The Seahawks will start the season with a new offensive coordinator for the fourth time in five years after Klint Kubiak was hired on Sunday. Mike Macdonald decided to move on from Ryan Grubb after one season due to philosophical differences. Kubiak, 37, will be getting his third chance to lead an NFL offense after stints as the OC in Minnesota and New Orleans. He appeared headed for a breakout season with the Saints before injuries derailed the promising start. Kubiak is still best know for his bloodline, as his father, Gary Kubiak, is part of NFL offensive royalty after 23 years of play calling. Kubiak’s ability to elevate the offense while adhering to the physical style Macdonald covets, will be a crucial factor in determining how successful Macdonald’s tenure will be in Seattle.
Grubb was let go for a few primary reasons that Kubiak appears well suited to address. First, Macdonald spoke a lot about complimentary football. That can have many meanings. Where some interpreted Macdonald’s move as purely about wanting to run the football more, there was ample evidence that he cared more about how the run and pass game were married together in a way that made it more challenging for defenses to key on one or the other.
The guys over at the Seattle Overload Podcast did a nice job of showing how Grubb struggled to set up play action passes. He would run play fakes to the weak side of the formation, but would never run the ball to that side. That tipped defenses off to the fact that the play was going to be a pass. My short yardage study showed how often second level defenders were waiting for pass plays this past season. There was little deception.
The Kubiak system is built to create these conflicts for linebackers and safeties. It tends to be a heavy under center offense, where Grubb was heavy shotgun. It also utilizes zone running to stretch the field horizontally and then run bootlegs off those plays in a way that makes it difficult for the defense to identify run or pass. It also uses a lot of motion to get the defense to shift in a way that can setup blocks in the run game, giving the offensive line an advantage.
Grubb ran a lot of zone, but most of it was out of shotgun and it was highly ineffective. We will find out how much of that was scheme versus personnel soon enough. Zone schemes tend to prefer lighter, more nimble, linemen who can execute reach blocks and target defenders on the move. Charles Cross should be a great zone blocker. He was graded more highly on gap blocking last year, but had been better as a zone blocker the previous two seasons of his career. Abe Lucas received higher grades on zone blocking than Cross. The now-retired Connor Williams was the highest graded zone blocker on the line.
This might seem like minutiae, but part of the problem with the Seahawks offensive line has been having a mishmash of players who seem better suited for one kind of scheme than another. Nearly every NFL offense runs a mix of zone and gap, but there should be a bread and butter. For Kubiak, that has been zone. Seattle had, by far, it’s best production last season running gap. The decision by Kubiak, Macdonald, and John Schneider about whether they need to adjust the personnel they are scouting for, adjust the scheme to match the personnel, or count on better/different coaching to raise the level of play is going to be pivotal.
There may be a few more puzzle pieces required to make that decision. Kubiak may hire a run game coordinator and may choose to bring his offensive line coach, John Benton, along with him. Scott Huff was not let go when Grubb was, but Macdonald made it clear that the new OC will have some say in his staff. Benton has been coaching for 33 years, and that includes time with Kyle Shanahan. As partial as I am to Huff, it may make more sense to have a more cohesive staff to install and coach the system.
Schneider and crew will be in Mobile, Alabama this week for the Senior Bowl. That is a short drive from New Orleans, so it would not be surprising for Kubiak to make his way there to watch some of the practices and meet with other Seahawks brass. Getting clarity ahead of the scouting season and well ahead of free agency is one of the many benefits of making this decision earlier than last year.
Another challenge for Grubb was short yardage. Seattle finished 23rd in the NFL in converting 3rd or 4th down and 3 yards or less. It got even worse when near the goal line. Seattle ranked 31st in converting 3rd or 4th and goal inside the 3-yard line, turning just 2 of 12 chances into touchdowns.
Kubiak’s offense gained the second-most yards in the NFL on 3rd or 4th down and 3 yards or less to go. Their 5.5 yard average was less than only the Ravens 8.0 yard average, and they did it with considerably less weaponry and talent.
The Saints converted 100% of their goal-to-go short yardage opportunities. Although, they had far fewer (2). The presence of a player like Taysom Hill may have had something to do with the short yardage prowess. However, the Vikings also ranked 2nd in the NFL in yards per play on short yardage (6.5) when Kubiak was the coordinator in 2021.
Before you go dreaming of bringing Hill over from the Saints, he has a massive dead cap hit if cut or traded and saves the Saints only $200K in cap space, so he is one of the least likely players to move teams. Kubiak and Shanahan’s use of the fullback could lead to some other intriguing personnel decisions. Perhaps the Ravens All-Pro fullback, Patrick Ricard, becomes a more logical fit. Kyle Juszczyk was one of Shanahan’s first acquisition in San Francisco. There may also be some guys Seattle could draft as H-Backs, players who can play fullback, but also line up at tight end or even receiver. A guy like 6’5″, 225 lb Savion Williams might fit that mold.
Kubiak also features the tight end quite a bit. Juwan Johnson and Foster Moreau were 2nd and 4th on the Saints in targets. Some of that was due to injury, but Tyler Conklin was 3rd in targets when Kubiak was in Minnesota. It is unclear what that will mean for Noah Fant. It may make him more likely to stick around despite that hefty contract. It might make the team more eager to dip into this loaded tight end draft class and allow A.J. Barner to ascend the depth chart.
Game-breaking receivers have also done well with Kubiak. Justin Jefferson had a 1,600 yard season. Jefferson and Adam Thielen both had 10 TDs. Speedster Rashid Shaheed was having a breakout season with the Saints before he was injured. What that means for the future of D.K. Metcalf remains to be seen. The odds have always been that he would be extended, and it would be hard to imagine Kubiak being too excited about losing a weapon like that even if Schneider says it is the only way they can afford a top-tier free agent offensive linemen.
If Kubiak is cut from the Shanahan cloth, he may not want to spend big on linemen anyway. This was what the current 49ers line coach, Chris Foerster, had to say about investment in linemen this past offseason:
“This is my personal opinion, if they ask me, invest in guys that touch the ball, guys that can touch the ball and score touchdowns,” Foerster said. “And then there’s a range of guys, second, third, fourth round, fifth round even, that we will find starting offensive linemen in. … That guy that touches the ball, it makes a huge difference in the game. The right guard makes a difference, but that’s where we’re able to find fourth- and fifth-round draft picks.”
Music to Schneider’s ears? Before you go jump off a bridge, consider that Shanahan’s teams have long been able to be among the most potent offenses in football with very spotty talent on the line. Trent Williams and Joe Staley are great. Name another great offensive linemen that played for them before drafting Dominick Puni in the 3rd round this year. There haven’t been many/any. Film analysts have almost given up on pointing out the weakness of that group because Shanahan has been able to mask it year-after-year.
Every team is better off with good personnel. Having a staff that knows how to get elite production without elite personnel is pretty darn handy, though. A key question with Kubiak is whether he can produce an elite offense.
The Saints scored less than 20 ppg last season, ranking 24th in points and 21st in yards. His Vikings squad average 25.0 ppg and ranked 14th in points and 12th in yards. He has never had the chance to coach an offense for two straight seasons, as his head coach has been fired each time.
Keep in mind that Shanahan’s offense ranked 23rd in yards and 27th in points before he was hired by Dan Quinn in Atlanta. He was 23rd, 26th, and 25th in points scored in 3 of the 4 seasons before that. It is not uncommon for coaches to need a few tries to find the right home and learn the right lessons.
Kubiak seems like a good match with Macdonald. They are not only the same age, but share an obsession with the game. Kubiak also is not searching for his philosophy or identity. He was literally raised in a household where it was taught. That philosophy is steeped in the run, which Macdonald wants, and marries to the pass. Grubb was married to the pass, and it never meshed cohesively with the run.
It feels like this could be a hire that lasts even though Kubiak got head coaching interviews as recently as last year. It will be worth watching who fills out the rest of his staff, just in case. Of all the players who stand to gain the most from this hire, watch out for Kenneth Walker III. Kubiak will need to convince him to wait for the right window to open, but the potential for explosive plays is huge.
What this means for Geno Smith will be fascinating. Kirk Cousins and Derek Carr are stylistically similar to Smith. Kubiak asks less of his quarterbacks than a lot of systems in terms of pre-snap adjustments. Similar to how his father and Shanahan coach it, line protections are managed by the center, and quarterbacks are not given a lot of flexibility to change plays at the line. This simplifies life for them, but can also lead to defenses exploiting the blitz protection rules as seemed to happen with the 49ers at times this season.
Hiring someone like Grant Udinski would have been thrilling in some ways given you don’t know the ceiling of a 28-year-old who has never called plays. Hiring Hank Fraley could have been exciting knowing he would help fix the line and the run game. The floor with both of those hires felt far lower. Kubiak has a track record as a play caller and was raised to do exactly what he’s being paid to do. The question with him will be more about ceiling than floor.
He showed some glimpses of greatness the first two weeks of last season, and then lost his center, his quarterback, his most explosive receiver and more. You know he is itching to establish himself after two rapid exits. There will be rumors that Fraley was the first choice. I am not convinced that was the case. Macdonald was said to be taking his time being meticulous in the process as he wanted to have confidence that there would not be another misalignment in this role.
Seattle has made their first move of the offseason. It might wind up being their most important.