Will the Seattle Seahawks Be Good Without Pete Carroll?

the Seattle Seahawks their offseason in 60 seconds moved on from Pete Carroll hired Mike McDonald as their head coach hired Ryan grub the Washington offensive coordinators there in OC brought in Aiden durde is their defensive coordinator he was on the Cowboys staff which is an interesting marriage Leslie Frasier is also here as an assistant head coach extension for Julian Love Brought in uh retained Leonard Williams retained Noah Fant brought in rayan Jenkins George Fant Jerome Baker Tyrell Dodson and Conor Williams um modest deals in free agency or late in the offseason traded for Sam Howell to be their backup quarterback forgot about that happened until just now lost Damen Williams Jordan Brooks Kobe Parkinson will dle Bobby Wagner in free agency in the draft drafted Byron Murphy in the first round drafted Christian Haynes a guard in the third round they did not have a second round pick because they traded it for Leonard Williams Blue Chip checkin for the Seattle Seahawks how many do you have I don't know if I have any I have two players that like irrationally I want to put in there but realize it might not be it might be a little bit generous which is we can't put Gino in there I know I want to so bad like my heart is telling me to and my mind is like he's probably just at the top of the next tier and that's fine and there's nothing wrong with that he's a great player the other one is and I think we might get there by the end of the first month I love Devon weather SPO man I think that's that's I'm gonna get there we will talk about both of those guys over the course of this conversation I think a couple other ascending pieces that I'm interested in watching Wen like can he get back on track he had such a good rookie year again somebody will'll revisit here in a second and then I want to see what happens with Charles cross and jsn if Charles cross comes can be healthy all season and you know we feel good about the offensive infrastructure here what is he this year and I do think that there is a chance that jsn just takes a monstrous step in this offense specifically with some questions about like the future of the other guys like Lock's getting a little bit older you know do we get to a place by the end of the season where we're sitting being like is jsn the best Seahawks receiver I don't think that would be crazy at all for us to be asking that question at some point during this year that might be their best case outcome for this offense is that by the end we're like oh this guy is the guy yeah I I think that probably would be a good thing for them what significant question marks does this team have in your mind heading into the season it's still the offensive line man I mean this was one of the more disappointing offensive lines last year not like not even just that they were it's we didn't think that they would be a bad offensive line going in we thought maybe they wouldn't be great and the interior had some questions but this was just an actively bad offensive line last year where a couple of guys took some steps back so they're inserting some new pieces and they need some young guys to get back on track and we just until you see it I just don't know yeah I think that's exactly right for me it's the right side of the offensive line and I'm going to ask you this because I think you're the person to ask how do you feel about the linebackers and the safeties the safeties I'm probably not very excited about actually let me I kind of want to see if we get more Kon Wallace at a certain point because I actually think he is a good player he just hasn't been healthy for a long part of his career and I also think that there is a chance that they get to a place where they think the three safety looks that they can Trot out are some of the best things that they can do within this offense so you have Wallace you have love and you have ran Jenkins and they play a little bit more dime than McDonald did when he was with Baltimore just because with those linebackers that was like the best case scenario for the Ravens I think that we could see a few more different configurations with this Personnel just based on how they're built I think that's possible too because kind of a prere prerequisite if you're going to do some of that three safety stuff is at least two of them need to be able to go hit okay raan Jenkins will do that and so we Kavon Wallace so there you go you kind of check those boxes so that's good what are you watching the first oh go ahead the linebackers actually you know what we're we're gonna get to the linebackers a little bit later I can do let's let's save it for a second what are you watching the first month of the season with the Seahawks listen man when you bring in a guy as good as Mike McDonald I just want to see one what it's going to look like early on and then two just how quickly can he get these guys in shape and I'm really interested to see it because first of all and I've brought this up a number of times talking about Mike McDonald it was not smooth sailing from the jump in Baltimore it took him about half a season and then the ran trade for everything to really fall in line and the ran trade is important because I I don't think Seattle's linebacking core is bad I think both Jerome Baker and Tyrell Dodson can fit into certain roles neither of these guys are Ron Smith in coverage certainly neither of them are ran Smith running side to sideline uh even as run Defenders or screen killers and all that sort of stuff and really neither of them are Patrick Queen either so like this is just a very very different linebacking core than I think that he is used to and also you know I know some people have made the comparison of uh Kyle Hamilton and Devon Witherspoon like oh you have these crazy you know super guys who are willing to tackle from the slot but they are just fundamentally different players in a lot of ways and I don't think that we can just paste what uh you know Hamilton was doing onto Deon Witherspoon so there's going to be a lot of different moving pieces for McDonald and I kind of just want to see how he can put it together yeah I I I want to talk about the Hamilton Witherspoon thing a little bit later but I do think that it's important to acknowledge that they do have really different skill sets my answer to this question about what I'm watching the first month first month is almost exactly the same like what can Michael Mike McDonald cook up over here because I do think that even if the construction of this defense is different I think it has a lot of promise if you look at what they're dealing with up front this is like a deep group of defensive linemen and Edge players I mean you have Derk Hall who is looks like he's primed to potentially take a step but shanan wilu is a really useful player on the interior you got Byron Murphy Leonard Williams Draymond Jones there are a lot of guys to work with in that area specifically like they were comfortable shipping Daryl Taylor off I think in part because of how many bodies they have to use in that area that area and then you go to corner and even if we don't think Witherspoon is gonna be Kyle Hamilton within this defense he still has the potential to be like a star level player and they are very excited about Tariq Wen like they think that Tariq Wen is poised for a pretty big bounceback season and he really wasn't healthy at times last year he was dealing with a lot of stuff so if you've got two highlevel corners in Wen and Witherspoon and that's how it plays out and then you pair that with some of the dudes that they have up front and Murphy just like being a Chaos Agent that they can drop in here I'm very excited to see what a defense that has that starting point eventually evolves into even if there are some things that give us a little bit of pause Personnel W that's a good point it's it's not that I hate the defensive Personnel here it's just so different from what he had in Baltimore which I think makes it kind of a fun test for a guy who I think is a brilliant defensive coordinator so let's see why it's let's see how it's different here's what I would say about the process of getting used to this team compared to year one in Baltimore I think that Mike McDonald in year one in Baltimore was about mitigating risk it was about how can I try not to put my guys in bad spots and they did some funky stuff that seems counterintuitive counterintuitive to that but I don't think that there was as much of an attacking mindset in year one as there eventually he came to in year two I think that now him developing some confidence some experience some like all right I can maybe be a little bit more assertive in some of these moments he's coming into this job with that and so I do think that the process overall is going to be colored by a little bit of a different attitude than it was during his first year in Baltimore that makes a lot of sense to me too and especially in Baltimore you know he was coming over he had been in the Baltimore system for a long time went spent some time in Michigan and then he came back so he might have felt some a little bit of pressure to be like you know how much do I really want to change from what they were doing all that stuff he's got a a clean slate here in Seattle he can do whatever he wants like so I I'm very interested in that sense yeah all right what is keeping up at night with this Seattle Seahawks team is this offensive line actually going to be better are they actually going to protect Gino Smith this year and here's the thing the bar doesn't even have to be that high we saw in 2022 all you had to be was round average and Gino Smith could give you really really good quarterback play if he was protected just a little bit because the thing about Gino Smith really bad pocket presence early in his career he's actually come to do a really really good job of moving around and managing the pocket and keeping his eyes up which I talked about on an earlier show it's hard to develop that but Gino Smith has kind of gotten into that rare category where he's done it it's just the offensive line was so bad last year it didn't matter he went from having that be a defined weakness to his game not only to have it being like an acceptable part of who he is it is now a defined strength to the way that Gino Smith plays the position going from something that near Torpedoes your career to being something where you were in like the top five or six guys in the NFL in the way in like that skills specifically that is a remarkable amount of development and I think it's important to acknowledge that with Gino I think the way I put it one time was he used to be numb in the pocket and it was derogatory because he he wouldn't like actually think about what was happening around him he would just have this numbness like ah whatever I'll hold on to the ball forever now he's numb to pressure in the sense of he's not scared of what's happening around him and he's able to find different ways to get the ball out but he's actually thinking about how to move around it and stuff like that so it's just like you said it's just phenomenal development it's just is offensive line actually going to help him this year I don't know that's also my question that's keeping me up at night is just this AB Line's ability to pass protect maybe I'm scarred from last year he was pressured on 53 and a half% of his third down drop backs last season oh God the the only player in the league who was pressured more was Will Levis so will Lis of the team that torpedoed its entire offensive line this off season and brought in Bill Callahan that was the only offensive line that was worse in allowing third down pressures than the Seattle last year with Gino Smith here is the optimistic case for how this can be better Charles cross had a toe injury early in last season so hopefully if he doesn't get hurt early in the year we see a better season in year three from Charles cross at right tackle we got a combin 1,000 snaps last year from Stone foresight Jake Curran and Jason Peters Curran was cut by the Bears this week foresight was on the roster bubble in Seattle and Jason Peters is a free agent so something to keep in mind there George Fant who came in as the swing tackle here even if a Lucas is hurt and we don't really have a timetable for when a Lucas is going to be back at right tackle Fant is an upgrade like a definitive upgrade about what they were traing out last year even though he's a little bit older and you know that's not necessarily somebody you want to rely on for 17 games as a stop Gap option I do think he's significantly improved on what they had to do with last season and Connor Williams is an upgrade like Conor Williams coming in at Center so there is a chance that they are notably better at two of those spots than they were last season and then we'll see what happens at Right Guard right like Anthony Bradford had he's very talented and I think that's why it's so tempting to like project his development moving forward he's strong he's explosive all that stuff but do you want somebody who's just a little bit safer in that spot and so I wonder what eventually happens with him and Christian Haynes who they drafted in the third round as the season goes along so that's that's my spin for how this could be okay I I don't even disagree with any of that I do think there there's world where they can get there it's just I think kind of like you said maybe I'm just scarred by how bad last year was that I just so badly don't want that to happen again and I'm leaning towards being terrified of that happening than having The Optimist side of oh maybe it'll be fine again and these upgrades will matter what are you most excited about watching with this year's Seahawks team dude Devon Witherspoon is just my type of player all the way through he plays at a 100 miles an hour and it's just it's one of the most fascinating players to watch he's one of those guys where it just seems like every single thing he does is fast whether it's mentally physically just everything he does when he tackles you he's doing it at 100 miles an hour when he's breaking up a pass it's 100 miles an hour he just he feels like you're playing the tape faster and that's just the type of player that I just absolutely love watching and then on top of him being this psycho man who's willing to go hit and do all this crazy stuff and and play down in the run and um do all the blitzing by the way they sent him on a ton of blit his last year like especially from the backside like he's just like I said he's a crazy person and you can send him on the violent type of stuff but what also really gets me intrigued with him is you just see these insane flashes of processing ability like where he is the in the instincts and the awareness combined with the aggressiveness it is a rare combination of trits it is it is truly special and you just in my mind it's like man if he can hone that a little bit more and just get a little bit more consistent with it he's going to be special the play that comes up to me is well first of all there were a number of like shallow Crossing routes where he would just trigger on it and get in front of it and break up a pass I swear he did this 10 times last year and it's like man you got to be so you got to be processing so fast and triggering so fast to make that work it's incredible but there was a play last year against San Francisco where he's they're running like this cover three fire zone and the receiver to his side immediately runs under like a shallow so he's supposed to pass him off and get back up into his deep third he does it a little bit late and they're running like a deep Crossing route into his section he kind of almost panics for a second and then behind his back gets a hand up and deflects the ball away I'm like you got to just be one of one type of player to make that play he's just he's incredible man I cannot wait to watch him play this year and I cannot wait to watch him play in this defense here's why I would say the Kyle Hamilton comparisons work for me it's not just the slot stuff I think by the end of this year it will be a similar sort of trajectory narratively to what we had with Kyle Hamilton last year where after his rookie year it was like oo this guy's interesting I am I'm excited to see where this guy can go and then by the end of year two we're like oh this is one of the best players in the NFL like this is one of the best defensive players in the league that is where I think that that Kyle de and Witherspoon can actually be on the Kyle Hamilton track is as a slot player who plays somewhat of a unique role I think we're going to get to a place by the end of this season where he's like one of the best 12 defensive players in the league and in terms of like how we consider it narrative wise I think it's absolutely spoton and too attitude wise it's easy to see like both of those guys why it works is that they are crazy people who will run at you and they will hit and they will tackle at a really really high level um it's just kind of different watching how it manifests because Devon Witherspoon is a little bit quicker a little bit faster a little bit better in space whereas Hamilton is just built like a pterodactyl and if he gets hands on you it's completely over yeah how you're going to use him as different right like Hamilton goes down into that role when you're playing against 12 Personnel teams that have a tight end that you're worried about about that's not the consideration with Witherspoon but Witherspoon's also like a little bit more explosive and what he's going to be as a Blitzer is a little bit different so I just cannot wait to see how they decide to weaponize him because he is a weapon like there there's absolutely no doubt about that what I'm excited about with this team this it's time for Gino propaganda I'm I'm ready like here we are I I'm so pumped about what Gino can potentially look like in this offensive system and it's for this reason last year and the Seahawks offense was pretty good over the last couple years they were like a borderline top 10ish offense and if you look at a lot of the success rate and the numbers all that kind of stuff I thought that what they asked him to do within that offense was the degree of difficulty was so so high and there were so few easy completions for him because of that the Seahawks played with the widest formations in the NFL last year and I think that's mostly Personnel driven you have Tyler Locka you have DK meaf these are vertical outside the numbers players having Ryan and Grub come in to me is the perfect marriage of installing an offense with the verticality that the previous Seattle offense had which was play to Gino strengths I think he's arguably the best deep ball passer in the NFL right now in terms of ball placement and he has the aggressiveness to actually tap into that so you have an offense that when you watched it at Washington that's what they wanted to do they wanted to push the ball there's all this vertical stretch but you also have all of these easy completions built in especially on man cover against man coverage on third down all these Stacks all these bunches all this motion and that's why jsn to me becomes the most intriguing piece of this because I think he's the one that actually allows it to all come together in the way that grub is probably envisioning it so I just think that this offense has all the benefits of what they used to do and allows Gino to shine in all of those ways while also consistently making it easy on him and that's why I think that there is just a chance we see a different version of this guy than we have ever seen in the NFL even for a guy who's loved the way he's played over the last two years so think about all the good things we've said about Gino right the particular ways that we think he plays really well all of what you just said about what the offense is supposed to look like what it might do for him doesn't it sound like kind of a little bit of like a light version of what Matthew Stafford is doing with the Rams like he's just a little bit of a depressed version of that but it's a lot of the same reasons that you would love Stafford you love goo Smith so this is the take that I've been like waiting to uncork throughout the summer I think that Gino Smith this season has a chance to have a Matthew Stafford in 2021 sort of year and it it's through this lens Matthew Stafford I think there's going to be revisionist history about how he was talked about before he got traded to the Rams there were people in the NFL I remember talking to them in the moment when there was a thought that he could get dealt that they didn't think he was worth a first- round pick it's like oh what has he accomplished and you know he's talented but there were definitely doubts about what Matthew Stafford was before we saw him in that Rams offense in the same way that there are wio like there are people who do not think that Gino is that good and then you take Matthew Stafford from Detroit and you drop him into a situation in La that perfectly weaponizes and enables all the things that make him special it's the right situation with the right pieces I think this has a chance to be that for Gino and I think that be with like Stafford he changed the way that we talk about him because of that season he was playing at like a top five to seven sort of level as a quarterback I really do believe that Gino has that I do believe has that level to his game and so do they like they think that there is a new level for this guy that we have not reached this isn't a situation where they're looking at him and being like oh this is the guy we have to work with as a new regime this is a situation where they got around him and they were like people don't think this guy's good like that's crazy and so hearing that was very comforting because of the way that I think this guy is and how good I think he is so that's the type of season in my mind that I think is on the table for Gino Smith this year here just based on what is going to be around him where does the offensive line have to get where you're like confident that's the Gino we're getting like what level do they have to be like the 18th best offensive line of the week like if if that's all they are that's fine the other part of this and I think this is important to acknowledge it is hard to do it in year one it is really really hard to do it in year one even if we're enthusiastic about grub and some of the ideas and I am and again talking to defensive coordinators who've had to deal with him like there's a lot of NFL stuff that applies this isn't gimmicky [ __ ] like the Baseline and the fundamentals of who he wants to be offensively applies to the NFL game if it didn't Mike McDonald would not pick him as his offensive coordinator but still in year one you don't know where all the bodies are buried you don't know where all the weaknesses are you don't know how it's all going to come together so I think that that needle is just a little bit narrower in terms of threading it than I probably want it to be as I make this case but if it does click if he is instantaneously one of those guys building an offense that's getting the most out of the pieces then I think something like this is on the table for Gina you're preaching to the choir I would love a season like this out of go I really hope it happens because I I I've put a lot of emotional stakes in it in it actually happening all right the most important supporting character in your mind for the Seattle Seahawks this year is I've got a couple of Mike McDonald's Defenders here first is going to be Tyrell Dodson um who is is uh he's going to go play linebacker for them played a little bit for the bills last year he he's like I said very different from what Mike McDonald had last year with the Ravens where ran Smith is not really a guy who bangs between the tackles but he's really good out in space he's really good in coverage uh Patrick Queen was a lot more of a Blitzer again not good at taking on blocks necessarily but was really good in space Tyrell Dodson is almost more like a Jawan Bentley where where he's a guy who's willing to play between the tackles hit a little bit in the Run game he can actually do some stuff for you as a Blitzer maybe not great in space he's a little stiff change of direction is a little bit questionable so I'm just kind of curious to see how he can use him and if he can play at a high level that would go a long way for them and then Trey Brown just on the other side on outside corner for them he's had flashes truthfully the past few years it's just a matter of like what does he look like fulltime for them and how well can he do it yeah I'm also curious how much they play like when they have two corners on the field whether that's because they have three safeties or just they're in base defense like is it does trebound come off the field and if he does like does that make his role a little bit less impactful over the course of the year but I had guys in in the spine like the linebackers of the safeties Kavon Wallace doson Baker all those guys because again I feel good about the front I feel good about the cornerback room so if they can hold it down in the spine of the defense then does this group actually have a higher ceiling than we're acknowledging right now that's a good way to frame it because the whole thing with Baltimore was the spine of the defense so it's when you all your question marks here spine of the defense is definitely worth thinking about yeah and that's that's so let's get to this because I think this is a similar conversation what count is a successful season in your mind for the Seahawks I think success would mean that McDonald gets the defense to a little bit better level and we get basically what we just talked about from Gino I think that's at least a wild card team like I think that should be on the table for them and then just the defense finds an identity because it really felt like the last few years of the Carol era they were just bouncing around trying all these different fangu ideas and Carol it kind of seemed had like had lost what his true identity was as a play caller and some of the Personnel decisions were weird and didn't really fit I'm hoping this year it's just like all right they know what they want to be and there's no doubt about it well they were Moonlighting and other people's stuff over the last three years they went straight to the source now in terms of where people are trying to steal from defensively so for me success the systems on both sides of the ball are proven as lifters of talent right like Mike McDonald has already shown that that's kind of what I was alluding to before it's do we get a situation where every guy on the defense becomes the best version of himself serviceable players look good and players look great because that's exactly what happened in Baltimore and if he can show an ability to carry over that level of defensive infrastructure coaching whatever that's going to be huge for this group overall and just moving forward and then again grub does something similar on offense and with the talent that they have offensively I think that has a chance to be a really Dynamic unit the one guy we have not mentioned on offense I think is worth mention before we move on they are very excited about Kenneth Walker like very excited about Kenneth Walker so I I didn't want to leave this conversation without at least mentioning his name if if the Run blocking can be a little cleaner and give him a couple more runways he's going to take him to the house so if all of that happens I think this team should be in the playoff mix like seven and a half as the over under for this team to me is like very pessimistic and I think you've seen like the juice like I think it's like minus 150 to bet the over right now because I think people are probably caught on to that a little bit but I think they have a chance to be better than people probably expect them to be coming into the year for