On Monday morning, less than two hours after I posted an article on this blog stating my desire for the Seattle Seahawks to move away from Ryan Grubb (and other matters I would love to see them address such as offensive line and the future at quarterback), they did just that. They canned Grubb.

I was elated with the news. I felt saw it coming for a while, and the only thing I found surprising was the amount of pushback with fans and some in the media. It was way more than I expected it to be, and I get it if you are a big time Husky fan who had a deep attachment to Grubb, but it clearly was not working with him here this year, and I have listed many reasons why.

Could have Grubb gotten better at his job in year two? Sure, it’s possible. It is also very possible that he wouldn’t have, and then suddenly you have a young head coach in Mike Macdonald potentially feeling the hot seat along with maybe GM John Schneider because the offense couldn’t connect with the defense enough for two years in a row.

So, I just wanted a couple days let dust settle before sharing my thoughts on the firing, and offering up some of my favorite potential candidates to replace Grubb. Here are my quick thoughts after the firing, and then my dudes that I really dig for this gig.

Firstly, firing Grubb was absolutely the right thing for Mike Macdonald to do. It had been painfully obvious throughout the course of the season that Grubb and Macdonald did not see eye to eye on how the offense should function. It is not that Ryan Grubb is a bad coach, it is that Grubb proved bad for what Macdonald wanted, and needed of this team.

There are now some very strong implications that Macdonald had numerous talks with Grubb after games that were squandered by the offense (Giants, Packers, Vikings, etc) about how game management was handled, run to pass ratios were lopsided, and yet Grubb could never seem to get the memo from his boss outside of one game in Arizona where the offense looked like it had a functional balanced plan of attack. It is also kinda now out in the open that Macdonald had to get his more NFL experienced coaches on the staff to tutor Grubb on how NFL defenses and offenses work.

Imagine being the passing coordinator having to explain to the person who is your boss in charge of the offense what NFL defenses do in the red zones against NFL offenses that college defenses don’t do. Yikes.

I have seen reactions from fans and some folks on podcasts and radio waves in Seattle that this firing was unfair to Grubb, and he deserved another chance in 2025. Okay, then. To that, I ask why.

Why does Mike Macdonald owe Ryan Grubb a second chance when Grubb had seventeen games in a NFL season to get on the same page with his boss and he failed to consistently do so?

If you think it is unfair for Ryan Grubb to be given the boot, how come you don’t think it would be unfair for Mike Macdonald to have to work with him again for another season?

Where is your allegiance in this?

Do you think he needed another shot simply because you are a big time Husky fan such as Dave Mahler on Sports Radio KJR and his former Husky QB buddy Hugh Millen?

Did you have high visions of grandeur that your Husky fandom would marry with your Seahawk fandom with Grubb play calling here?

Or is it that simply are you a bigger bleeding heart than you are a football fan, and morally you just find this firing super unfair?

None of these questions are an attack on anyone who hated this decision from the Seahawks, by the way. They are just meant to cut to the source of why there was so much outcry over the decision.

The Seattle Seahawks narrowly missed the playoffs this year because the offense was imbalanced and not nearly as complimentary to the defense as Mike Macdonald would have preferred it to be. It was not connected to Macdonald’s defense, on any level, and Macdonald wasn’t really asking that much from Grubb to bend a bit more to a balanced approach.

And who says that Macdonald did not give Grubb ample chances through the course of the season to correct course?

By way of SI writer Corbin Smith, it sounds like Macdonald had many talks with Grubb to adjust his offense more to the his will, and Grubb just failed to do it, almost stubbornly so. If your boss requests you to do things a certain way, and you routinely fail to adapt, you do not deserve to keep your job. This is how the business world works and why should the high profile world of the NFL be any different?

Ryan Grubb has made millions of dollars playing calling in college and now in the NFL. I am pretty sure he is not destined to have to now live out of an old RV parked across from a Safeway in Ballard while he works a mail route for sixteen hours a day.

I kinda think he will be alright in this, and will probably land on his feet just fine coaching again. He could return to college as a coordinator again. He could also stay in the league as a potential pass game coordinator which maybe he should do.

So, yeah, I don’t really feel to the need to rehash all of my reasons why I felt it was time to move on from Grubb. I don’t feel like the state of the offensive line was a big enough excuse to defend him, as there were many examples in games where the line showed better run blocking abilities than it did pass blocking.

If anything the state of the line should be seen as a bigger reason why Grubb’s play calling needed to go. So maybe don’t listen so much to former Husky Hugh Millen railing on the radio about how John Schneider is washed up and failed Ryan Grubb with offensive line talent, and maybe listen more to former NFL offensive linemen Mike Schlereth and Ray Roberts when they say the Grubb just didn’t do enough to put his offensive linemen in better situations to succeed.

What I believe is most important for Mike Macdonald moving forward his to pair himself with a smart offensive play caller who really understands NFL football, and who will be perfectly aligned with what Macdonald wants this team to be in terms of physicality and connectedness. Listening to the way Macdonald described his ideal offense recently, being able to be physical running the ball, getting the ball out fast to playmakers in space does make me think of the west coast offenses deployed by the McVay/Shanahan schemes of today, and it also made me think of a few other offenses out there, as well.

The one commonality I have with all my preferred candidates is that they are all coaches who have been quarterbacks. At the end of the day, I think it is just so much of an important advantage to get someone play calling who sees the game through the lens of a quarterback whether it is pass plays or run schemes. I think this is especially important if the head coach is a defensive minded one such as Macdonald. Someone high up on this staff needs to see the bigger picture from a quarterback’s view. Therefore, everyone on this list is going to have that common thread.

So, that said, moving forward, here is the list of candidates for the Seattle Seahawk offensive coordinator gig that I really like a lot for this team right now. For each one, I will go over the pros and cons, and likelihoods. Maybe at the end of this exercise, we will have a couple really good and likely candidates narrowed down.

Frank Reich

When I started thinking of Grubb replacements about a month ago when I felt it was more likely that he was going to be one and done here, Frank Reich was the first coach out there who came to mind. He coached top ten defenses in Philadelphia and Indianapolis that were more run centric versions of the west coast offense, and I just liked the idea that maybe he would return to coaching as a coordinator again instead of being a head coach after his last two stints.

The pros of hiring Reich are very obvious. He has been around pro football for over three decades both as a backup quarterback and a coach. He has worked great with a variety of quarterbacks, and gotten high results. He coached an incredibly dynamic Super Bowl winning offense in Philly six years ago, and had a good offense going for a while in Indy for a while as a head coach. He is also a very even keel mature dude who, in addition to Leslie Frazier, can offer wisdom and insight for what is still a young head coach in Macdonald. Perhaps most important, his offenses have always been tough physical running ones. Also, players seem to really like him a lot. He’s very genuine, and that is what Mike Macdonald is, as well.

On the surface, I can think of very little cons of hiring Reich should he decide that he wants to get back into coaching as a coordinator again. My question would be whether he still has the juice and fire for it, or whether at age 63, he would only be interested in giving coaching another go as a head coach again, if there was an opportunity for it. He’s older, he’s made a lot of money as a head coach twice, and he has won a ring as a coordinator. Maybe he is good to walk away from coaching and pursue other aspects of life, but if he does have the zest for running a professional offense again, I would absolutely love this hire.

Doug Pederson

Personally, I would be shocked if Doug Pederson decided that he wanted to be an OC again after all of his years being a head coach and winning a Super Bowl as one, but if he did, and wanted the gig up here, I would be pretty jacked up about his hiring. I just don’t see this as very likely. I would have to think that at age 56, after this dumb firing in super dysfunctional Jacksonville, he could take a year off, and be a candidate again with another vacancy. Maybe the Arizona job opens up, or Dallas, or Miami, or Tennessee.

I have a bit of a personal connection with Pederson. We were both Ferndale boys and he worked for a spell on my dad’s farm when we were in high school. On a personal level, it would be awesome if my old high school quarterback became the Seahawk OC, and as I knew him from way back then, he was a pretty big Seahawk fan. So, because of this, I cannot fully rule out this idea. He might dig moving back to PNW with the pressure off from being a HC and just call plays again.

The pros of Pederson being the next Seahawk OC are that he is from this area and his success with the Seahawks would likely matter to him greatly, he has been around the league for decades as a backup quarterback and coach at the highest levels, he’s a Super Bowl wining head coach, and he’s shown a pretty strong ability to be balanced on offense running the football. He is another guy who players tend to like, and could offer a wealth of insight and wisdom to the much younger Macdonald.

I can think of very little cons to hiring Doug Pederson. The only thing I can think of is just how exhausted he looked this last season in Jacksonville. If I were him, I would take another year off and really decide in that time if coaching is something that I would want to continue with, or whether I want to enjoy life was all the millions that I have made, and the fact that I won a title and never need to do it again. That’s what I think he will do. I think he takes this year off in 2025 to decide if coaching is still something for him.

Tee Martin

Tee Martin is a guy who I didn’t think about initially when I thought maybe they would move on from Grubb, but he is a name that I am seeing mentioned a lot. In case you are unaware, he is the current quarterbacks coach in Baltimore working with the greatest quarterback in the game in Lamar Jackson. I gotta admit it, I dig the idea of Martin a lot in Seattle, and let me explain.

There are huge pros to hiring Tee Martin. He is from Baltimore, knows Macdonald really well, and would probably know exactly what Macdonald means when describing his ideal offense. He has spent years in the league as a backup quarterback and a coach, and he has coordinating experience from his days at USC play calling for Sam Darnold. In fact, if the Seahawks wanted to pursue Darnold in the offseason, having Martin here as the OC could be a big selling factor. Martin can be viewed as responsible for transforming Lamar Jackson into a more complete quarterback capable of beating you as easily from the pocket as he is as a runner, and Lamar absolutely loves Tee Martin.

I cannot find any cons at about about bringing in Martin outside of the fact that he is only ever coordinated in college, but that doesn’t concern me because he has been around the league for six years as an assistant and he spent six years in the league as a backup quarterback. I think it is safe to say the Martin probably knows NFL football pretty well. Right now, I rate Tee Martin as one of the most likely coaches out there to land this gig. It makes that much sense.

Josh McCown

This is the guy who I think he getting a lot of buzz amongst the fans and other bloggers who hover around the Seattle Seahawks. He is the quarterback coach in Minnesota where we have seen Sam Darnold resurrect his career this year in ways in which nobody saw coming. Vikings head coach Kevin O’Connell has a track record out of getting great results out of quarterbacks in his system from his time spent in Los Angeles with Sean McVay, and his time currently in Minnie, but I think it is fair to wonder how much of Darnold’s success this year is also due to McCown who spent 18 years in the league as a quarterback on 13 different teams giving him insight and pointers on how to elevate his game.

The pros to bring McCown are very obvious. Look what he has done with Darnold this year in his one year as the quarterback coach of the Vikings. Throw out the last game played against the Lions, and there has been a significant case for Sam Darnold being the MVP of the league this year much less Comeback Player. Should Seattle have a deep interest in bringing Darnold here to become the next franchise quarterback, then landing McCown would make all the sense in the world. The same would be very much equal if they wanted to instead trade for JJ McCarthy. It can also be said the if Seattle likes the offense the Pederson and Reich ran in Philadelphia a number of years ago, McCown was in that offense as a backup and therefore, would be pretty good familiarity.

The biggest con with hiring McCown as the OC would be that he has simply never done it before. That might not be a super big deal though because his familiarity with the league spans 18 years as a quarterback who has had to learn 13 different systems, and backup quarterbacks have a tendency of transitioning well to coordinating. It is very possible that McCown could interview with Macdonald and have a great grasp on what exact offense he wants for the Seahawks.

Another con for hiring McCown is that he could simply be such a hot coaching commodity that Macdonald loses him in a year or two for a head coaching gig, and we are left searching for candidates again in 2026 or 2027, but perhaps that would also probably be a good problem to have because that means that 2025 was that successful for the team.

Right now, I would say the hype for Josh McCown is super intriguing. Like Martin, I wouldn’t be surprised if he is one of the few coaches out there that are high on Macdonald’s list. We shall see.

Tanner Engstrand

This guy interviewed for the OC job last year in Seattle after Macdonald got hired, and seemingly lost out to Ryan Grubb. Given the fact that he is the pass game coordinator for the Detroit Lions, the team with the best offense in football right now, and a team that plays offense exactly like Macdonald’s describes his ideal offense playing, it is fair to imagine Seattle circling back to this guy.

The pros are that he is the pass coordinator for a quarterback in Jared Goff who comps pretty favorably to Geno Smith, he is a coach from the Jim Harbaugh tree where Macdonald partly springs from, and therefore it is probably safe to assume that he will be naturally more aligned with a physical running offense that Macdonald likely prefers. He is a former college quarterback who has a position coach for both quarterbacks and running backs. He has offensive coordinator experience from a brief stint in the XFL.

I can’t think of many cons about this guy outside of the fact that he interviewed for OC gigs last year with New England and Seattle and landed neither, but in terms of Seattle, I kinda have a sneaking suspicion that John Schneider was super in on Ryan Grubb becoming the coordinator here and with all things equal in interviews between Engstrand and Grubb, Macdonald got more swayed to take a shot with the candidate that the GM was pushing for, but that is just my own wild speculation. It could also be that maybe Engstrand wasn’t seriously interested in this gig thinking he could stick around longer in Detroit and wait for their OC Ben Johnson to leave and he would take over. With some rumblings out there now that Johnson is no longer desiring being a head coach and maybe wants to just continue on in Detroit play calling, Engstrand will feel a stronger need to move on for advancement elsewhere, and Seattle can come calling again.

On the surface, I like him as a candidate for the Seahawks. It is exciting to think of someone coming here and building an offense here that plays like the one in Detroit; tough, grinding run blocking that wears teams down, and builds lethal play action pass plays off of it. It is just such ultimate big boy football, and Seattle’s offense has very similar skill players to what the Lions have. For these reasons, I have to have Engstrand on this list.

Marcus Brady

Marcus Brady is a guy who I heard mentioned on a podcast the other day that really got my ears perked up when I heard the hosts discussing, and that led me to dig around a bit on the internet. First off, he was a quarterback who played small college ball in California and he had to venture up into Canada to spend a bunch of years playing in the CFL, and then he spent time coaching up there before landing coaching gigs in the NFL. In the NFL, he landed on the Indianapolis Colts coaching staff under Frank Reich where he worked as a quarterbacks coach, and eventually he became their offensive coordinator. Today, he is the pass game coordinator for Jim Harbaugh with the Chargers.

The pros with Brady are that he has spent time as an offensive coordinator in the CFL and the NFL, and he is a guy that Jim Harbaugh who is a mentor to Mike Macdonald thinks pretty highly about. You can chuckle about all the CFL background but Canadian football actually produces a lot of high end passing concepts, and has for decades. Current NFL offensive coaches have spent time studying their league. Brady has spent time working for both Reich and Harbaugh who are two offensive coaches known to be heavy leaners in the run game. This year under Harbaugh, the Chargers quietly had one of the more efficient offenses in the league. Justin Herbert threw 23 touchdowns and ONLY 3 INTERCEPTIONS. If what Macdonald craves most is a balanced offense that is physical in the run, and doesn’t make many mistakes, then I would imagine Marcus Brady is a very likely person to be interviewed here.

What are the cons and drawbacks and concerns with Brady? I don’t know. His stint as the OC in Indianapolis only last a year and a half as he was fired mid season in 2022 when Frank Reich was impulsively let go by Jim Irsay. His lone full year as OC there was when they replaced Phillip Rivers with Carson Wentz, and Wentz sucked, and they narrowly missed the playoffs after going 11-5 the year before. I guess on the surface, one could look at his stint there, and have a meh attitude about it.

I just think there is potentially something very interesting about this guy. After he was let go in Indy, he joined the Philly staff as an offensive consultant, and then he was highly sought after by Harbaugh in LA. Harbaugh, as much of a whack job as he can kinda come across as, is also sort of an idiot savant as a coach, and has a very good eye for coaching talent. The Chargers were a really well coached team this year, and Herbert was crazy efficient with the football. Something tells me that Brady could be a hot name for Seattle given what it feels like Macdonald wants. I kinda like him a lot. He’s an idea that is growing on me.

In Summary

These are the dudes out there externally that get me excited most for the Seattle Seahawks OC gig. I am sure that I left a lot of names out of other quality coaching candidates that folks are championing for. There is Klint Kubiak who is from the Shanahan school down in New Orleans that people seem to dig. Some people might think Mike Kafka with the Giants who Seattle was interested in as a head coach last year could be a great candidate because Andy Reid really loves him as a coach and so does Patrick Mahomes. I have seen some in the Seahawks media championing a bit for the return of Brian Schottenheimer who had Seattle as a top ten offense here for a while with Russell Wilson. I have seen some odd suggestions for Jon Gruden to be a consideration.

In the end, I think Seattle has to be really careful about getting this fit right for Macdonald. Is Mike Macdonald going to want someone from the Andy Reid or MacVay/Shanahan branches, or does he just want a Harbaugh guy who speaks his football love language?

Macdonald wants physical football here, and ball control. He wants to shrink the game and make things easier on his vaunted defense. That sounds a heck of a lot like Harbaugh football, both Harbaugh brothers, and his other old boss John Harbaugh is an Andy Reid guy. Frank Reich and Doug Pederson are Reid coaches.

That is why I kinda put Reich and Pederson at the very top of my list. They are guys sharing similar DNA with John Harbaugh. Both of them long time former NFL backup quarterbacks, both of them huge believers in the run game, highly successful coordinators and head coaches. Both of them currently out of the league right now and maybe wondering if there is a way back in.

A huge part of me believes that if either would genuinely consider the OC gig here, whether that could be a game changer for this franchise that we have not felt for over ten years. To pair the bright young defensive mind with Mike Macdonald with a sharp offensive mind in someone a couple decades older who has absolutely been there and done it all at super high levels that he can fully trust to run the offense to the point where he just does not need to think about much of it at all?

Yeah, sign me right up for that idea.

Conversely, all these other candidates super intrigue me, as well. If they can’t convince either former head coach to sniff out this gig here (very possible), the I really kinda think that Tee Martin, Josh McCown, Tanner Engstrand, and Markus Brady are all very likely candidates. Martin, Engstrand and Brady all have direct Harbaugh Brother tie ins to Macdonald, and Martin coached together with him.

McCown is just such an intriguing wildcard and a certain hot name in the coaching searches with what he has done with Sam Darnold this year. He might be a head coaching candidate very soon, depending on what the Vikings do in the playoffs. He has worked with Reich and Pederson, and other brilliant offensive minds. He could be a very strong lure for Darnold should the Viking quarterback be made available in free agency or trade, if Seattle wants him. He’s the biggest unknown in terms of a coordinator type, but something tells me that with long background as a quarterback, he will be well suited for the leap.

But at the end of the day, I think our guy may boil down to Tee Martin, Engstrand, and Marcus Brady. Unless behind close doors they really think in house Jake Peetz can be a serous candidate, I sorta think that this process may boil down to one of these three guys.

I would be down, but man would I ever love to see them land Reich or Pederson. I’m going to hang onto that until I have to let it go.

Go Hawks.