As we bask in the warm afterglow of that huge Seattle Seahawks Divisional Round win, we must ask ourselves: is John Schneider the most underrated figure in the history of the Seahawks organization? Let’s take a look at an executive who has stood the test of time in a league with tons of eyeballs and scrutiny associated.
We talk so much about head coaches having a very clear vision… John Schneider needs his flowers. J.S. has always had a very clear vision, one that perfectly aligned with Pete Carroll’s
well. The truly beautiful thing is that we’ve also seen it manifest in a new generation of Seahawks football.
Pete and John have helped to weave a specific DNA into the fabric of the identity of the Seattle Seahawks. Elite defense that can control the pace of the game is now a calling card of the blue and green team from the PNW.
To go along with that defense, special teams also hold a dear place in John Schneider’s heart. The recent trade for Rashid Shaheed hold’s interesting parallels to the pre-Super Bowl trade for Percy Harvin that Pete and John pulled off.
To go a step further, these men emphasized a strong rushing attack that sets up the play action to talented outside receivers to form a complementary offense. Carroll and Schneider rode this formula to back-to-back Super Bowl appearances.
You could even argue that the offensively inclined Mike Holmgren days placed a premium on the run game as part of a modified version of Bill Walsh’s West Coast Offense. If there’s one thing that the Seahawks will do throughout their history, it will be establishing the run game.
Back to what John Schneider, in particular, has built. During the Coach Carroll heydays in Seattle, a young Russell Wilson just had to do enough. He was asked to run the offense, hand the ball off to Marshawn Lynch, distribute to talented playmakers, take calculated shots and simply not turn the ball over to complement a menacing defense. Sound familiar?
This whole approach led early-career Russ to be labeled a “game manager” (which was a dirty word back then). The frustration with this style of play gave rise to the Let Russ Cook movement that pressured the team identity into change.
The Mike Macdonald iteration of the Seattle Seahawks is the same, but different. Sam Darnold will only be asked to do just enough. They don’t want or need an Air Raid offense. Seattle wants a guy who can mostly make smart decisions in ahead-of-the-sticks scenarios and take calculated shots deep.
I believe this is why Seattle moved away from the whole DK Metcalf / Geno Smith era so quickly and decisively. Maybe even why Pete was let go, as well. Schneider had something different in mind: a return to his basic principles of football.
Although Coach Carroll seemed to favor the more attacking style of late-career Russell Wilson and late-career Geno Smith, there are two quotes from the beginning of his Raiders tenure that I think illuminate the tenants of his and Schneider’s overall philosophy on winning football.
In a Raiders interview before the draft, Pete Carroll explained: “The quarterback position is so unbelievably overblown… ‘cuz there’s only a few guys that are the great ones. They can change the game. But there’s not that many guys like that! But you can still be highly successful and productive in building your team around the game that allows the quarterback to manage his aspect of it. If you run it then you can play fast, if you can play fast then you can strike them down the field, you can create the big plays that you want to create. You can compliment the defense, you can take care of the football better, and on and on and on… there’s so much to it.”
If that isn’t a rare insight into football philosophy, check out what he said later on in the same interview.
Pete was discussing the run game and how it has always been essential to success, especially in light of the Philadelphia Eagles coming off of a dominant drubbing of three-peat hopeful, Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs. He said that the best teams display, “the function and execution of the game really built around the ability to run it.” Carroll went on to say, “The Eagles are probably the most obvious demonstration of it, because Saquon is so out of this world. But look what’s happened to the quarterback: Hurts hasn’t had to do that much; it’s been easy for him. That’s the whole point…” Carroll continues in saying, “The job is so challenging and so hard, you want to build around that position so that it isn’t the critical issue that you can’t win with.”
ESPN’s Troy Aikman assessed Sam Darnold against the 49ers in Week 18: “He hasn’t had to do a whole lot. And I don’t mean that disrespectfully at all. You never win in spite of the quarterback. The quarterback always has to show up and play well… and he’s done that. Do it on 3rd downs and all of that; but you think of the pressure on Sam Darnold coming into this game and how efficient he has been playing quarterback throughout this game tonight.”
The transition from Pete Carroll to Mike Macdonald could not have happened any smoother and could not have happened at a better juncture in time. To find a young and prodigious head coach on the cutting edge of defensive scheme is something that will always be looked upon with longing by Baltimore Ravens fans, among others. That young coach seems to share the same sentiments about culture and winning football as Schneider.
Mike Macdonald was more involved earlier in the offseason this year (he missed a good portion of it the year he was hired, as the Ravens made a playoff run before he could get settled in) and attended the Senior Bowl. He remarked about the 2025 offseason: “I think just having the opportunity to have a full offseason to work together is really just more ways to connect.”
Coach Macdonald goes on to explain that “the more conversations we can have about more players, about more things we want to build, how we want our team to look, things get ironed out inevitably. It just becomes a lot more streamlined, I think so that was probably the biggest benefit of being able to spend a lot of time together in the offseason.” This is year two of Macdonald and he has the Seattle Seahawks on the precipice of a fourth franchise Super Bowl appearance.
If the Seahawks somehow find a way to win a Super Bowl title this year, John Schneider will join names like Al Davis (John Madden and Tom Flores), Howie Roseman (Andy Reid and Nick Sirianni) and Ozzie Newsome (Brian Billick and John Harbaugh) as GM’s to win multiple NFL championships with different coaches. That would be quite the statement.
While Coach Macdonald has his fingerprints all over the defensive scheme and recent player types, John Schneider has his fingerprints all over everything from the roster to the practice squad, to trade markets, to coaching staff, and of course the front office.
In a career that spans stops with the Packers, Chiefs and Commanders before Seattle, Schneider has seen much. Area Scout, Todd Brunner said, “I think John (Schneider), the reason he’s so good at it is because he started where we are. He started as an in-house intern and he’s worked his way up. Personality-wise, he hasn’t changed. He’s still that guy. He understands what we do and he’s still a guy’s guy.”
John Schneider has worked his way up and has displayed a fearlessness in trade scenarios. He’s taken big swings in trading for players like Marshawn Lynch, Jimmy Graham, Percy Harvin, Carlos Dunlap, Sheldon Richardson, Duane Brown, Jadeveon Clowney, Quandre Diggs, Jamal Adams, Leonard Williams, and Rashid Shaheed (among others). He has brokered deals to send players away at just the right times as well… think Russell Wilson, as well as the aforementioned Metcalf and Smith.
Schneider was one of the architects of a defense that was the first to lead the NFL in fewest points allowed for four consecutive seasons in the Super Bowl era. Over a decade later, he hired another coach who now has won the most games ever in a single Seahawks season (14; although it’s now a longer season than before). This team has aura.
Swagger has also been as much a part of Seattle sports as any other quality. Many times, east coast bias makes is so that stars from the Emerald City must be squeaky wheels just to get their just dues. Gary Payton? Richard Sherman? Marshawn Lynch … Jaxon Smith-Njigba? After Deommodore Lenoir couldn’t live up to his own trash talk in Week 18, JSN got on his head with a cold line: “Yeah I saw it .. I don’t have time to respond to all my fans.”
Pete Carroll was an incredible “culture” coach. Even if you give Carroll all of the credit for that (at your own peril), J.S. learned, facilitated, and seems to be carrying on that culture.
One thing we can all agree on and appreciate is that the Legion of Boom days were a collective effort. That’s the beauty of professional football; it requires the collaboration of an entire literal organization. From scouts, to coaches, training staff and medical staff, and of course a collection of players all working in concert.
Carroll and Schneider put together multiple dominant Seahawks teams that will go down in history. It was a special era. Schneider and Macdonald seem to have put together a strong team in 2025. If it proves to be super, Schneider may go down as even more special than some of us currently see him in the pantheon of Seattle sports.
He should win Executive of the Year and probably be in contention for Executive of the Decade if there was such a thing (and it reflected sustained defensive excellence). Do you remember all the discourse in 2025 regarding who would be included in the Mt. Rushmore of Seattle Seahawks figures? That may have to be revisited if things continue breaking the right way.
Even if the team does not win the Lombardi Trophy this year, this Seahawks team has a bright future with an emerging young talent at head coach. Only three teams have more salary cap space than the Hawks… but us 12’s want that damn ‘chip THIS year! The Los Angeles Rams are now the only thing that stands in the way of the biggest stage for Schneider and his Seahawks.
