John Schneider career as a general manager started with the Seahawks in 2010, winning a Super Bowl after four offseasons of rebuilding one of the worst rosters in the NFL. But in many ways, Schneider’s career as a general manager didn’t really start—or at least it restarted—when Pete Carroll was fired in 2024 and he could build Seattle’s team in entirely his own vision.
Under those conditions, Schneider was able to build a Super Bowl winner in only two offseasons.
The Seahawks might not have won the Super Bowl if not for Sam Darnold, and Sam Darnold would have never been able to sign with Seattle if not for the Minnesota Vikings. It was a decision to let him go that was NOT questioned at the time (I documented the Darnold-McCarthy swap reactions in a newsletter so that people wouldn’t forget that the narrative only changed once Darnold proved once and for all to be the far superior option…if not forever, then for at least 2025) but has since become daily fodder for Vikings fans to wonder:
“Why we do dat?”
As if the Super Bowl and J.J. McCarthy’s disastrous first attempt to be the starter weren’t enough evidence that Minnesota admits they made a huge mistake, the Vikings went as far to fire the GM who drafted him and then replace the GM with one of Schneider’s long-time aides.
Letting Darnold leave in free agency and then being replaced by someone who helped Darnold win a Super Bowl is like being a court jester who insults the king with a bad joke and then the executioner says something funny as the guillotine lops off your head, thereby becoming the king’s new favorite silly man. It’s literally adding insult to injury.
Vikings fans have been in agony since last year.
More specifically, they haven’t been in agony since Darnold was allowed to depart after a 14-3 season — again, most of them thought that move was GENIUS at the time. No, they’ve been in agony since roughly Week 2, when McCarthy threw two picks in a 22-6 loss to the Falcons and subsequently went on injured reserve to miss the next five games.
Week 1 should have been cited as a disaster too, but the Vikings mustered 21 fourth quarter points to seal a come-from-behind victory against the Bears.
When McCarthy returned to the field midseason, he threw four touchdowns and seven interceptions in the next four games, completing 52.5% of his passes for 5.3 yards per attempt, each start worse than the one before it. If you thought Darnold was bad in his Week 10 start against the Rams (when he completed 66% of his throws for 6.3 yards per attempt and still almost beat the second-best team in football), just imagine something far worse…every week.
(If at any point this feels like piling onto J.J. McCarthy, which seems unnecessary given how deep he’s already buried, it’s only because of circumstantial reasons; you can’t tell the story of how dumb it was to lose Sam Darnold without clarifying how bad the 2025 season went at quarterback AND that how was absurd it was to be that confident in McCarthy given his lack of experience.)
As of September 2, the Vikings have named Kyler Murray as the starter and appear to be leaning towards Carson Wentz as the backup, with McCarthy as QB3. The team initially kept Max Brosmer (the QB who some hailed as the next Brock Purdy prior to his start against the Seahawks last year) but they’ve since waived him and gotten him onto the practice squad.
It’s easy to imagine McCarthy falling into the same limbo as Trey Lance, Anthony Richardson, and Zach Wilson — quarterbacks that teams quickly realized should not be on the field until they get more experience, which is the paradox you think it is — and therefore never escape purgatory. (It’s past the point of the NFL needing to work out a deal with the UFL to let these quarterbacks play spring football, because that’s where McCarthy and Richardson belong.)
Good idea, bad reaction
Former Vikings GM Kwesi Adofo-Mensah may have had the right idea when he signed Darnold to a one-year, $10 million contract and drafted J.J. McCarthy with the 10th overall pick. Although McCarthy, Michael Penix, and Bo Nix were all considered closer to “day two prospects” up until the moment they were picked in the top-12, making him a reach by most standards, it is what happened nonetheless. The Broncos seem happy with their decision, at least.
The problem wasn’t the initial building of the quarterback room to replace Kirk Cousins, it was the reaction to Darnold’s first season with the team.
The Vikings went 14-3
Darnold had 35 touchdowns
Justin Jefferson could be happy
This should have been Minnesota’s opportunity to solidify something with Darnold, especially because it turned out his cost was not as dramatically debilitating as you’d expect from a Pro Bowl quarterback coming off of a career season. The 3-year, $100 million contract that Darnold signed with the Seahawks would even allow Seattle to get out of the deal after one season if that’s what they wanted to do.
Instead, Darnold was used as the scapegoat for the Vikings losing their Week 18 game to the Lions and their wild card game against the Rams. A way for nobody else in the organization to have to take accountability…except the guy who was leaving anyway.
Simultaneously, Adofo-Mensah was able to turn the team over to his quarterback draft pick at a time when he thought the Vikings were too good to fail given that they had Jefferson, Jordan Addison, T.J. Hockenson, and a team that just won 14 games.
Some fans are now citing Minnesota’s decision as “one of the worst front office moves in the history of the NFL,” something none of them felt was happening at the time news broke that Darnold would not be re-signed.
On the Vikings Collective podcast, The Athletic’s Alec Lewis cites the Darnold-McCarthy swap as historically-bad process:
“(The McCarthy disaster) is interesting because what goes along with it is one of the worst front office moves in the history of the NFL, letting go Sam Darnold to have him go win the Super Bowl and turning it over to someone who’s having to fight for his life to be a backup in the third preseason game of his third season. That’s why it’s interesting. Otherwise, (drafting a bust) is fairly common.”
It’s still hard to believe that nobody in Minnesota saw this coming at the time.
John Schneider’s best move?
If we start the timeline at 2024, after Carroll was fired, then Schneider’s best move was arguably his first move:
Hiring Mike Macdonald to be the head coach.
The decision to fire Pete and keep Schneider was largely centered around finding the right coach, and the belief even before firing Pete that Macdonald was that coach.
If winning the Super Bowl wasn’t enough of an endorsement for Macdonald, then certainly Hard Knocks has turned him into a national superstar.
In the 32-33 months since then, Schneider has layered a lot of great moves on top of one another:
Drafting Byron Murphy
Drafting A.J. Barner
Re-signing Leonard Williams
Trading for Ernest Jones
Extending Julian Love
Acquiring Josh Jobe
Hiring Klint Kubiak
Signing Sam Darnold
Signing Cooper Kupp
Signing DeMarcus Lawrence
Trading Geno Smith
Trading DK Metcalf
Drafting Grey Zabel
Drafting Nick Emmanwori (trading up for him)
Drafting Rylie Mills, Tory Horton, and Robbie Ouzts in one fifth round
Trading for Rashid Shaheed
This is excluding moves we can’t be as sure of yet, but may include extending guys like Charles Cross, Jaxon Smith-Njigba, Derick Hall, Shaheed, and Devon Witherspoon. It may include hiring Brian Fleury.
In a way it doesn’t feel like the Seahawks have made as many changes this time as they had to make from 2010 to 2012, but in another way it feels as though Schneider’s had so many more overall wins this time.
Since 2024, does he even have any Ls?
What is Schneider’s worst post-Pete move?
There are a few, but none are detrimental.
Hiring Ryan Grubb
This feels more like bad circumstances than bad process. The Seahawks couldn’t hire Mike Macdonald as the head coach until so late in the cycle that there were not many qualified offensive coordinators available anymore. Seattle took a shot on Grubb and it didn’t work for them, but he continues to be one of the most successful coordinators at the college level. It won’t be long before Grubb is running a program and he could come back to the NFL eventually.
Bad 2024 free agency
The Seahawks signed Laken Tomlinson, Tyrel Dodsen, Jerome Baker, Connor Williams, Laviska Shenault, Johnathan Hankins, Rayshawn Jenkins, and K’Von Wallace. Some of them were gone by midseason—the linebacker signings in a way still helped lead Seattle to Ernest Jones—and nobody was left by 2025. Hankins was perhaps the closest thing to a good signing that year.
This free agency class also emphasized why Seattle’s free agency process is better than most: No good acquisitions, but there wasn’t some ungodly bill left to pay. The Seahawks were not only able to move on quickly, they had plenty in the bank for Darnold, Kupp, and Lawrence.
In fact, Seattle’s only “bad” free agency move of 2025 was signing Marquez Valdes-Scantling, a loss of only $3 million.
3rd round—not much yet?
Since 2024, the Seahawks have drafted Christian Haynes, Jalen Milroe, and Julian Neal in the third round. It is, at least, worse than Schneider’s returns in the fourth and fifth round over the same period of time.
We’ll see what happens with these players—I mean, I’m not calling Neal a “fail” by any means before he even get started—and Milroe is coming off his most encouraging NFL appearance thus far.
If it seems like I’m “reaching” to come up with bad moves…I am!
Could you think of any? Or what’s his best move?
Last night, my wife had to preface a compliment by saying “I’m not trying to glaze you or anything” and certainly I’m not trying to do the same for Schneider either. We’ve got decades of evidence in NFL history that supports the idea that even the best front offices have good years…and bad years.
Hell, we wouldn’t have to look any further than John Schneider. He knows the feeling of a bad streak.
Right now he’s on a hot one. And at the center of that fire is Minnesota’s red-headed stepchild.
I just wanted to express my thoughts on Hard Knocks. It was exactly what I thought it would turn out to be. We got to watch an elite sports franchise that had won the Super Bowl featured on this program. Other than the inaugural first season of HK when they featured the SB champ Ravens, this show has only shown losing dysfunctional teams throughout the last 20 years. I have only caught a few episodes here and there over the past years mainly by channel surfing and coming across it. Only the crappy teams were eligible to be on it. Seems like it was a dread that every team wanted to avoid. We certainly didn't want the exposure and distraction of the omnipresent cameras capturing every single thing in the VMAC. That same sentiment held true for many of us before the season aired. But, what an incredible ride it was!
How cool was it to see our team featured in the best possible light! The city of Seattle was a star with its quintessential beautiful summer for those 5 weeks. The director of HK mentioned numerous times in interviews that the VMAC is one of one in the country. No other NFL training is like it. It is hands down the nicest facility in the NFL. Next to a lake surrounded by mountains and the trees of the PNW with bald eagles competing for fish, it is a jewel that the rest of the country can see. The climate is nothing like the roasting temperatures and steam bath humidity of most other places. The whole HK crew loved it here. Hopefully, they all had a chance to take in some places before they had to leave.
The team culture was on full display. I think every HK season captures a team's culture and typically the way other teams handle their players during cut down. From what I understand, it's brutal. These types of reality TV shows want the high drama of the agony of being cut and all that comes with it. Not so with this team. The practice squad is an essential part of the team as a whole. It's an extension of the 53 man roster and not a lower tiered group that sits outside so to speak. The language is that of inclusion. There is a genuine support and respect for all that extends to everyone. We got to witness behind the scenes that we would never have access to. It is so entertaining. Like Mike Salk says, I could watch hours and hours of this. It was awesome.
To the point of what John Schneider's worst move is, I don't really have one to point out. Every GM will swing and miss at something. Sure, the Malik draftee didn't work out. Jamal Adams didn't work out due to his many injuries. But, this guy is a future HOF GM. The only one in NFL history to have won two Super Bowls with two totally different teams. He was the GM during the perennially winning Pete Carrol era. He is now at the helm of the next golden era of Seahawks football. Now, through HK, everyone who cares to watch, will see the best GM in the NFL.
I can't leave this comment without mention of coach MM. What an amazing feature HK was for him. He was the primary star of the show. It isn't as if he pined for recognition. He just shown through with the authenticity of his character. The 4th episode in which he had a tribute to his friend and mentor O.J. Brigance was really moving. There was 28 seconds of silence during that moment where he got emotional in front of his whole team. That was pretty incredible. There is a great article I read last year that talks about his journey to becoming a football coach when he was a graduate student at a very prestigious business program. He was studying to go into finance but his passion was to coach, which he eventually pursued. His classmates basically predicted that he will win multiple SB's. Well, one down! I'd love to see and share that article again.
The coolest thing about winning the SB is the off season basking in it all. From the parade to the ring ceremony and every season highlight in between, Hard Knocks was like a midnight snack or supper after the all-you-can-eat dessert that happened since winning it all. Such a nice cap to the 2025 season right before we kick off next week to a whole new journey in 2026.
I am just as hyped for this season as i was for last season. What I look forward to the most this season is the eventual melt down of the Rams. When the expectations aren't met I feel the media will turn on them very quickly. A lot of "What's wrong with the Rams?" articles, and they could be 7-2. This leaves the Hawks to just stack wins and fly under the radar, even as defending champs.
Its really the best case scenario having the Rams be the pre-season favorite. It really takes the pressure off the Hawks while giving them some serious bulletin board material.