John Schneider, Pete Carroll seek to reassure Seahawks fans post-Wilson, post- Wagner
They traded away their best and most important player.
They cut their other franchise cornerstone, an All-Pro beloved inside the locker room, across the Pacific Northwest and NFL.
They have left their two best offensive linemen unsigned and off the team.
No wonder John Schneider and Pete Carroll know they have to reassure Seahawks fans — and the Seahawks themselves — after the 2021 season. Seattle finished out of the playoffs for only the second time in 10 years, with its most losses since 2011. Then came the most tumultuous month of their 12 years running the franchise.
That’s what going 7-10, then trading Russell Wilson and cutting Bobby Wagner on the same Tuesday in March creates.
“Heck, yeah,” we have to reassure fans, Carroll said Thursday at team headquarters
“Yeah,” Schneider said, chuckling over the obvious and interrupting his coach.
“We’re not used to losing.”
The Seahawks have been losing a lot lately. Games. Their place in the playoffs. The faith of their fans and, less important, that of Las Vegas oddsmakers, who are setting the over-under of Seattle’s wins for the 2022 season at a mere 5 1/2.
“We’ve got to get Pete reassured, too. And coaches. And everybody,” Carroll said of himself at age 70, not exactly the typical age for a coach to rebuild with a new quarterback. “Everybody wants to come back and do something good here.
“I want to make that (2021 season) a blip on the screen.”
Schneider was talking in advance of the 2022 draft that began Thursday. The Seahawks uncharacteristically owned the ninth-overall choice following the trade of Wilson to Denver last month.
Schneider turned the first five minutes of his pre-draft press conference into a concerted messaging effort.
“There’s a certain energy in this building right now,” Schneider said, “a certain juice.”
The GM asserted team morale is high, from the football staff to facilities managers to food-service folks. Schneider said it’s “brought me to the energy of the 2012 draft.”
That was the year when Schneider and Carroll drafted Wilson and Wagner to become a Super Bowl champion less than two years later.
As he was speaking, it seemed his audience was Seahawks fans, the players, the coaches — and maybe himself.
“As I was preparing for this press conference (last week), talking with my wife about some things,” Schneider said, “I was talking to Traci and I wanted to emphasize: You know, in 2010 when we had our first press conference (to introduce Schneider in Seattle as a first-time NFL GM) I wanted to people know that, hey, growing up in Green Bay, Wisconsin, all I cared about was what were the Packers doing every, single day to get better, right?”
Seahawks fans REALLY want to know that right now.
“And so that’s the message,” the GM said. “I haven’t said that in years. But the fans need to know that, I mean — whether it’s the coaches, the guys in sports science, the people in...our trainers taking care of people, the strength and conditioning guys, our equipment guys — everybody, we are doing whatever we can, every single day, to have a consistent, championship-caliber football team.
“And fans needs to take...there has to be a reassurance of that, right?”
Right.
“What we can say is, it really doesn’t stop,” Schneider said. “It’s a 24-7 process.”
One Schneider and Carroll are now asking, more than ever, Seahawks fans to believe in.
The Seahawks last week re-signed veteran Geno Smith, Wilson’s backup the last three seasons, to compete with Drew Lock and unproven Jacob Eason for the starting quarterback job replacing Wilson.
Lock was 8-13 in parts of three seasons starting in Denver before the Seahawks got him from the Broncos in the Wilson trade.
Carroll said Lock has looked “very comfortable” in his first days with the Seahawks this week, the start of the team’s voluntary offseason workouts.
“He’s really excited about the energy of our club...Very comfortable (and) very open to say that,” Carroll said of the 24-year-old Lock.”
His coach said Lock’s “got a new lease of life” in the NFL.
Duane Brown and Brandon Shell are the starting offensive tackles Seattle has allowed to enter free agency without re-signing them. Both are still unsigned, approaching two months into the market being open.
Shell’s injuries and Jake Curhan’s surprise emergence as an effective right tackle as an undrafted rookie replacing Shell last season make that spot less pressing of a priority.
Brown is another matter. He turns 37 in August. He said late last season he’d consider a one-year deal to remain with the Seahawks. He’s said he wants to retire with the team.
Schneider and Carroll have been deciding how much to pay him, as Brown weighs the market among the many proven veterans who also remain unsigned into the spring.
Asked if they are still interesting in bringing back Brown, Carroll said: “We have not moved on from that.”
“There’s a ton of veterans still (available),” Schneider said. “A lot of high-quality guys that’s out there right now that haven’t been able to find a specific market that they are looking for.”
This story was originally published April 21, 2022 at 2:46 PM.
