A comprehensive guidebook to Ryan Grubb (and why it doesn't matter)
Breakdowns of Seahawks OC Ryan Grubb's college offenses, but explanations for why usefulness is limited: Seaside Joe 1909
The Seattle Seahawks shot directly at the source of their infatuations when they hired popular rising candidate Mike Macdonald to be the head coach, but then took a left turn by slotting Ryan Grubb and Aden Durde for the offensive and defensive coordinator positions, respectively. Though Durde’s impact is muted by the probability that Macdonald will call defensive plays for at least the first year, how Grubb calls offense compared to predecessor Shane Waldron could be as important of a change as ANYTHING that happened to the Seahawks in 2024.
The “problem”—which isn’t even a problem at all—is that everyone’s asking the same question: “What is that going to look like in Seattle?”
The Seahawks could have sought an established play caller like Greg Roman, Kellen Moore, or Arthur Smith. They could have attempted to pluck a name from an NFL team, as is usually the case with a first-time OC hire. These hires wouldn’t have gone over as well as Grubb, but it’s still something that could have happened and there’s a risk with choosing someone with no NFL background to run an NFL offense. There’s upside in thinking outside the box…and also there’s what Morgan Freeman saw when he looked inside the box. What will Seattle’s offense look like under Ryan Grubb?
The TRUTH is that nobody can say for sure. I’ll try anyway, with the caveat that it is only a guessing game and I’m also not sure why it matters for us to know. On Wednesday, I answered the first in a series of questions by Super Joes and said I would get back to the queries that I had left on the table due to time constraints. This part two, which turned out to need an article unto itself:
Seasider Con: Can you dissect what you expect a new offense to look like under Grubb?
Seasider Cold Steel and Sunshine: I would also like to go over Grubb's system and how our players can fit in to what we expect on the offensive side of the ball. It seems that because Grubb was at UW everyone knows what to expect with Grubb. Hash marks and speed is going to change what he does but literally no one has discussed what we think Grubb is going to do.
First, I’ll give some history. Second, I’ll explain why the history doesn’t matter. Third, I’ll ponder why fans even want that information to be spoiled.
Is this post free and ad-free? Absolutely. But just think of the difference you’re making when you support a Seahawks writer with just $5 for in-depth free content like this one. It means we can have a lot more of it in the future:
Grubb-DeBoer offense
Well, nobody can actually say that there is such a thing as a “Ryan Grubb offense”, any more than we can say that a defensive coordinator who worked for Pete Carroll wasn’t just doing as he was told by Pete. Grubb has worked for Kalen DeBoer in 12 of the past 17 years, so anything that he’s known for is actually what DeBoer is known for and now we will find out how different the two coaches could be, philosophically speaking.
DeBoer was promoted from offensive coordinator to head coach at Sioux Falls in 2005, then he hired Grubb as run game coordinator and o-line coach in 2007. The pair was separated from 2010-2013 when DeBoer took a job at Southern Illinois, prior to reuniting at Eastern Michigan in 2014 when DeBoer was OC and Grubb was OL. The two went to Fresno State in 2017 and were separated for one year when DeBoer served as Indiana’s OC in 2019 which is where he first met Michael Penix. Grubb has been DeBoer’s offensive coordinator for the past four seasons (2020-2021 at Fresno State, 2022-2023 at Washington) and was set to follow him to Alabama prior to getting the Seahawks job.
Here is a snippet of information on DeBoer and Grubb’s offensive tendencies: