‘It’s an Honor’: Brian Fleury Ready to Tackle First Play Calling Role as Seahawks’ New Coordinator
RENTON, Wash. - Selecting his third offensive coordinator in as many offseasons since taking over as head coach of the Seattle Seahawks, Mike Macdonald has learned a thing or two about trusting the process, sticking to his core principles and philosophies in the search for a new play caller as much as Xs and Os.
While some skeptics may question hiring a coordinator who has never called plays at any level, Macdonald isn’t in that camp, seeing far more to the job than simply turning plays into the quarterback. Looking at the entire picture while seeking a candidate with a diverse coaching background and a shared vision offensively post-Klint Kubiak, Brian Fleury checked off every other box on the checklist, landing himself the opportunity to be a coordinator for the first time in Seattle.
Now, Fleury plans to pay it forward rewarding by Macdonald for his faith in him, taking his career path to the next level as one of the few non-head coach play callers in the NFL with the defending Super Bowl champions.
“The opportunity means a lot,” Fleury remarked. “I think there's only 13 of these non-head coach play calling jobs on the planet. And so to be considered one, it was an honor. And now to be sitting here next to Mike [Macdonald], I mean, I can't really express it any better than that.”
Introduced to the media as the successor for Kubiak, who accepted the Raiders’ head coaching job earlier this month, Fleury began his press conference on Thursday by expressing his gratitude to Kyle Shanahan and the NFC West rival 49ers for providing numerous roles for him to take “ownership” of as a coach over the past seven years. After joining San Francisco’s staff in 2019, he worked his way up the ladder from a quality control coach to a tight ends coach to a run game coordinator promotion last season, planting the seeds for an offensive coordinator position in his future.
But before he arrived in Santa Clara, Fleury tilled the ground for those seeds by cutting his teeth at the college level and in his early years as an NFL assistant on the defensive side of the football. This long, winding route to the Pacific Northwest included three seasons as a defensive coordinator at FCS level Sacred Heart, a season with the Bills as a defensive quality control coach, and two seasons with the Browns as a linebackers coach. He also took a three-year foray into football research and analytics with the Dolphins, seeing another side to the game that ultimately benefited him as a coach down the line.
Along the way, aside from being mentored by Shanahan for more than half a decade, Fleury worked alongside future NFL head coaches in DeMeco Ryans, Robert Saleh, Aaron Glenn, and Jeff Hafley as well as respected assistants such as current Seahawks offensive line coach John Benton and Ravens defensive coordinator Anthony Weaver. Those experiences learning from some of the best minds in the sport on offense and defense give him a unique perspective that he believes will create a welcomed advantage for him game planning for and attacking opponents in his new job.
“I was fortunate enough to work in a bunch of different styles of defense, so it just makes it easier for me, I think, to diagnose how the defense is operating, how they're built, where the coverage structure is and how it works with the fronts,” Fleury explained. “And what that allows me to do is probably quicker than maybe some other people get to ways to unlock that, both formationally and structurally, and again, put pressure on them.”
Moving swiftly to fill Kubiak’s vacant role before building out the rest of the coaching staff, Macdonald publicly expressed his desire to maintain continuity on offense through multiple channels, including his final Monday radio show on Seattle Sports 710. Mere days after those comments were made in earnest, the Seahawks interviewed four in-house candidates for the coordinator job, including pass game coordinator Jake Peetz, run game specialist Justin Outten, and tight ends coach Mack Brown, another sign they would prefer to hire from within.
But Fleury had been on Seattle’s radar one year earlier as a potential target to replace Ryan Grubb before Kubiak ultimately received the job, and through a variety of connections, including Jets defensive coordinator Brian Duker - who worked with Macdonald in Baltimore and Fleury in Cleveland - he emerged as a front runner in the latest coaching carousel. He blew away Macdonald with his football acumen and the two hit it off with shared alignment philosophically in regard to the offense and the football team as a whole.
Even without any prior offensive play calling experience, Fleury had been a defensive and special teams coordinator in the past as a college coach. Citing the importance of previous play calling duties as “overrated,” Macdonald left the interview fired up about the prospects of handing the keys to a rising young assistant who had done everything he could to possibly prepare for his new role, banking on the rest of the talent on the coaching staff to provide the support needed for him to grow and thrive.
“All play callers have to be first-time play callers at some point,” Macdonald said. “You can tell how Brian thinks about the game. Look, you're gonna have to grow into any new role, but we have a lot of great people around here and a lot of great opportunities for him to get ready to go. And I'm really confident he's going to be off and running sooner than later. So I'm excited about it. It's gonna be a fun process to build this thing.”
Eager to get rolling as part of Macdonald’s reloaded staff, after being in the playoffs in six of his seven seasons with the 49ers ad being employed by a team with the same lofty expectations year in and year out, Fleury isn’t concerned about the obvious pressures that come with taking over such a critical coordinator role with a Seahawks squad coming fresh off a Super Bowl victory.
For one, Fleury isn’t a complete novice when it comes to calling plays, and unlike a defensive coordinator role that requires coaches to often be more reactionary to how opponents are attacking them, he’s excited for the chance to dictate terms on the offensive side of the football. He will enjoy the opportunity to dive head-first into preparation ahead of time, building an opening game script and analyzing situations to construct a list of plays for a variety of scenarios before Sunday arrives.
“You're thinking through the situations and putting plays in a list format of, you know, when you get to second and one inside the 30-yard line, what are you going to call?” Fleury stated. “And so the preparation aspect of it I've already done. Now it's just a matter of like analyzing the information in real time and getting to the right play call on the sheet.”
Secondly, Fleury lauded the talented roster assembled by general manager John Schneider and Macdonald, which should have the vast majority of key players returning on offense. Along with quarterback Sam Darnold and receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba being back, the Seahawks will have all five of their starting offensive linemen from last season under contract as well as tight ends AJ Barner, Elijah Arroyo, and Eric Saubert, who Fleury coached in San Francisco.
While running back Ken Walker III and speedy receiver Rashid Shaheed could potentially leave in free agency, even if one or both departs, Seattle has an abundance of talent for Fleury to design plays for. As Kubiak did last season, he intends to take advantage of outstanding personnel by maximizing on the strengths of those quality players and limiting the weaknesses within the confines of his scheme.
Making that quest easier, much as Kubiak was back in 2023 when they served on the same staff together, Fleury has been indoctrinated to Shanahan’s offense for nearly half of his time in the NFL. Having already started to comb through what Kubiak did last season on film, he expects to implement a great deal of carryover in his play calling to help from a continuity standpoint, though there will certainly be some different wrinkles and approaches to make the scheme his own while also challenging players to reach another level.
“The goal would be to maintain as much of that as possible,” Fleury said. “But there's also areas where we can supplement that with things that we've developed and done in San Francisco under Kyle that Klint wasn't there for or maybe didn't implement as much. So that's going to be the goal is to keep as much as we can the same. But I think there's definitely areas we can grow, some different ways we can challenge the players that they should be looking forward to bringing back.”
Still a few months from beginning to bring his version of the Shanahan offense to life on the practice field, Fleury already has started to dive in deep building a playbook and evaluating the players he will be scheming for next season. With free agency and the draft coming in the near future, he will have a voice in some of the personnel decisions yet to be made before OTAs arrive, helping paint a more complete picture of what he will have to work with at his disposal.
The real pressure will be on Fleury once training camp starts in late July, as his play calling chops will be tested right out of the gate going against Seattle’s top-ranked defense every day on the practice field. As the saying goes, iron sharpens iron, and the long-time NFL assistant coach isn’t a stranger when it comes to battling against elite defenses from his time in San Francisco.
Acclimating to a position he has never held previously, Fleury will surely have his share of bumps in the road regardless of the talent he gets to coach, something Macdonald acknowledged multiple times on Thursday. How he adapts to those situations ultimately will dictate whether or not he comes close to equaling or surpassing Kubiak’s success with the Seahawks, but the coach who hired him has no doubts the new coordinator will be able to handle whatever gets thrown at him with a tight-knit staff ready to pick him up when needed.
