What would be your one question for Seahawks GM John Schneider?

If you could ask John Schneider one question, what would it be? Seaside Joe 1985

When we hit Seaside Joe 1976 recently, it would have been a good idea to start a series of posts briefly talking about what the Seattle Seahawks did that year and to get your comments sharing memories of that specific team. We already missed the 1976-1984 Seahawks, including the year Jack Patera was fired, going to the AFC Championship in 1983, and the 12-4 team in 1984 that was top-5 in scoring and points allowed, something Seattle has only done one other time in franchise history.

The 1985 Seahawks allowed the fourth-most points in the NFL through six games, but then the second-fewest (behind only the legendary Chicago Bears defense) over the final 10 games. However, Seattle started 4-2 and finished 4-6 despite their improved scoring defense and missed the playoffs at 8-8. Don’t worry, the Seahawks didn’t come close to the playoffs: Even the 11-5 Broncos were left out that year. What do you remember about that season?

On Monday, I tackled part one of the Super Joes questions (and also made a big Seaside life announcement) but there were a few more that I couldn’t squeeze into that newsletter, so I’m going to finish it out today.

If you want to be in the next Super Joes Q and A to submit your Seahawks questions, or if you just want to upgrade to Super Joes because you think the newsletter is worth it, you can click here or this button to go Super:

Largentium: Will Coach Mac have to dial up his defense in the preseason so that the team gets the proper amount of practice in actual game situations? Or will he play it vanilla, trying to wait to show what the defense is going to until the regular season and hoping practice is enough?

Eduardo: I heard Mike Mac state, in reference to an impromptu situational football scenario at camp, that these scenarios help by providing "More reps for myself and Grubb". I'm not looking to overstate anything at this juncture, but he seems to be alluding to play calling reps for both himself and Grubb, and not Durde and Grubb. Is there any inkling as to how defensive play calling duties will pan out or is this also playing itself out at camp as Mike decides how comfortable he feels with his new defensive coordinator?

On the question of who calls plays, Macdonald stated in the beginning that he would be the defensive play caller for the Seahawks to start his career and then hand those duties over to Aden Durde when the timing was right. From what I can gather of other situations in the NFL, these play calling duties can change hands very suddenly and sometimes without any announcement that it even happened. By all accounts, Macdonald isn’t going to give up those duties any time soon; if anything, he was largely hired because of his ingenius play calling with the Ravens over the past two seasons.

And if you’re Durde, this shouldn’t really bother you. Having closely followed the Rams for the past few years, they’ve had three offensive coaches get head coaching jobs without ever calling plays in L.A.: Zac Taylor, Matt Lafleur, and Kevin O’Connell. Just the association with Sean McVay was enough. Similarly, several assistants under Macdonald last season, including Anthony Weaver, Zach Orr, and Dennard Wilson, were hired as defensive coordinators in part because of their association with Macdonald.

On what Macdonald will run in the preseason, that’s a good question too. I think Macdonald has experience from two seasons in Baltimore to know what he can try and what he can’t try in exhibition games before Week 1 without preventing the defense from having success, as the Ravens were a top-5 defense in both of his tries.

I would love it if a coach or anyone wants to chime in on this, but my hunch is that it doesn’t matter what the Seahawks “show” in the preseason as much because the point seems to be making opponents *think* they know what’s coming based on the personnel and alignments, then have a bunch of different things you can do with that after the snap.

zezinhom400: Any idea on what Pete's up to, other than cameos with the Huskies? I think we can all agree his advisory role with the 'Hawks is what we thought it would be....but, he never struck me as a guy with nothing left to do. Wonder if he's trying to still drive that cool concept of the NFL celebrating its players more?

I still can’t say, but if a once very public person spends this much time “in hiding”, I imagine he must really like the ambiguity and mystery and alone time. I can only guess—truly this is only a guess—that Pete Carroll will pop back up somewhere in 2025 and have a role with a football team that is not the Seahawks. I assume that just because he has spent 50 years as a football coach and when he last talked to the media he said he wasn’t ready to retire. Perhaps this is an opportunity to reset similar to the year off he took between the Patriots and USC, which he said he used to “self-reflect and reinvent” himself.

This is a good time to share survey results on Pete Carroll:

8-10 wins crowd: “83% is was right, 1% it was wrong”

11+ wins crowd: “86% it was right, 2% it was wrong”

Seeds of doubt crowd: “69% it was right, 19% it was wrong”

Almost every Seahawks fan answered that it was the right time to part ways with Carroll (what would the number be if Seattle had hired a coach who fans didn’t support as much as Mike Macdonald, like my original prediction, Mike Kafka?), and it was about 13% for every group that firing Pete was “acceptable”, but those fans who aren’t sure if the team can win 8+ games this year had a much higher percentage who felt Pete got robbed.

However, even 1-of-5 is not a high percentage.

Roger Woitte: What are your current subscription stats? You used to post regular updates and now I’m curious!

I appreciate the interest! I’ve always planned to do fewer and fewer updates about the newsletter stats, and not as much requesting for subscriptions, as we got bigger and it didn’t feel as necessary. We remain in a steady growth pattern, although slower in 2024 than we were doing in 2022 and 2023 after moving over to Substack.

By all means, I would love it for any readeres out there to spread the word, share the newsletter with other Seahawks fans, and upgrade your membership when you feel like you have the means and interest to do so. When we hit another milestone or maybe crack the top-25 sports newsletters ranking, I will definitely give an update! Going up in the rankings requires more paid subs and Super Joes subs, but seriously I encourage people to upgrade only if they really want to do that.

Winston: Hey Bud! I have to apologize because I haven't read every newsletter yet but I'm getting close. In lieu of this, what's Johnny's take on where the team is? Now that he's put it all together, what is his self assessment of the team? Of self and where things were, stand, need to go, yadda, yadda ... Geno????? DK?? Could you get an interview with the guy and get it from the horse's mouth?? What a heck of an issue that would be lol

An interview with John Schneider would definitely be a heck of an issue and something I want to make possible in the future. I do not doubt that Seaside Joe can get there one day, I’ve been a part of experiences that felt a lot more impossible than that.

What question would you ask John Schneider if you can ask him one thing?