PALM BEACH, Fla. -- The Seattle Seahawks are in the midst of a full-blown transformation on offense. With the 2025 NFL draft still three weeks away and more additions in the offing, they've already replaced their starting quarterback and two of his top three receivers. They'll be running a new scheme under by a new coordinator, Klint Kubiak, who brought several hand-picked assistants with him.
That sea change was at the heart of a question to second-year coach Mike Macdonald, who was asked Tuesday at the annual league meetings whether their offense has improved.
"I think it's different," he said. "I mean, we have a long way to go. We have different players in the building and we're really excited about those guys. But as a football team, we have to do a great job throughout the offseason program of installing our process again, not skipping steps, being connected as a football team, doing all the things the right way so we hit the ground running in September. But you can't evaluate where we are compared to last year because there's so many different pieces."
The Seahawks appeared to be headed for merely a re-tool on offense, but it became a rebuild when general manager John Schneider traded quarterback Geno Smith and star receiver DK Metcalf in a span of three days before the start of free agency. Those unexpected moves followed the anticipated release of Tyler Lockett, the second-most prolific pass-catcher in franchise history. Schneider then signed Sam Darnold, Cooper Kupp and Marquez Valdes-Scantling as their respective replacements.
The question posed to Macdonald is best answered by viewing the big picture, because that new trio is arguably less talented than the old one.
Ove the last two seasons, Darnold started 14 less games than Smith and had a higher touchdown to interception ratio (2.8 to Smith's 1.7) and off-target percentage (13.8% to Smith's 12.3%). Since the beginning of 2023, Metcalf and Lockett combined for 65 games, 55.4 receiving yards per game, 3,600 receiving yards, 20 touchdowns and 982 yards after catch. In the same time frame, Kupp and Valdes-Scantling combined for 54 games, 40.2 yards per game, 2,173 receiving yards, 16 touchdowns and 818 yards after catch.
Despite the numbers, the Seahawks are hoping to still be better off for those swaps when factoring financial savings, scheme fits, team culture as well as the second- and third-round picks they added in the Metcalf and Smith trades.
Darnold's three-year, $105.5 million deal will pay him $37.5 million in 2025. The Seahawks sent Smith to the Las Vegas Raiders for the 92nd overall selection once they deemed him unwilling to engage in contract talks after their initial offer. It included $40 million in Year 1, according to sources familiar with the negotiations, a figure that easily could have grown had negotiations progressed.
But when Smith balked, Schneider and Macdonald pivoted to Darnold, who was coming off a Pro Bowl season with the Minnesota Vikings and had a previous relationship with new offensive coordinator Kubiak from the year they spent together with the San Francisco 49ers in 2023.
"You come from all these different angles from people in the building that have worked with him even all the way back to his USC days and really, to a man ... they love the person, they love the leader, the teammate," Macdonald said. "The film kind of speaks for itself with his accuracy, able to push a ball down the field. Specifically with us, we move the pocket a good bit now, so Sam's a great thrower on the run and he's able to make a lot of plays that way and then in these critical downs in the red zone and third down, especially last year, he had such a great year and that we're going to be counting on him to come through in those situations."
Metcalf had been unhappy in Seattle before he requested a trade last month, which led the Seahawks to send him to the Pittsburgh Steelers in exchange for the 52nd overall selection and a swap of late-round picks. According to team sources, he had asked out multiple times in recent offseasons. That was a factor the Seahawks had to weigh in addition to the inherent risk in giving him a massive third contract like the four-year, $132 million extension he got from Pittsburgh.
That deal will pay Metcalf $35 million this season. Lockett was set to make $17 million if he stayed with the Seahawks. Kupp's three-year, $45 million deal will pay him $17.5 million in 2025 while Valdes-Scantling will make $4 million on his one-year deal.
Schneider said Kupp had three or four teams who were interested in signing him, and that the Yakima, Washington, native "wanted to come home." The general manager called it "a huge get for us."
"You could have him covered on paper, but he's still going to get open," Macdonald said of Kupp, a one-time Pro Bowl selection. "That's something that you have to experience in-game. So he's a guy that you have to account for in a lot of the possession downs and high-leverage situations where you've got to have two guys on this guy. It's a little bit different than some straight-line vertical guys where you want more of a high-low double, you want them surrounded as much as possible and you're allocating resources over there. It kind of shifts where the stress points are in the rest of the field. So yeah, he's a pain in the butt."
The Seahawks could still add a receiver early in the draft, but for now, Valdes-Scantling projects as the No. 3 behind Jaxon Smith-Njigba and Kupp. The veteran deep threat spent the second half of last season playing for Kubiak with the New Orleans Saints.
"You can really look at their offense last year in New Orleans and kind of picture it now, especially with MVS being here," Schneider said. "We thought it was going to be DK, but here we are, so now MVS is the take-the-top-off guy, JSN can take the top off and then Cooper gives us a deceptively fast dude working the middle of the field, setting people up. Those two guys working with each other are going to be really hard to defend with the tight splits and everything."
The interior of the Seahawks' offensive line remains a major question mark. The team was prepared to spend big money on guard Will Fries before he signed with the Vikings instead, but he was the only high-priced veteran lineman they were planning to pursue. They've visited with lower-cost options like Teven Jenkins, Dillon Radunz and Lucas Patrick, who later signed elsewhere.
"We brought several guys through and it just hasn't been a fit," he said.
The lack of urgency to address the interior spots is tied to the team's confidence in its young in-house options over the available veterans, which, according to Schneider, is shared by both the coaching staff and personnel department. He believes those players will be in better positions to succeed in Kubiak's scheme -- with its emphasis on the outsize zone rushing attack and under-center plays -- than they were in former coordinator Ryan Grubb's pass-first, shotgun-heavy offense, which finished 21st in scoring and 14th in yards last year.
Schneider volunteered that it will be hard to find an upgrade at center in the draft given how the Seahawks don't view this year's class as being particularly strong at that position. That suggests their best chance at finding a blue-chip talent for new line coach Mike Benton's unit will be at guard. Schneider is still open to adding a veteran lineman at some point, but he said it probably wouldn't happen until after the draft, and that it could be someone who becomes available as a cap casualty.
The Seahawks have five picks in the top 92 and 10 overall. OverTheCap.com estimates their available cap space at well over $30 million. So whether it's through the draft and/or the veteran market, Schneider and Macdonald will have ample resources to keep their offensive transformation going.
