Ryan Grubb wasn’t the problem for the Seahawks offense, but he’s an easy scapegoat

Almost all season long, I thought the criticism of Ryan Grubb was unfair and misguided, thinking it came from guys watching from their couch or a local bar.

Sure, those guys love football and watch it all the time, but what the hell do they know about calling plays in the NFL or at any level for that matter?

But they were right, sharing the same concerns that Mike Macdonald had with his offensive coordinator. The Seahawks head coach fired Grubb on Monday.

Boiled down, Macdonald and Grubb didn’t share the same vision for the offense - the man in charge wanted a more physical style, featuring a rugged running attack to complement the passing game, while the man who was pink slipped aired it out more often than he should have.

I’ve always gotten a kick out of it when coordinators are fired, and I say that sarcastically. These dismissals are typically unjustified and certainly that is the case with Grubb.

Coordinators are always the scapegoats, frequently canned for flimsy reasons, and you know what they are with the Seahawks.

Macdonald wants a physical running game, and for starters, he has a terrific running back in Ken Walker, but for as good as he is, Walker doesn’t strike anyone as a physical back, and he was in and out of the lineup with injuries this year.

Even when Walker got the ball, he rarely found daylight. The offensive line wasn’t even close to average at full strength, and injuries caused it to be even worse at right tackle, where four players were used, and right guard, where three players started at one time or another. Don’t forget the midseason retirement of center Connor Williams, who wasn’t very good anyway, undoubtedly because he came back too soon from injury.

It rarely created room to run and just as often failed to decently protect Geno Smith, who was sacked 54 times, third-most in the NFL.

Pick who you think is the best offensive coordinator in the league and put him in the same position with the Seahawks this year. Would he have somehow fared better than Grubb given those kinds of limitations?

Flip it around, make Grubb the offensive coordinator in Buffalo or Kansas City and let’s see how he does there. I’m thinking they’d have a damn parade for him at the end of the season since he’d have Josh Allen and Patrick Mahomes to work with.

As falls from grace go, this was a massive drop, Grubb going from the hottest college assistant in the country with what he did in 2023 with Michael Penix and those fantastic receivers at Washington to this alleged face plant with the Seahawks.

What was the biggest difference from one team to the next? The Dawgs had the best offensive line in the nation.

Pete Carroll must be chuckling at this turn of events. The former Seahawks coach seemingly always favored a run over pass philosophy, but it rarely turned out the way he wanted, particularly after Marshawn Lynch and Chris Carson finished their careers.

Plus I think back to that one season in Seattle when Mike Holmgren just said, screw it, we can’t run the ball so we’re not going to try to do it anymore. God I loved that, a coach seeing what everyone else was seeing and deciding it just won’t work so why force it?

Think about this - let’s say Grubb called more running plays than he did this year. I’m guessing they wouldn’t have consistently worked, and everyone would be ripping him for running the ball too much.

This fall guy stuff made me recall the Super Bowl that the Seahawks lost to the Patriots on a goal-line interception when everyone thought the Seahawks should have simply given the ball to Beast Mode at the 1-yard line.

Darrell Bevell was immediately perceived as an idiot, but the former Seahawks offensive coordinator would tell you the Patriots’ goal-line defensive personnel dictated that a pass might work better than a run in that situation. I also remember looking back on Lynch’s carries from the 1-yard line during the season, and he didn’t score every damn time. Sometimes he was thrown for a loss.

If Russell WIlson had completed a game-winning touchdown pass, Bevell would have been praised for an outstanding play call. Instead, he’s unjustly remembered as the guy who royally messed up in the Super Bowl.

That’s what amuses me too, this feeling that these guys on their couches and in the bars would be better play-callers than men who study all week long, understanding their own team’s strengths and weaknesses while defining opponents’ defensive tendencies and combining the two to come up with a game plan. They call plays they think will work, and when they don’t work, is it their fault? Sometimes, but more frequently it’s because the players don’t properly execute what was called.

I don’t think Grubb should have been fired, especially since it was his first year in the NFL and he deserved the benefit of the doubt with the learning curve. But it’s Macdonald’s team, and if he thought it was the right move to make, even if it seems rash and harsh, then it’s fair to reserve judgment to see how things work out from here.

Macdonald got rid of two starting linebackers in the middle of the season and reaped the benefits of that surprising shift on defense. When his return men had fumbling issues, he got rid of them too, solving that problem.

Maybe we’ll look back and continue to question whether he should have fired Grubb when his replacement encounters the same issues with a subpar offensive line. Or maybe it will be one of those moves that was necessary to turn the Seahawks into division winners and potential Super Bowl contenders.

Jim Moore has covered Washington’s sports scene from every angle for multiple news outlets. He appears Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at 10 a.m. on Jason Puckett’s podcast at PuckSports.com. You can find him on X (formerly Twitter) @cougsgo.

This story was originally published January 7, 2025 at 11:09 AM.