Through fifteen games this year, I have seen enough of the Seattle Seahawks under Mike Macdonald to know who and what they are. In many ways, I see a talented football team, not too far from the talented teams that have just beaten them in the last two weeks, and not really much less talented than the NFC West leading Los Angeles Rams.

They are rich at the skilled positions on offense. Jaxon Smith Njigba is an ascending star in this league. Ken Walker and DK Metcalf offer elite physical talents even if they are not wholly consistent as players. Zach Charbonnet, Tyler Lockett, Noah Fant, and maybe now even AJ Barner could probably flourish in several offenses in the league.

They have depth and talent on their defensive line. Their defensive tackles are stout run stoppers and they can rush the quarterback. Boye Mafe and Derick Hall can be pro bowl edge rushers together for years.

They have a good middle linebacker and talent in their secondary.

They have a capable veteran quarterback who can win them games, as he almost did it yesterday against a very good Viking defense.

They need to build up the interior of their offensive line this offseason. It is an absolute must. This, you would think, should be the priority number one for this team moving forward.

Or is it?

Hm..

Well, let me say that, as I sat through this game against the Vikings at Lumen Field watching Seattle drop yet another close winnable game, I reached a definitive conclusion about what is preventing these Seahawks from actually becoming the Vikings, Packers, and Rams. I don’t believe they have a quality NFL offensive coordinator, and I am now more than ready to move on from Ryan Grubb.

These are my feelings today, and they can certainly change if they go out on the road on Thursday Night Football and smoke the Bears in Chicago with an efficient offensive outing, and then they march down into LA on the following week, and upset the Rams on their home field in a similar manner. If this happens, I will probably fall victim to a blinding recency bias, and believe that Grubb is the man to continue with.

Right now, however, I do not believe he is the guy to pair with Mike Macdonald and his defense. I do not feel Grubb is up to coaching quality NFL offensive football. It isn’t just about a problematic offensive and erratic quarterback play. Too often we see receivers lining up illegally, and other piss poor procedures. They are a sloppy lot that oozes with talent, but they cannot consistently put it together, and I think that is solely a reflection of Ryan Grubb. Lack of sound fundamental details is a coaching issue.

But that is not the worst of it for me.

Grubb’s approach to the run game is killing my soul as a diehard Seattle Seahawk fan who knows full well the long traditional history of this being a running team in the scenic Pacific Northwest. They ran the snot out of the ball under a decade and a half of Pete Carroll, they ran it hard under pass happy Mike Holmgren, and in the 1980’s they were coached by a dude nicknamed Ground Chuck.

Seattle Seahawk football is about running the holy snot out of the football. This is who and what we are as a people as much as it is that people in Southern California surf, people in Russia drink vodka, and people in Canada drink beer and ice fish. People in the PNW watch run centric football. This is our birthright, and Ryan Grubb is pissing all over it.

When Mike Macdonald was hired last winter, the first thing he said when asked about what his vision was for this team was that he said he wants a tough program that plays hard, and runs the football. So, excuse me if I feel like Ryan Grubb is perhaps now the only person in the Pacific Northwest who doesn’t understand what this current head coach wants, and what the tradition of this team is all about.

I will also just say this again. I don’t want to hear another utterance about what their offensive line is right now, so zip it around me, they actually played surprisingly decent enough against a dominant Vikings defensive front. They just needed to, yet again, run the ball more.

If you have Ken Walker and Zach Charbonnet in your backfield, and you cannot figure out ways to consistently and properly utilize their talents as running backs, then you do not belong coaching in this league, period. If Grubb cannot commit to this, he should go back to college and coach in the Big 12 where coordinators make millions of dollars chucking it all over the place against soft college defenses.

Running the football takes a commitment to it, and the easiest way to build consistency on even a porous offensive line is to get the five so-so guys building chemistry run blocking together. Find something you do well, and do it over and over again out of different formations that disguise it. Once you master that, add a new wrinkle, and then you got a couple fun cords to play a decent Ramones song on your guitar with. It is not rocket science, but it takes fucking discipline, and determination.

It is literally that simple. The more you run, the better your offensive line grows together, blocks together, and the more balanced and cohesive your offense then becomes. Simple as pie, and I honestly now miss the good old Schotty days of Seahawk football four years ago.

Let us just look at this Minnesota team that just came into Lumen Field and beat us.

The Minnesota Vikings are 13-2 right now, and they are playing without their starting left tackle, have similar pass blocking issues as Seattle does (it showed in this game, by the way), and yet Kevin O’Connell is very committed to his running attack (even if it is not prolific), and building play action off of it that Sam Darnold is executing at an impressive rate. He has paired this offensive approach with the wonders that Brian Flores is doing with their aggressive defense. Imagine what Seattle could be right now if Mike Macdonald was paired with a similar offensive mind.

Could Grubb morph into a similar play-caller?

Sure, I guess he could. I guess that I could also be discovered by a Hollywood filmmaker while I am mowing a parking strip, end up in the next Jurassic World movie being chased by a gigantic Allosaurus Maximus, but I am not going to hold my breath on that.

I think in his heart, Grubb would love to play call for vintage Payton Manning and Marvin Harrison and that stellar offensive line Manning had to work with in Indy. Grubb just lives for shotgun plays with loads of drop back passing, and just enough run to keep defenders honest.

As you step back and really take a big long look at this animal, it really is a stupid beast to look at, don’t you think?

The problem is that Geno Smith (bless his heart) is not Payton Manning, and this offensive line is not anything close to being geared towards pass blocking in that sort of chuck it all over the place scheme. Laken Tomlinson, Olu Oluwatimi, and Sataoa Laumea are all run blockers suited for run centric schemes. Geno Smith is, in many ways, an ideal play action quarterback.

If you want to run a Kevin Stefanski or Kyle Shanahan run centric offense, Geno is probably a very capable quarterback to game manage those sort of attacks, guiding his team towards the playoffs. If Seattle did move on from Geno in the offseason, and he ended up in Cleveland playing for Stefanski, I would honestly not be surprised if we saw them become a pretty decent playoff contending team there again.

But Grubb does not seem to have any designs to do any of this.

When he does start games with a run and play action approach, and it is effective, as was the case in this one, he quickly abandons the approach in the following series to dial up drop back shotgun passes. It is mind numbing how often this scenario has occurred this season.

This has happened far too often this season, and far too often, the results end in a three and out series that kills away any momentum previously gained by the offense. Far too often this places more pressure on Geno Smith to be perfect on the next series once the defense has sorta figured out what is coming. Honestly, it is not fair what he has been doing to Geno Smith.

Seattle had one game this year in Arizona a couple weeks back where they leaned into the run, stayed consistently with it, and Geno wonderfully game managed, and as a result, they played perfectly complimentary ball with their defense. After that game, it felt like Grubb had finally graduated into being a proper NFL coordinator, but then that ass-hatted game against Green Bay happened, and then this game was pissed away at home against the Vikings.

So, I am really kinda done with Ryan Grubb. Sorry Husky Fan person who thinks I am not giving him a fair shake, but I want Seattle to have an offensive approach that pairs well with a promising defense. I just do. That is what I am ready for moving in the 2025 offseason as it now feels more unlikely that Seattle will see the playoffs.

I fully get it if you want to blame Geno Smith for the terrible interception in the first half that led to Minnesota points, and the interception at the end that effectively killed any chance of a miracle come from behind finish. I will see that, and add that he also threw two other balls that should have been picked, and he could have easily had four interceptions on the afternoon, and we could have seen a more lopsided loss in result. Geno also took a terrible sack that brought us out of much needed field goal range in the closing minutes that could have tied the game and brought us to overtime. I will also just say, again, that I don’t think he was helped by Grubb’s play calling nearly enough as he should have been.

You can also blame DK Metcalf for a poorly ran route that led to Geno’s final INT. I will give you that. Seeing it live, it looked like Geno threw a dumbass pass into double coverage, but the replays I watched afterwards showed what was supposed to be a simple corner route to the sideline that DK decided not to break off on, for some inexplicable reason. Who the fuck even knows what that was about, maybe it is a sign of him growing frustrated in the offense and maybe no longer being the favored target with JSN coming on, but maybe you could also ask the question as to why JSN or Lockett wasn’t running that pattern in the first place.

You could also blame Byron Murphy for inadvertently grabbing Sam Darnold’s face mask on a sack that gave the Vikings new life during their go ahead drive. Sure, maybe that was a rookie mistake, but I feel like next year, perhaps with more NFL savvy, he makes the sack without grabbing the mask. So, really, lay off of Murphy for Christ’s sake.

You can blame Tre Brown for lining up offsides as a corner, which I don’t believe that I have even seen before in a game. WTF????

Speaking of cornerbacks, you can most certainly blame Riq Woolen for giving up the big time go ahead touchdown thrown to Justin Jefferson (although it sounds like he was expecting better help from the safety in a cover two look). There are some justified concerns about Woolen regressing that I think are warranted, and news that he was benched at the top of the game for breaking team rules doesn’t help his imagine these days. It is all currently a shame because he is such a physical talent, but at the end of the day, Seattle needs dependable players at key positions and not players oozing with potential but not living up to any of it enough.

So, yeah, there was a lot of slop in this game, and I suppose there will be those who will point directly towards rookie head coach Macdonald as the one chiefly responsible for it all. Go ahead and point there, if you need to do it. He is the head coach and ultimately the one in charge of the whole inconsistent ship.

But at the end of the day, I don’t know how any fan looks at this game, and the game a month ago against the Rams, the game last week against the Pack, and the gawd awful game against the Giants in early October, and not think that Ryan Grubb out thought common sense for the sake of throwing the mother fudging football. I just don’t.

So, yeah, maybe there are changes coming to this roster this offseason. Maybe Woolen isn’t a fit for what Macdonald needs at cornerback in his defense. Maybe DK could get dealt. Maybe they do move on from Geno Smith, instead of extending, and maybe the very quarterback we just saw play against them comes to Seattle through free agency this Spring and takes over.

None of any of this will matter, in my opinion, until they fix the offensive play-calling, and they invest more into the offensive line.

But really, fix the fudge-nugget-ed mother-fudging fudge-mudging play-calling.

Drafting a good offensive guard in round one next Spring, and signing a pro bowl center in free agency will not alleviate my concerns about this offense if the theme continues to be a pass happy Grubb offense in 2025. Unless Geno Smith suddenly does turn into Tom Brady or Peyton Manning next Fall, I would be bracing for more frustration as a Seahawk fan if this approach continues on.

So, please, Seattle. Don’t make me brace for that.

These are my thoughts, and feels. It is a shame that Seattle did not seize the day and pull off this upset win. Now, in order to make the playoffs, they will need to win in Chicago, have the Rams lose to the Cardinals this weekend, and then they will have to beat the Rams in ten days. It is what it is.

That said, merry Christmas, onto Chicago, and go Hawks!