be fair, that survey had incomplete information: “Should the Seahawks replace Carroll with the hottest name at defensive coordinator in the NFL?” would have garnered a different result.
This week, Mike Holmgren was named as the Coach Finalist for the Pro Football Hall of Fame and few teams have a more impeccable history of head coaches than the Seahawks:
Jack Patera (Started it all)
Chuck Knox (Hall of Fame semi-finalist)
Tom Flores (Hall of Fame)
Dennis Erickson (College Hall of Fame)
Mike Holmgren (Hall of Fame finalist)
2009
Pete Carroll (Future Hall of Fame semi-finalist, at least)
Sure, Flores failed in Seattle and Erickson failed in the NFL, but nobody who coached the Seahawks for more than one season is just an absolutely, ridiculously, unqualified FAILURE. How many franchises can say that they don’t have at least one of those in the last ten years alone?
And the Seahawks have NEVER had one. Seattle’s worst outside coaching hire won two Super Bowls, so they can’t be faulted for that. And as mediocre as Erickson was, his .500 teams weren’t 2-14 like a bunch of former coaches on the Rams and Cardinals. Just in the time since the Seahawks hired Pete, the 49ers have employed head coaches like Mike Singletary, Jim Tomsula, and Chip Kelly!
Grade: A
Pete had his time, he did more than anyone could have hoped at the beginning, he’ll get into the Ring of Honor and the Hall of Fame for it, and it was someone else’s turn.
January 31st - Mike Macdonald IN (SJ Article)
It’s too soon to grade Macdonald as a head coach, but we can talk about the coaches who the Seahawks didn’t hire. The only coaches who they interviewed twice who actually got HC jobs were Dan Quinn and Macdonald; they wanted to interview Raheem Morris a second time, but he had already accepted a job in Atlanta:
Raheem Morris is 6-6 in his first season back with the Falcons
Dan Quinn is 8-5 with the Moons
Ben Johnson (didn’t take a HC job) is an even better HC candidate than he’s been the past two offseasons
There’s no fair way to compare records and argue that “Seattle should have done X, Y, or Z”, but maybe this is some evidence that John Schneider had his antennas pointed in the right direction. The Seahawks seemed to want Johnson at least as much as they wanted Macdonald, but he’s playing the long game with selling his services and the 11-1 Lions have the number one offense.
Grade: A
I don’t think the Seahawks will ever have regrets about hiring Macdonald. His career could go in any direction from here, but it isn’t hard to point to first-year, first-time hires that could be short-lived: The 2-10 Raiders with Antonio Pierce, the 3-10 Patriots with Jerod Mayo, the 3-9 Panthers with Dave Canales, and the 3-9 Titans with Brian Callahan.
I expect the Raiders to fire Pierce (the Raiders probably always intended to fire Pierce after one season) and I think Mayo is on the hot seat.
Now we’re going to rapid fire the rest because there are over 20 NOTABLE player transactions to grade, including at least 5 that you may have already forgotten about, but first we need to talk about the offensive and special teams coordinators grades: