Seahawks hire Fleury, lose Janocko: Don't judge a coach by his coverage

Get used to a Fleury of Seahawks coaching changes every offseason

Few things have divided this country as evenly and as divisively as comic book movies. Comic book movies are either really important to you or it’s really important to you that people know that comic book movies are not important.

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If I express which side I’m on I risk inviting a debate that I won’t have but let’s just say that I don’t know what an “endgame” or a “doomsday” is supposed to mean. Which is why I think that The Dark Knight is one of the best movies ever made.

The one movie that transcended the comic book movie debate and brought both sides together to agree that, “Yeah, Heath Ledger is GREAT in that”.

If Cecil B. DeMille had to make a top-10 list for why movies should exist, number 8 would be “So that one day people can go see The Dark Knight”. It’s that good. The perfect pacing, the dark humor, the creepily relatable characters, the story about finding justice in an unjust world…It’s like if The Shawshank Redemption was about Andy Dufresne in a cape.

And it’s probably not a coincidence that Morgan Freeman plays the wise consigliere in both movies.

But as good The Dark Knight is, it’s perhaps the one movie in the last 25 years that only works because of an actor in a supporting role. It’s not just the “The Joker” or the situations that he’s place in by Christopher Nolan that make the character so mesmerizing that a 2.5 hour movie that feels like it goes by in 20 minutes and then you could watch it all over again. It’s Ledger as The Joker.

Without Ledger grounding the rest of the movie by giving a serious portrayal of the most unserious character then The Dark Knight just becomes another “comic book movie” that leaves people just as divided as the rest of them. This point is confirmed by the fact that two other Oscar-winning actors have played The Joker* and whether you love them or hate them those are “comic book movies”.

*three if you include Joaquin Phoenix, who won an Oscar for playing The Joker, but in that case I think Joker is literally not a comic book movie

Whereas The Dark Knight is Heat or A Clockwork Orange and it just happens to take place in Gotham City. People who love to say they hate comic book movies can call it the exception that proves the rule and actually it’s probably thanks to Ledger’s disdain for comic book movies that makes the character work; Ledger turned down an opportunity to be considered to play Batman in Nolan’s first Batman movie because he said he would “feel stupid and silly” in a superhero role.

It was only after Ledger saw The Batman Begins that he realized the form could be elevated and begged Nolan for the role (before there was even a script or an intention to make a sequel, let alone with The Joker).

And when the news was announced that Heath Ledger was going to play The Joker, the Internet obviously rejoiced and celebrated and agreed that a new standard for playing the villain would soon be set by “the guy who played the heartthrob in that thing.”

Just kidding they hated it.

“I am NOT seeing this movie if he is in it. There are over a million better choices.”

“Heath Ledger? A joker? I don’t think so.”

“And now begins the second downfall of the Batman series … the film after this will probably introduce Robin … then Batgirl!”

“Probably thé worst casting of all time.”

“Yeah great, Jokeback Mountain.”

"He's not exactly comic-book material, and he has to fill the impossible-to-fill shoes of Jack Nicholson, who will always be the guy most associated with The Joker."

(I don’t know if “Jokeback Mountain” has to be negative because it could also work as a clever play on words without any devious intentions.)

When I say that The Dark Knight is one of the best MOVIES ever made (you can make a different definition for “films” if you want to but as far as “movies” go I’m comfortable putting TDK in the top-50) and that it wouldn’t work without Ledger, I really mean it.

And when I say that the reaction to the casting was just as negative as the reaction to picking Geno Smith to succeed Russell Wilson in 2022, I really mean it.

Not every great performance has a great story behind it, but Ledger’s turn from being cast as the villain for being cast as the villain and then turning it into becoming the hero of every actor who want to get as many accolades as he did for playing an animated character is the “Kurt Warner’s 1999 MVP and Super Bowl season” of Hollywood.

There’s a great lesson in that story:

We can’t be the judge of what’s going to suck based solely on the announcement.

Or conversely what’s going “to rule” when the news seems positive. I’m often surprised by results that didn’t match my expectations during the process, both good and bad.

I was never supposed to have a comic book movie on my “most watchable” list and yet here I am wondering if I should put on The Dark Knight again because I’ve been writing about it. I guess it’s true…

You either fall asleep as a hero or stay awake long enough to watch the villain.

Mac/Fleury

The news of the Seahawks hiring Brian Fleury as the offensive coordinator was met with a mostly positive reaction by fans, probably aided somewhat by the fact that the franchise has earned a lot of faith right now by winning the Super Bowl and we’d support any decision by this particular regime.

There had not been much public support for an internal hire as the next OC anyway so picking someone from left field wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, with the exception of one name: Quarterbacks coach Andrew Janocko.

While there wasn’t much of a negative reaction to hiring Fleury, there were some boos in reaction to losing Janocko to the Raiders in the process. A guy who became coveted because he’s the 37-year-old quarterbacks coach who was tabbed as a future play caller by Klint Kubiak*, which we’ve known since Janocko was given OC duties in a preseason game against the Packers.

(Shout out to Super Joes subscriber Danno for reminding me about this game in the comments the other day because I would never known that otherwise.)

*I also think 5% of the reason fans believe in him is that his name sounds like “jock”

Mike Macdonald was pleased with Janocko’s performance despite a 20-7 loss, a score that can’t really be judged as important given the context:

"It's improved today. Andrew Janocko called the game on offensive, our quarterback coach. I thought he did a great job getting Jalen (Milroe) ready. I thought for the most part we operated alright. We weren't flirting with the play clock. We were getting in and out of plays, and getting from one play to another and do that type of stuff. We have to operate at an elite level to be a championship football team. We're not there yet with those guys and really as a football team. It's something we're still chasing. It's definitely improved."

I know that losing a quarterbacks coach who has been put on “ones to watch” list feels bad—mostly because it is, QB coaches are about as important as OCs—but remember what Steinbeck said:

“Nothing good gets away.”

Andrew Janocko isn’t the Seahawks OC…yet.

It’s not goodbye, it’s OC ya later?

Fleury does not have a lot of play calling experience, only adding the “run game coordinator” title to his resume with the 49ers as of last season, but obviously the Seahawks feel that he is more ready for that role than Janocko, who is now the non-play calling offensive coordinator of the Raiders.

Well, who do you think Macdonald is going to request for an OC interview in one year or two years if Fleury is leaving for some reason?

Janocko will be far more experienced—and ready—after he spends some times as the Las Vegas OC under Kubiak. There’s little chance that Kubiak is ever going to cede play calling duties while he’s the Raiders head coach (nine years into the tenures of Sean McVay and Kyle Shanahan, they’re still calling plays) meaning that Janocko will always be looking for a chance to go somewhere that he can do that as long as he’s there.

Let’s do a quick rules review:

-NFL teams can block interview requests for coaches if the job is considered a LATERAL move; it has to be a PROMOTION (i.e., QBs coach to OC) for the team to be unable to block that request while the coach is under contract

This rule is why the Seahawks couldn’t block the Raiders from interviewing/hiring Janocko but did block the Raiders from interviewing Justin Outten; Las Vegas only wanted Outten for run game coordinator, which is the same role he has in Seattle.

-Going from a non-play calling OC to a play calling OC is NOT recognized by the NFL as a promotion, so teams can block those requests

Hypothetically, if the Seahawks wanted to interview Janocko for OC in a year or two and hand the entire offense over to him, the Raiders could block that request despite how much better that job would be for a coach.

But there’s a caveat to that…

Ummm, I think Klint Kubiak is, like, our friend or whatever? I highly doubt that Kubiak would stop Janocko from going back to Seattle as OC if it’s what both sides wanted.

In 2017, McVay hired Matt LaFleur as offensive coordinator and then let him to go the Titans in 2018 when he didn’t have to because LaFleur wanted to call his own plays and become a head coach. It just doesn’t really behoove coaches to burn each other and it’s selfish for a head coach who wants play calling duties to stop one of his assistants from getting a job that allows him to call plays.

Blocking Outten from getting the same job with the Raiders is not the same as blocking Janocko from becoming an actual OC. That would be a brutal thing to do to your homie over a technicality.

I know that talking about how to replace Brian Fleury feels premature when he’s been the OC for less than 24 hours, but it’s only because I’m trying to prepare you for the inevitable:

Macdonald will have more OCs than Hollywood has Batmans.

Why O.C.erious?

With Fleury and Janocko in place, 31 of 32 teams now have an offensive coordinator for 2026 and the only exception is the Rams, who as previously mentioned don’t really need an actual offensive coordinator.

Out of 32 teams, 21 offensive coordinators were hired in 2026.

Yes. That’s right:

21/32 offensive coordinators are BRAND NEW.

Of the remaining 11, six were hired in 2025, two were hired in 2024, and one was hired in 2023. The longest-tenured offensive coordinators are Green Bay’s Adam Stenavich and Minnesota’s Wes Phillips, both of whom were hired in 2022.

-Stenavich and Phillips both work for OC head coaches (both former McVay OCs) meaning that they do not call plays.

-The three coaches hired between 2023-2024 also work for head coaches who call offensive plays.

Therefore, the longest tenured offensive coordinators who actually call plays are Josh McDaniels of the Patriots and Nick Caley of the Texans, both of whom were hired in 2025. No offensive coordinator play caller has had his job for longer than a year.

What’s going to make Brian Fleury so special that he lasts more than 2 years? That many years, you’re almost guaranteed to either go up or down:

“You either get promoted as a play caller or get replaced by a fill-in.” - The Janocker.

Whether Fleury was a really good hire or a really bad hire, the Seahawks will be right back on the market in a year or two. The Eagles have had four offensive coordinators in the past four years, two of whom are now head coaches and two of whom are certainly not offensive coordinators anymore. That’s the only expectation that a Seahawks fan can have with Sunday’s coaching news…

Joke ‘em if ya Gotham

The reason I started this newsletter the way I did today is that I have always really loved that dichotomy between the vitriolic reaction that comic book fans had to Ledger’s casting as The Joker and then later the universal praise those same people had for his performance as being the most monumental shift that an actor had ever created in the genre before; People loudly expressing opinions that they’ll later come to regret is my absolute JAM.

Countless actors have attempted to re-create that feeling with audiences again since The Dark Knight, sometimes even by using the same character.

To the point where doing any comic book villain role in a movie feels like an act of public humiliation because we know you’re trying to do as good as Ledger; anyone who has ever seen a friend “go as the joker” for Halloween can attest to this humiliation being just as true in real life.

A standard set by an actor who was called “the worst casting of all-time”, not for a lack of talent or because he was typecast but instead because he was actually the polar opposite of who fans thought they wanted in such a role. Even Ledger thought it the exact wrong role for him…and that’s what made it perfect.

So will Fleury be a good hire or a bad hire? Will Janocko be a big loss or another assistant who leaves and is forgotten six months later? (Robert Saleh was on Seattle’s 2013 staff and went to the Jaguars in 2014 but has never been referred to as “one that got away”.)

Based on this week’s news…We have no idea. The answers to those questions haven’t happened yet.

Until then everyone’s going to have their different opinions on these hiring decisions and sit on one side of the fence or the other about Fleury or Janocko and the only thing they can all agree on is that Heath Ledger was really good as The Joker.

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