The Seahawks haven't hit their ceiling yet
As good as the Seahawks were last season, they have room to be better
For a team that won the most games in the NFL, had the Offensive Player of the Year, had almost half of its starting defense as either a Pro Bowler or an All-Pro, ranked first in points allowed, had the top special teams unit in the league, and rarely struggled in the postseason en route to the Super Bowl championship, the Seattle Seahawks could have been better.
Outscoring “championship caliber” opponents 101-46 in the playoffs has a way of erasing the memory that a lot of fans were disappointed with Klint Kubiak’s offense by the end of the regular season and skeptical of Sam Darnold again:
Basically, Darnold’s success early in the season came by throwing when opponents were in base defense personnel packages and expecting the Seahawks to run the ball, and Seattle was the most efficient team in the league throwing the ball in expected rushing situations through the first seven weeks of the season, to the tune of 0.427 Expected Points Added per dropback.
However, in expected passing situations…the Seahawks were closer to the bottom of the league, with ten teams worse than the -0.0401 EPA per dropback…In short, much of the success of the Seattle offense during Darnold’s insanely hot first half of the season was the direct result of Klint Kubiak’s scheming and the use of smoke and mirrors to get opponents into easy to take advantage of personnel packages.
Opponents, of course, eventually wised up to this around midseason, sometime around the Seahawks acquisition of Rashid Shaheed at the trade deadline and sometime around when former Seahawks tight end Greg Olsen was busy rambling on about how easily Kubiak was tricking defensive coordinators into the personnel groupings he wanted to face.
Days after this well-researched article by John Gilbert, the Seahawks beat the 49ers 41-6 while only needing to complete 12 passes. The game proved that Seattle was a complete team, but not necessarily one that could fall back on its quarterback if all else failed, which nearly every great Super Bowl winner in history has had to do once or twice in the playoffs.
Darnold’s value was called into question as soon as he threw four interceptions against the Rams in Week 11 and his presence took a backseat to the importance of Seattle’s defense, special teams, and rushing attack over the rest of the season.
In the absence of improvement in pure passing situations, the team committed $100M to a quarterback who isn’t very good at quarterbacking in pure dropback situations, which is the time when the most is being asked of a quarterback.
Then in the NFC Championship, Darnold went 25-of-36 for 346 yards and three touchdowns with no interceptions in a 31-27 win over the Rams. Only 20 quarterbacks in history have had more passing yards in a conference championship game (one of those being Matthew Stafford against Seattle in the same game) and his 127.8 passer rating is the eighth-best of all-time.
The Darnold we saw in the NFC Championship game was not the Darnold we saw for the majority of the season and given that he showed up when the Seahawks needed it the most against the second-best team in the league, the question has validity for next season:
Can the defending Super Bowl champion Seahawks be even better in 2026?
Did Kubiak become overrated?
It’s not hindsight to say that Seahawks fans would only consider Klint Kubiak as overrated after he left for the Raiders, as if Seahawks fans are bitter. It IS hindsight to act as though Kubiak was considered an offensive “guru” and “elite” play caller all of last year when in actuality those adjectives were not being used until after Kubiak became Las Vegas’s top target.
These were comments by fans about Kubiak when he was hired by Seattle in 2025:
“Feels like a Darrell Bevell hire”
“I am not sure whether to be excited or disappointed”
“So uninspiring”
“Meh. Wasn't terrible but also wasn't great.”
“I thought sideways moves don’t happen in the NFL?”
“As a Saints fan here is my take. Y’all should be excited but also very wary. Some of his play calling was absolutely horrendous.”
“Kind of a confusing change from grubb to kubiak”
Now to be fair, the general reaction to hiring Kubiak was positive and for two reasons above all else, I think:
Anyone would be preferred to Ryan Grubb
Unlike most nepotism coaches, Kubiak had managed to distance himself from his father by changing teams so often
Ironically, the fact that the Seahawks were Kubiak’s fifth team in five years probably worked to his advantage. He was constantly getting a new assignment every year and stayed in demand.
With that being said, nobody considered Kubiak to be a “Ben Johnson” hire. He had been let go by the Saints after New Orleans failed to make good adjustments to their injuries in 2024 and he was an available offensive coordinator who fans thought would be adequate and that’s all Seattle needed last year.
Then as I’m looking for what people were saying about Kubiak by the end of 2025 I find this: “Klint Kubiak is the Ben Johnson of this coaching cycle.”
Well, that was fast. Especially considering that the Seahawks ranked 25th in yards per carry and 31st in turnovers.
This isn’t to disparage Kubiak’s accomplishments with Seattle or his potential as a head coach, but merely highlights this point:
There’s plenty of room for Brian Fleury to be better than his predecessor Kubiak
Key areas for offensive improvement
Rushing offense
Long before Kenneth Walker was channeling Walter Payton in the playoffs, the Seahawks were averaging 3.7 yards per carry in the first eight games of the season, good for 31st in the league.
Coincidentally-ish, Fleury’s 49ers were 32nd at 3.4 YPC.
Seattle cleaned that up in the second half and improved to 4.5 yards per carry over the last nine games, but that improvement only ranked 13th and the Seahawks finished the season ranked 25th in yards per carry.
The Seahawks earned the number one seed in spite of this and rushing offense still lags behind passing offense in terms of importance.
A 2022 analysis by Northwestern supports this claim, as well as the probability that offense matters more than defense, but also the importance of an effective rushing attack:
While the model shows that the passing game contributes more to winning than the rushing game, it looks at each year in isolation. However, front offices must keep an eye on the future and try to establish year-over-year success. Therefore, consistency across years is another important trait when considering the relative value of the four facets of football. The year-over-year correlation of each portion of football was used to analyze this. The correlations were as follows:
Offensive passing: 0.400
Offensive rushing: 0.260
Defensive passing: 0.352
Defensive rushing: 0.185
—
I used the average ranking, in terms of EPA per play, of teams with at least 12 wins across each of the same four groups to see if these good teams performed especially well in each of them. The rankings are as follows:
Offensive passing: Average ranking of 6.91 out of 32 teams
Offensive rushing: Average ranking of 10.76 out of 32 teams
Defensive passing: Average ranking of 10.12 out of 32 teams
Defensive rushing: Average ranking of 13.39 out of 32 teams
It’s not surprising that the Seahawks won the Super Bowl with a rushing offense that was inconsistent at best, it’s normal. The Seahawks averaged 7.6 net yards per pass attempt, the second-best mark in the NFL, also normal for a successful team.
However, this doesn’t mean that Seattle was intentionally below-average or that improvement wouldn’t be good: The Eagles won the Super Bowl a year earlier with a rushing offense ranked first in attempts, second in yards, and fifth in yards per carry with the Offensive Player of the Year at running back.
If Fleury upgrades the Seahawks rushing attack from where Kubiak left it without losing value from the passing offense—and there’s no reason to think that this couldn’t happen—Seattle’s going to be even more efficient on that side of the ball in 2026.
The Seahawks ranked 11th in offensive DVOA per FTN Fantasy but that was after a season-best ranking of 4th in Week 6. They got worse as the season went on.
Run the ball better, force more teams to commit to stopping the run, decrease the rate of defenses playing 5 or 6 DBs against Seattle, and become an elite offense next season.
Pair that with Mike Macdonald’s defense and the Seahawks could win at least 14 games again.
Cut down on turnovers
As noted in Saturday’s newsletter, there is a luck factor inherent in all turnovers, especially fumbles. This generally means that teams will regress from their pole the season before and the Seahawks were on the extreme end of fumble luck in 2025:
The Seahawks ranked 32nd in fumbles lost.
Sam Darnold’s interceptions took the blame for Seattle’s poor turnover rate last season, but fumbles had more to do with it. Even Jaxon Smith-Njigba fumbled three times.
Research by analysts including Aaron Schatz and Brian Burke has consistently shown that fumble recovery rates strongly regress toward league average over time, suggesting that recovering an unusually high percentage of fumbles is driven more by randomness than repeatable skill.
Seattle ranked 31st in turnovers. Without even making any adjustments—which they did during last season and will continue to do—the Seahawks would be much better than that. Cutting down on turnovers is a given.
Close in the red zone
Another reason that Kubiak is probably getting a little too much credit is that the Seahawks would have no offense to speak of were it not for Smith-Njigba.
JSN accounted for 25% of the team’s receptions
A 34% target share (1st)
It was either JSN or Puka Nacua who did the most heavy-lifting as a receiver in 2025, but Matthew Stafford was the MVP and Sean McVay has been an NFL play caller for over a decade so it’s fair to say Smith-Njigba had more responsibility for Seattle’s offense.
Smith-Njigba had 1,793 of 4,063 passing yards and 10 of 25 touchdowns.
With a legitimate number two option, the Seahawks were forced to live or die by going as far as JSN could take them. His ability to get open had much more to do with Seattle’s success than Kubiak’s play calling, but we can’t expect that to last for a long time.
The Seahawks need to spread the ball around more in 2026, especially in the red zone, where Seattle ranked 21st in touchdown conversion rate.
JSN scored 6 red zone touchdowns, A.J. Barner had 5, and Tory Horton, Cooper Kupp had 2 each.
In spite of ranking 16th in third down conversions (39.8%) and 21st in the red zone (54.2%), the Seahawks were third in scoring. The point total was boosted by Seattle’s defense and special teams though, evidenced by being 11th in points per drive.
If the Seahawks increase their scoring rate, run the ball more efficiently, and close out more drives with touchdowns than field goals, they’ll be even harder to beat next season than they were as the Super Bowl champions.
I would agree. Woolen was great man to man not as good in zone and tackling. That can be improved.
Walker prior to last season was always banged up a bit and less effective and only really unleashed the playoffs these backs as a group can be better
The O line will have more experience as a group and continuity matters
We really had just one receiver for much of the season - JSN. We have more depth and the TEs should be even better.
I do believe Darnold turned a corner in week 16 last year against the Rams. It’s only 5 games, but he protected the ball as well as any QB in the NFL over those 5 games. He’s better this year. Fleury blew away MM in his interview for OC and took the job from a probable internal hire. I think he can succeed more than Kubiak. The offensive line figured out the wide zone blocking by the end of the season. Price skill set fits wide zone to a tee. Shaheed has the offseason to gel with Darnold. Horton will be back. Arroyo should make a big step. Barner could be a pro bowler.
This defense has improved with every month under MM. There was no chance MM was bringing Woolen back. Mafe was replaced by Fowler who has performed better than Mafe in many seasons in his career. Yes, he is going to be 32, but he’s healthy. They have players who can fill Bryant’s role. This defense will continue to improve this season.
They hired a number of coaches besides Fleury this offseason. This was an outstanding coaching staff to begin with, and it’s even better.
The core of young players on the Seahawks who were rookies, 1st or 2nd year players will likely see improvement, perhaps a couple taking big steps forward.
MM is only in his 3rd season and got better in both his first two seasons. I don’t see that improvement coming to a halt. This year, I wouldn’t be surprised if he begins to make improvements in the way he plays against McVey. Everyone talks about “How close the Rams were to beating the Seahawks in the championship game.” But if not for Woolen doing all he could to keep the Rams in the game, it would not have been close. I expect a big win on Christmas day against the Rams.
No the Seahawks haven’t hit their ceiling yet and I’ve been confident about this for weeks. Experts are so narrowly focused and short sighted. The Seahawks did so much to get better this offseason. Yet people see them near the bottom of the barrel in terms of success this offseason. The ceiling for the Seahawks is a 20 win zero loss season. Yet more than 1/2 of Seahawk fans on Field Gulls see them regressing. 54% see them winning 13 games or fewer. Tsk tsk. They’re turning into Mina Kimes or Jacson Bevens. With eyes wide open, this could be a historic season. Watch out if we win week six against Denver and open 6-0. That Thursday game on 4 days rest on the road will not be easy. But from there on out, we have at least 6 days between each game.
Go Hawks!