All Seahawks GM John Schneider said off-podium at NFL combine, including on Bobby Wagner
John Schneider fueled speculation saying Geno Smith is the Seahawks’ “starter until he’s not.”
That was in front of cameras at a podium at the NFL scouting combine Tuesday.
But that’s not all Seattle’s general manager said this week in Indianapolis.
In the crux of his first offseason as the franchise’s top football authority and primary spokesman with Pete Carroll now fired, Schneider then spoke off to the side, away from cameras. Off the podium inside the Indiana Convention Center, Schneider spoke to The News Tribune and three other Western Washington media outlets.
There, the GM talked about:
- His team’s quarterback situation
- The futures of Bobby Wagner and Jamal Adams
- Delays in trying to retain pending free agents such as Leonard Williams
- Luring Ryan Grubb out of coaching college football to the Seahawks
- And a starter’s recent surgery.
Here’s all Schneider said Tuesday.
John Schneider off the podium
Defensive-backs specialist Karl Scott is the only assistant coach returning from Carroll’s staff last season who is on new head man Mike Macdonald’s 24-person Seahawks coaching staff.
Why?
“The teacher. He’s an excellent teacher,” Schneider said. “Philly was on him right away. So he was a guy that, we let our guys kind of go and explore whatever they wanted to explore with the hopes that we had a coach in place who could interview the guys. But the timing of it, the process stuff, just the teaching part with Karl, he’s excellent.’’
None of the Seahawks’ coaches are in Indianapolis this week for the combine. They are remaining at team headquarters in Renton to install the team’s new playbooks.
Schneider was asked what priority it is for the Seahawks to re-sign linebacker Jordyn Brooks and Williams, the pending free-agent defensive tackle. Seattle’s GM gave up a second-round pick in this year’s draft to acquire Williams from the New York Giants in October.
“Obviously Leonard giving up a second-round pick. Jordyn was a first-round pick; we didn’t pick up the option last year (on Brooks for 2024). He struggled, tried to fight his ass off with the injuries and everything,” Schneider said of Brooks’ reconstructed knee. “But those guys, they are all a priority.
Brooks told the TNT following the Seahawks’ final game of the 2023 season at Arizona Jan. 7 he didn’t know if the team that drafted him in the first round in 2020 was going to try to retain him for 2024. Brooks said he’s proud of his fight back from his torn knee ligaments, and of his time with the Seahawks and his teammates.
Williams said in December he was willing to see how the business of the NFL breaks for him.
“Just let the future play out,” Williams said during Seattle’s four-game losing streak into mid-December.
“With Leonard,” Schneider said, “when you look at it like ‘OK, you gave up a second-round pick for him,’ kind of like with Jamal (Adams, whom Schneider acquired from the Jets to for two first-rounders) a couple years ago, you’ve given up the compensation, you want to try to get a contract done.’’
Williams, 29, is two weeks from being in free agency for the first time. He is regarded as one of the top defensive linemen in this year’s free-agent class. This close to the open market, he’s likely to test it to find his maximum NFL value.
“He played great. He played 18 games,” Schneider said, a reference to Williams getting traded before the Giants’ bye and after Seattle’s in the 2023 season.
“He played great. You can move him around he can play a couple different spots.’’
Jamal Adams’ situation
Adams played in only nine of 17 games. He’s only played 10 games the last two years, because of a torn quadriceps tendon and constant knee pain. He’s yet to approach the value on the field of his record $70 million contract Schneider signed Adams to before the 2021 season.
The Seahawks shut down Adams for the final games of the 2023 season, December into January. He had chronic knee pain from the quadriceps injury and surgery.
Schneider was asked Tuesday how Adams’ health is now. Adams has the team’s highest scheduled salary-cap charge for 2024, at $26.92 million, per overthecap.com.
“It was a rough year for him, Jordyn and Jamal,” Schneider said. “I’m sure Jamal would tell you guys it was hard for him. He fought his tail off to get back. He was constantly trying to be out there, trying to be active and working with the coaching staff, working with the trainers, strength and conditioning guys.
“I would expect him to be much healthier next year, yes.’’
Bobby Wagner’s status
Wagner is set to be a free agent when the negotiating period begins March 11. The linebacker and captain of Seattle’s defense is coming off another Pro Bowl season, his ninth in 11 years with the Seahawks. He turns 34 in June.
He again is representing himself, without an agent, in contract talks with Schneider and the Seahawks.
Those have yet to start in earnest with Wagner, or anyone else. That’s because Schneider has been hiring a new head coach and and entirely new coaching staff in the last 10 weeks since the end of this past season.
The TNT asked Schneider Tuesday if Wagner is a special case in considering whether to sign back, because of his legacy as a Hall-of-Fame caliber linebacker and captain for Seattle.
The GM mostly avoided the question.
“It’s sitting down with all those guys next week,” Schneider said. “That’s what I was trying to let everybody know (when speaking at the podium Tuesday): We are going to be doing it with agents this week, as well. Like, hey , we are going to try to figure out together, what is your vision? We are trying to mix those things together.
“We literally are just getting done hiring (coaches). So you think about all of us sitting in a room together, we are all like getting to know each other, what’s important to you, what’s important to all these different people. And so Mike and I we got together, we’ve got a vision of where we want to take this thing. But you’ve got to get into the specifics of the positions, too, and understand what is important to those guys in order to get the buy-in with the staff.’’
The Seahawks’ quarterbacks
Schneider was asked about the timing of last week converting half of Smith’s $9.6 million roster bonus that had been due to him in mid-March into a signing bonus. The move saved the team $4.8 million in salary-cap space this year, and reduced by $4.8 million what the cap charge would be on Smith for any team that might want to trade for the Pro Bowl QB the last two seasons.
“Just to create cap room,” Schneider said. “Just a trigger we put in the majority of our contracts and you can turn a roster bonus into a signing bonus and pro-rate the singing bonus over the rest of the years. Ended up being $4.8 million, something like that.
“Honestly, other people made a bigger deal out of that than we did in the building. (To some on the outside) it was like ‘Is he going to be here? Is he not going to be here?’ It was not. He was going to be here.
“(To us) it was a matter of, like, when are we going to tell him we are doing this with his roster bonus.’’
Does the team want Drew Lock, Smith’s backup, in the same role for 2024? Lock is a free agent and has said he wants to play, for someone, this year.
“Honestly yeah. Going to meet with his agent down here,” Schneider said in Indianapolis. “He’s one of those guys in that group.
“There’s a whole group of guys that are really important. Damien Lewis, Colby Parkinson, Noah (Fant). We’ve got a cool group of guys that we want to get all of them back. You find out when you’re down here, like, ‘OK, who do you have a chance to get back?’ You have to try to prioritize it and then work with the staff and see if it makes sense for those guys as well. Because you don’t want to be just pushing players on a staff like that, especially a first time out with a new staff.
“The previous staff, those guys, we were in a flow. They knew exactly how free agency worked. So we’re not a group that’s like (that). We’re going to work with our coaches and figure that out.’’
Schneider was asked if the Seahawks’ pending free agents and others with contract situations have been understanding in having patience as the new coaching staff settles in.
“I’m sure there’s some angst,” the GM said. “I mean, I would have some angst, like, what does my new position coach think of me?”
Will the Seahawks need to make any more cap-related moves? They are now more than $12 million under the salary cap for 2024, per overthecap.com.
“I mean you are constantly evaluating that,” Schneider said. “Like, yeah, that’s one of those thing we’ll find out ‘OK, if we are interested in such and such a player, how are we going to create space to acquire that player? And if we are trading with another team for a player how are we are going to create this space?’
“This time at this time of year there are huge like chunk spaces we are trying to work through.’ I don’t have specifics for you guys, but I know that we are getting there.”
Last week, the NFL set the salary cap at $255.4 million for this year, effective March 13 with the start of the new league year. How much higher is that than Schneider and his staff had been planning for?
“People were arguing with it. I would say, like, six. Five, six million more,” the GM said.
Schneider was asked what went into the Seahawks hiring former University of Washington offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb and UW offensive line coach Scott Huff for those same jobs in Seattle this month.
“Talking to Troy (Dannen, UW athletic director), Troy was great. Talking to Alabama, I’d never been through that before, with buyouts and working through all that,” Schneider said.
“Then, negotiating with the agent at the end of it, Mike (Macdonald) had three, four, five guys, I’d say five guys that he really wanted to talk through. And we tried to spend that time with those guys, too, have them in person. So Grubb came in. We were able to have one guy we totally backed into that we knew about. I’ll tell you about that in a couple years. And, yeah, just working through that process.
“It was really cool to sit down and interview with Mike, and watch him interview and watch those guys talk ball. It was great. And Scott was kind of part of that, as well.”
If you lose starting center Evan Brown and starting guard Damien Lewis in free agency, how ready are 2023 draft choices Olu Oluwatimi and Anthony Bradford to play those spots on the offensive line?
“We feel good about them. But, again, we want to talk to those guys (Brown and Lewis, with their ending contracts). But from a personnel standpoint, we feel good about those guys. Him finishing, the way Bradford finishes. Olu’s intelligence, I mean, awesome to work with.”
Then Macdonald was asked if Adams is in Macdonald’s plans for Seattle’s defense in 2024.
“Is he is in his plans? Yeah, I mean, we’ll find out,” Schneider said. “We’ll keep working through things. We’re not...it’s another way to ask it. We’re still trying to figure all that out.
“We’re like, yeah, we went through the draft meetings, I’m getting caught up. I’m behind.”
Adams responded online later Tuesday by typing “Looking forward to the opportunity.”
What makes the Seahawks’ GM believe Grubb’s UW offense will also succeed in the NFL?
“Time of possession,” Schneider said. “Their time of possession was off the...it was ridiculous. And then they still had a physicality about them when they ran the ball -- as well as throwing it all around the park.
“When you are talking to people it was, ‘OK, what would you do? Would you...there were like five guys on their team that were NFL-caliber receivers (including likely top-10 pick Rome Odunze). And their quarterback (Michael Penix Jr.) was great.”
Did starting right tackle Abe Lucas have a surgery since he last played last season, on a chronically pained knee?
“Yes,” Schneider said.
Will that fix everything?
“Hopefully,” the GM said, representing everything these changed Seahawks are trying to do to begin this new era, “yes.”
This story was originally published February 28, 2024 at 9:01 AM.
