The Seattle Seahawks are entering a new era under head coach Mike Macdonald, and he is already working on his footballing philosophies with his new team.
While Macdonald has made his name as a defensive mind and has had great success with the Baltimore Ravens, that doesn’t mean he won’t have an eye on the Seahawks offense under newly-hired coordinator Ryan Grubb.
And Macdonald already knows what he wants.
“I want to build the offense through the same lens of how we built the defense and we’re going to build it here,” Macdonald said on Seattle Sports 710. “We have to be really, really good at the core philosophies, core fundamentals, core concepts, and then we want to be able to apply those things on a game to game basis based on who we’re playing.
“We don’t want to reinvent our offense every week, so we have to have a core identity. So what is that? We’re going to be a physical unit, we’re gonna run the football, and we want to have answers for the quarterback and we want to keep it consistent for him so he can play fast and play decisive and get the ball to our playmakers. It needs to be an efficient unit, we want to be able to possess the ball, obviously be explosive and not turn the ball over.”
The Seahawks have all the ingredients to be a physical football team on offense. Running backs Kenneth Walker and Zach Charbonnet can be a potent duo, coupled with D.K. Metcalf’s physical attributes just to name a few.
Seattle’s run game left a lot to be desired at times last season as it only averaged 92.9 yards per game. Walker couldn’t hit the rushing heights of his rookie season, while Charbonnet, who rushed for 429 yards and a touchdown on 108 attempts, was still getting his feet underneath him during his rookie season.
But under Macdonald, Walker and Charbonnet could get the chance to have a serious impact on games. And with Grubb having an offensive line background, suddenly the Seahawks could be cooking.
With Geno Smith’s future still uncertain, bringing him back seems like a logical move, as he showed last season that he can be Seattle’s franchise guy. Let’s not forget that Smith had the Seahawks rolling at 6-3 before a late-season skid.
Going off of Macdonald’s comments, the Seahawks are expected to be a physical football team that can run the ball right down your throat, can gash you through the air, and won’t give opposing offenses extra possessions.
It seems good in theory, but we will see how it pans out when real NFL bullets are flying.