> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.emeraldcityspectrum.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Mike Macdonald, Seahawks ‘Ahead of the Curve’ With Revamped Coaching Staff - URL: https://www.emeraldcityspectrum.com/mike-macdonald-seahawks-ahead-of-curve-revamped-coaching-staff/ - Published: 2025-02-26T20:08:49.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-08T06:00:36.000Z - Author: Corbin Smith - Tags: Seahawks, Mike Macdonald, Geno Smith, Klint Kubiak, John Benton, Rick Dennison \[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="1920"\] ![ Seattle Seahawks coach Mike Macdonald fields questions during the 2025 NFL Combine in Indianapolis. ](https://storage.ghost.io/c/1d/f2/1df2f77b-83dd-4bc0-a6d2-6d1bb5df89a3/content/images/2026/10/snapshot-format-original.png) Seattle Seahawks coach Mike Macdonald fields questions during the 2025 NFL Combine in Indianapolis. \[/caption\] INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. - At this time last year, only a few weeks after accepting the Seattle Seahawks head coaching job, Mike Macdonald wasn’t able to make the trip for the annual NFL combine, instead urgently finalizing his first coaching staff back and playing catchup mode in the Pacific Northwest. Fast forwarding to the present, even after overhauling Seattle’s offensive coaching staff with a new coordinator in Klint Kubiak and numerous new assistants, Macdonald has been able to take a step back and breathe a bit this time around. Working in conjunction with general manager John Schneider, the scouting department, and most notably, a much more experienced coaching staff that already is making a positive impact behind the scenes evaluating incoming draft prospects, he’s soaking up the opportunity to improve his football team on the ground in the Circle City with strong support around him. “We have a unique perspective now for our new offensive staff,” Macdonald told reporters during his first-ever combine press conference. “It's great to have a staff in place this time around where last year I think we were finalizing at about this time. Look, I just really believe in the men that we brought into our coaching staff. Their leadership ability, coaching ability. It's going to be a fun group to work with. I think our players are going to love playing for them.” Up against the wall with every other team that had hired a new head coach having a head start assembling a staff, Macdonald and the Seahawks kept an open mind last winter by hiring former Washington offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb and offensive line coach Scott Huff despite neither coach offering any NFL experience. Expectations were high heading into the season, only for the offense to struggle down the stretch as the team came up just short of making the playoffs, leading to a quick hook jettisoning most of the offensive staff. Afforded a much more favorable timeline this coaching cycle, especially after Seattle didn’t make the postseason, Macdonald and Schneider went right to work with experience being a key component of their search to replace Grubb, Huff, and company. After interviewing with numerous coaches in January, they opted to hire Kubiak, who called plays in New Orleans last season and brings with him a tried and true wide zone-centric scheme heralding from legendary coach Mike Shanahan that continues to be a staple in the league. In tandem with Kubiak, the Seahawks brought in offensive line coach John Benton, who has coached the position for more than 20 seasons in the NFL, including working for Kubiak’s father from 2006 to 2013 with the Texans and coaching alongside Kubiak with the Saints in 2024\. In addition, they hired three-time Super Bowl winning assistant Rick Dennison, who worked with Macdonald with the Ravens back in 2014 as a quarterback coach and served as the offensive line coach and run game coordinator with the Vikings when Kubiak was on staff from 2019 to 2021 as part of a highly decorated resume. With Benton, Dennison, and run game specialist Justin Outten all on board and each of those coaches offering at least eight years of NFL experience, Seattle finds itself in a far better position with the offseason underway than this time a year ago. Even with a bunch of new coaches joining the staff, there’s a clear sense of continuity that Macdonald anticipates will have his football team hitting the ground running once they return to the field in May and not enduring the schematic growing pains that they dealt with on both sides of the ball last spring. “I think we're just ahead of the curve,” Macdonald said. “Just fast forward everything to now. We're at the starting point just like, hey, we know what schemes we are running, we know how it's rolled out. I've gone through this on defense where, yeah, okay, hey, we want to play quarters, but how are we rolling it out? What's the footwork? What's all the holes? You’ve got to live through all those things and that takes time to get every coach on the same accord. We lived out a little bit in some of the schemes we were doing last year on defense. So to be able to kind of not skip those steps, but understand what the language and how we want to do it on the front end, guys that have done it together, I think it's going to help us.” As evidenced by the fact Benton, Dennison, and Outten have all coached the offensive line, been a run game coordinator, or held both positions in the league, Macdonald and Schneider prioritized building a staff that could help the Seahawks attack their biggest weakness. Last season, the team allowed quarterback Geno Smith to be pressured on 38.5 percent of his dropbacks, the second-highest mark in the NFL, while the front line also struggled to open up run lanes for an offense that ranked 28th in rushing yards. Leaning on the expertise of his new staff, Macdonald envisions Kubiak’s wide zone system better maximizing Seattle’s talent in the offensive line room, allowing blockers to get out and run more often rather than trying to play bully ball on gap schemes. While this could impact the type of players they will pursue personnel-wise in free agency and the draft, he sees some carryover in terms of what they will be asking their linemen to do and remains optimistic in the options that they have in-house to effectively run the scheme as intended. Away from the line of scrimmage, Macdonald also doesn’t expect much of a learning curve for Smith despite the fact he will be at the wheel for his third different playbook in as many seasons, citing the quarterback’s strengths and football acumen as ideal fits to thrive in Kubiak’s system. Reiterating his desire for the veteran signal caller to receive an extension as their starting quarterback for the foreseeable future, past success for players with comparable skill sets such as Kirk Cousins and Derek Carr in Kubiak’s scheme give Macdonald plenty of optimism that Smith will be able to flourish with play calling catered to getting the ball out of his hands quicker with the implementation of more bootlegs and play action concepts, which in turn should provide another pathway to help the offensive line as well. “He’s not specific to this scheme or whatever, but this scheme has a track record of the quarterbacks playing fast. I just feel like if you can get the quarterback to play decisive and fast, it builds confidence,” Macdonald explained. “It's hard to defend on defense when the ball's out on time, and then all the play actions and the movements to be able to protect in that way, take pressure off the offensive line is going to help us. So both the track record of how Klint's coached the quarterback and their success was really important. This scheme as a whole, you just think of all the guys who are coaching through this scheme. The things we know about Geno, he's tough as crap, he's smart, he's accurate as hell. He throws a great ball, sees the field, he plays with anticipation, patient, ultimate competitor. You line those things up with things that we're going to be doing, you’ve got to be excited.” As is the case for any team installing an offense or defense, the Seahawks will have hurdles to clear along the way, especially with several new players set to join the mix through free agency and the draft who will be acclimating to new teammates as well as a new playbook. With receiver Tyler Lockett potentially on the way out and Noah Fant’s future uncertain, Smith likely will have some new targets on the outside that he has to establish chemistry with during OTAs into training camp, while the offensive line remains a work in progress with Benton and Dennison ready to leave an imprint on the unit and major personnel alterations possible. But unlike circumstances with Grubb and Huff as they tried to get their feet underneath them coaching in the NFL for the first time last season, this isn’t the first rodeo for Kubiak and his entourage of assistants who have coached up hundreds of players in their scheme over the years with great degrees of success. For that reason alone, Macdonald’s confidence in his new group of teachers elevating the offense to another level is far from unfounded, and if things come together as he envisions in coming months, the blueprint has been put in place for dramatic improvements across the board in 2025.