Schneider Says

Why John Schneider is the most powerful person on the Seahawks besides Jody Allen

Ruthanne Wong: Hi, Joe - You recently mentioned that JS hired the entire coaching staff, but elsewhere I have seen reporting that MM had the final say. Could you please elaborate?

There’s accidental misinformation out there about “Mike Macdonald’s coaching hires”, but the simplest way to describe what John Schneider does:

If we took Pete Carroll’s responsibilities with the Seahawks but subtracted “head coach”, that’s what Schneider does.

From January 16:

Pete Carroll's departure from the role of Seahawks head coach last week after 14 seasons shifted the power to the general manager who started with him in Seattle back in 2010.

John Schneider confirmed during a Tuesday news conference that for the first time in his career he will have authority over both the team's coaching staff and all football personnel matters.

This was re-confirmed on August 28th:

Hiring Mike Macdonald as the new head coach, overseeing the hiring of the coaching staff around Macdonald and his normal offseason moves with players left Seattle’s general manager feeling a bit stunned the regular season was already here.

Schneider has more control of the franchise now than any time in his previous 14 seasons as general manager after Pete Carroll was let go as head coach after last season. Carroll always had final say on the coaching staff and personnel; that now all falls under Schneider’s purview.

I wouldn’t blame anyone for assuming that Macdonald hired the coaches because that’s what most head coaches do, but there’s any number of reasons for why the Seahawks gave that power to the GM:

• Maybe Jody Allen doesn’t trust anybody else

• Maybe they wanted a young first-time head coach and didn’t trust him or wanted him to focus on other tasks

• Maybe Schneider’s experience makes him qualified for the job and he will end up being proven correct

Schneider emphasized early in the process that between him and Macdonald, they had a lot of mutual friends and were interested in bringing in a lot of the same people. It’s hard to imagine Schneider forced any coaches onto the team that didn’t get widely approved.

Now was letting Schneider have this much power a bad idea? It could have been. But we probably won’t know until the end of next season at the earliest.

Gavin: I don’t think this should be the case…but is Schneider on the hot seat at any point if we go on to have a 5-7 win season?

John Schneider is the safest person in the building other than Jody Allen.

By Schneider’s own admission, he was mandated by Jody to be the best, so by that logic anything could happen. However, that could mean being the best within a few years and I don’t believe that the Seahawks plan to make any major front office or coaching changes at the end of this season.

Schneider’s first free agency in power hasn’t delivered any hits, but almost everything Seattle did in the offseason was considered a good get:

• Mike Macdonald as head coach

• Ryan Grubb as offensive coordinator

• Byron Murphy as a first round pick

• Sam Howell as a cheap flier

Murphy and Haynes were widely approved picks. Macdonald was considered to be the best coaching hire the Seahawks could have made. Free agency wasn’t exciting, but it never is and Seattle got their typical Bs and Cs.

Schneider didn’t do anything extreme like trade up in the draft or trade three first round picks for a bad quarterback, so because he didn’t, it would reflect worse on ownership than it would on the GM to fire him one year after giving him the job. And if Seattle fired Schneider, he’d have multiple job offers before he got to his car. Then who are the Seahawks going to get who is more qualified than him? Someone who didn’t hire any of the coaches or pick any of the players?

He’s way too entangled into the fabric of every single team investment to be fired.

Paul Johnson: Perhaps it's just me, but it seems that when the Hawks play hurry up offense, it usually goes well. And of course, any play that takes more than 4 seconds to unfold is probably going to end up as a sack, an incompletion, or a tackle for loss. As we all know, they just don't have the horses to hold the line.

Lofa Tatupu also addressed this in his podcast this week:

Lofa Tatupu: Instead of getting in the huddle and explaining the plays and then you get to the line and there’s only :12 seconds left, where Geno, it’s called “the muddle huddle”, it’s a slow-paced hurry-up offense. First down, walk up to the line, Geno assesses, and Geno calls the play. I’m sure probably scares Ryan Grubb, a first time offensive coordinator in the NFL, to an extent of letting go of a little control. That’s probably the toughest part.

Grubb is a hell of a coordinator, but there’s a lot of differences, like the hashes, when you go from college to the NFL. If the trust is there, I think that’s something that will change. We’re not giving Geno enough time at the line to diagnose and go. Even the Bills game, the first time we went no huddle, we scored.

I don’t make the mistake of disagreeing with Lofa Tatupu.

Cavmax: Is it unfair for me to think that being in the 1st year with new coaches, players, schemes, etc., that just enjoying the process, the ups and downs and the entertainment value of everyone's personal expectations is just fine with me? Nah, I'm enjoying the emotional work out the Seahawks give me each week.

Let’s check the polls?

Nicholas Donsky: I think it's a matter of GIGO ( garbage in..garbage out ) Maybe they need a much better scouting staff, particularly in evaluating O lineman. JS may not getting good info.

The theme today seems to be letting the Seahawks smooth out the rough edges this season and hope nobody gets injured in the process.

I haven’t gone through all of the comments on the Q and A thread yet, so continue to use that if you haven’t already.

Seaside Joe 2051