Tens of thousands of fans will flow into Lumen Field. Music will blare as players are introduced. A coin will be flipped. The 12 flag will be raised. An annual tradition, that has become as much a part of the Pacific Northwest as a 4PM sunset in December, will begin again. The dawn of a fresh Seahawks season is here. Focus will fall on what is new. A new face will pace the sideline as the head coach for the first time in 14 years. A new defensive tackle will torture opposing linemen. A new offensive play caller will breathe life into an eclectic array of scoring weaponry. All of what is new is the work of one of who is not. John Schneider begins his 15th season as the General Manager of the Seahawks. He has already established himself as the best GM in Seahawks history with multiple outstanding moves to help bring a parade to the city. It may be this past offseason, however, that will be remembered as his greatest.
Pete Carroll will not jog out of the tunnel or toss the football during pregame for the first time since 2010. His exit this past January was emotional for a variety of reasons. Not the least of which was the splitting of a “marriage,” as Carroll called it between he and Schneider, and the passing of the baton to his former partner.
“It’s why this happened. Because I want him to have this chance. It’s been 14 years he’s been sitting there waiting for this opportunity and he deserves it,” Carroll said. “And now [you’re] gonna find out big fella!”
Schneider initially thought he was going to have the chance to hire a head coach when he was preparing for the Seahawks interview back in 2010. He talked about “tearing those pages out of my notebook” when he learned Carroll already had the position and would instead be deciding whether to hire him.
He would go on to co-author some of the best off-seasons in NFL history. The accumulation of talent by the Seahawks between 2010-2013 was startling. Schneider drafted at least one player in each of his first three drafts who would go on to be voted to 3+ 1st Team All-Pros, after there had been just five such players drafted in the franchises previous 33 seasons. His 2012 off-season was so good that perhaps his best move was drafting a player in the 3rd round who never made an All-Pro team or got an MVP vote.
Russell Wilson was passed on by all 32 teams multiple times. Schneider turned in the card with his name at pick number 75, and the franchise was never the same. Remarkably, he was not awarded the Executive of the Year award despite picking Wilson and Bobby Wagner and elevating his team to 11 wins and a playoff birth. The award was given to the Colts Ryan Grigson for making the easiest decision in NFL history, drafting Andrew Luck with the first overall pick.
Schneider wasn’t done. He came back the next offseason and won free agency by exploiting a rare market inefficiency for pass rushers that allowed him to sign both Cliff Avril and Michael Bennett to team-friendly deals. Those additions would prove to be the last piece of the puzzle for assembling a Super Bowl champion.
Again, Schneider was overlooked. John Dorsey of the Chiefs would win the award for helping that franchise jump from 2 to 11 wins.
It is incredibly challenging to build a championship roster in the NFL. Schneider managed to build one of the best the league had seen in his first three seasons as a GM. His next challenge would be building back to that level after the inevitability of age, injury, and salary cap would force a new cycle to begin.
Schneider was ahead of the curve on knowing that his franchise quarterback, Wilson, was not the guy they should make the focal point of this next run. That was likely not just due to a talent evaluation, but because Schneider knew Wilson would fetch the most of any player on the roster in a trade to help kickstart a roster renovation.
Schneider wanted to trade Wilson in 2021 to the Chicago Bears in a deal that reportedly included three first round picks. It was reported that Carroll blocked the deal. Schneider would eventually convince his partner to move on from Wilson in a trade that rocked the NFL.
Wilson was traded for a bounty of picks and players to the Denver Broncos. Many analysts saw it as a win for the Broncos. Denver was so sure of their victory that they signed Wilson to a massive extension before he played his first game.
The prescience and scope of that move by Schneider made it easily the best of any in the NFL that offseason. The alternate future of the team had it not traded Wilson and instead signed him to an extension themselves would have almost surely set the franchise back for years.
Instead, Schneider took the influx of draft capital and orchestrated his best draft in a decade when he took:
- Charles Cross
- Boye Mafe
- Kenneth Walker III
- Abe Lucas
- Coby Bryant
- Riq Woolen
- Dareke Young
He also made one of the best free agent signings that off-season when inking Uchenna Nwosu to a deal, and selected Geno Smith to take over for Wilson. Smith would go on to win Comeback Player of the Year.
Still, Schneider’s work was not deemed worthy of the Executive of the Year award that instead went to Howie Roseman of the Eagles.
This off-season might finally be different. For the first time, Schneider was responsible not just for the player acquisitions, but for the selection of a new coaching staff. Nobody can whisper that Carroll or someone else might be the one pulling the strings behind the scenes.
Early signs are that Schneider knocked it out of the park by hiring Mike Macdonald as the head coach, and then helping to bring aboard Ryan Grubb, Aden Durde, and Leslie Frazier. Schneider partnered on all hires through the coordinator level and then handed over more of the responsibility to Macdonald.
He also made the prudent decisions to move on from veterans Quandre Diggs and Jamal Adams, clearing a massive amount of salary cap space and creating an opportunity for young players like Devon Witherspoon and Julian Love to step into the leadership void.
Schneider wisely decided to keep Geno Smith when there were those who thought they might cut bait on the veteran’s contract. He correctly assessed the draft positions of the best quarterback prospects who were all taken before the Seahawks selection, and made a cost-effective trade for a 23-year-old Sam Howell who already had 18 starts under his belt.
He found valuable veterans at good prices in Rayshawn Jenkins, Tyrel Dodson, Jerome Baker, George Fant, K’Von Wallace, Johnathan Hankins, and Laviska Shenault Jr.
The player who may end up being the best defender in the draft fell to him at the 16th pick and he took him despite many analysts insisting the Seahawks had to address their interior offensive line gaps. Christian Haynes would fall to them in the 3rd round, giving them newfound heft on both sides of the ball.
He still was not done. A former Pro Bowl center, Connor Williams, made a surprise recovery from an ACL injury and Schneider quickly added him to address one of the bigger question marks on the roster.
There is no doubt that Schneider has established himself as one of the most respected GMs in the NFL. Where there has been doubt is just how much of what Seattle has accomplished in the past 14 years could be attributed to Schneider versus Carroll. No longer.
Should this new Seahawks regime, with the youngest head coach in the league and young talent across the roster, break free from the mediocre middle they have been mired in for years, it will be because Schneider led it there. And perhaps, finally, he will recognized for his peerless work. Although, he would surely accept another parade as a consolation prize.