In coach’s words: Why Mike Macdonald fired Ryan Grubb, what he’s seeking in Seahawks OC
Mike Macdonald tried an intervention.
In October, the Seahawks lost at home to the lowly New York Giants, an eventual 3-14 team. The defeat ruined Seattle’s 3-0 start. In the game offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb called 58 plays. Only five of them were runs by dynamic lead running back Kenneth Walker. Thirteen of Grubb’s first 15 play calls were passes, even though the Seahawks were then leading the game and the strength of New York’s team was its pass rush.
In the fourth quarter down 20-13, Macdonald decided to go for a first down on fourth and 1 from his own 35-yard line. Grubb called a play-action pass, a fake run and bootleg roll-out pass by quarterback Geno Smith. But the Giants had no reason to honor the run fake, because Grubb didn’t run the ball. New York end Brian Burns completely ignored the play fake to running back Zach Charbonnet. He ran unblocked straight to Smith. Burns sacked Smith to essentially end the game. It was one of seven sacks by the Giants of Smith that Seahawks pass-a-palooza day.
After that game, Macdonald met with Grubb. Basically, he told his first-time NFL play caller to call more runs. To get Walker the ball more. To make the offense’s identity align with what the rookie head coach wanted his entire team to be: Physical, tough, dictating to defenses.
Two days after that game, Grubb spoke publicly about not running the ball with Walker against the Giants.
“I think we had plenty of run game in the plan. Didn’t have anything to do with not having enough calls for that. Just didn’t get called,” Grubb said Oct. 8. “For us, we leaned on the wrong thing. I think if we get Ken 10 more touches, 15 more touches, things are going to look different.
“That’s 100% on me.
“My job is to make sure we get all our guys in the best position possible to win the game. And I didn’t do that.”
Grubb apologized — then often still didn’t run. The Seahawks finished the season 28th in the 32-team NFL in rushing offense, at just over 95 yards per game. They were 29th in rush attempts.
They missed the playoffs for the second consecutive season. That’s the first time that’s happened in Seattle since 2008 and ‘09.
That’s why Macdonald made the decision to fire Grubb Monday.
“Look, it’s not like we weren’t together on this thing the whole ride of the way. We just decided this was the right decision to make,” Macdonald said Tuesday, at his end-of-the-season press conference at team headquarters. “And there’s some specifics that..I will leave that to Ryan and I’s conversations (Tuesday) and throughout the season.
“We want to mirror our football team. All the things that’s we’ve talked about.
“It wasn’t that we weren’t doing these things on offense throughout the year; we’ve done a lot of great things. But we want our offense to be a physical unit. Dictate terms to the defense. Play complimentary football. And get the ball to our play makers, frequently, in space. And let our quarterback play fast.
“We were doing a lot of things offensively. Just decided to go in a different direction.”
That direction is with what will become the Seahawks’ fourth offensive coordinator in six years.
Macdonald said the search for a new play caller has started. The Seahawks have requested permission from other teams to interview “a couple” of candidates, the 37-year-old head man said.
“We’ve put in a couple slips right now,” Macdonald said Tuesday. “We’ll kind of let that play out.”
Asked about the imbalance of run to pass this season and Grubb’s firing, Macdonald said: “We can get into all the specifics and all the numbers and the ratios. Whether or not we decided to run it back this year or not (with Grubb), there’s definitely some things that we want to improve on in all three phases.
“It really just was an alignment thing and a vision thing. And that’s why we made the decision.”
It wasn’t always this way.
When they met at Dino’s, a bar across Interstate 405 from Seahawks headquarters, and got spotted together drinking beer in a Friday-night internet sensation last February to announce Grubb’s hiring, Macdonald and his new OC were hailed as young, innovator difference-makers.
What changed between then and now?
“It just didn’t manifest itself the way that we expected,” Macdonald said Tuesday.
“And I think we kind of grew...um...the way that the offense, the way that it was going, was just not the way that I wanted it to go.”
What Seahawks are seeking in new OC
Seahawks general manager John Schneider targeted Grubb last January.
That was after Allen and Kolde fired coach Pete Carroll and chose Schneider’s path as the one the franchise would take for 2024 and beyond. And it was after Grubb left with Kalen DeBoer when UW’s former head coach unexpected bolted to the University of Alabama to replace retired Nick Saban days after the Huskies lost to Michigan in the national championship game 12 months ago.
Schneider saw an opportunity to get Grubb from his initial weeks working for DeBoer at Alabama in a return for Grubb right back to Seattle. He presented Grubb to Macdonald as an option as the Seahawks hired Macdonald Feb. 1.
Just eight days later, on Feb. 9, Grubb had a deal to become Seattle’s first-time NFL offensive coordinator.
Tuesday, The News Tribune asked Macdonald how much more involved he will be on finding and hiring this Seahawks play caller compared to Grubb.
“How much more?” Macdonald said. “I was 100% involved last time. I’ll be 100% involved this time.”
Grubb was the first Seattle play caller hired with zero NFL coaching experience since former late 1980s Washington State OC Bob Bratkowski became the Seahawks’ offensive coordinator in 1995. Grubb is the first Seattle OC to get fired after just one season since Jeremy Bates, fired by Pete Carroll after Carroll’s first Seahawks season of 2010.
Asked if having play-calling experience in the NFL was important to Macdonald in seeking his new offensive coordinator, he said: “I wouldn’t say that is a prerequisite.”
All candidates are from outside the franchise. Macdonald said he currently has no candidates from his current Seahawks staff. That would seem to eliminate, for now anyway, Jake Peetz from consideration. Seattle’s 39-year-old pass game coordinator has been an offensive assistant for four other NFL teams. He was LSU’s offensive coordinator in college football, in 2021. He has no NFL play-calling experience.
Macdonald said there is some urgency in finding a new OC, to take advantage of what he called the “silver lining” to Seattle not making the playoffs: The extra month he now has to this offseason compared to last when the Seahawks hired him Feb. 1 and his staff for a month-plus after that.
Possible candidates
There is a perception around the league this is an attractive job, to call the plays in Seattle’s offense. And not just because it has Smith coming off a 4,300-yard passing season, or that the weapons include DK Metalf, Jaxon Smith-Njigba coming off a 100-catch season and Walker.
“I think it’s also interesting (to offensive play callers) any time you have a defensive(-minded) head coach and you can be ‘the head coach of the offense,’” Jori Epstein, the New York-based NFL senior writer for Yahoo! Sports, told The News Tribune Tuesday on KJR radio. “There are definitely guys who would want something like that.”
She contrasts Seattle’s job to the OC jobs at, say, Minnesota under play-calling head coach Kevin O’Connell.
Epstein said candidates from across the NFL could include Commanders passing-game coordinator Brian Johnson (a former OC with the Philadelphia Eagles), Browns offensive coordinator Ken Dorsey, Vikings quarterbacks coach Josh McCown and Rams tight ends coach and pass-game coordinator Nick Caley.
Macdonald was asked if he was willing to wait until after the Super Bowl, if there are candidates from the teams that advance to next month’s title game to possibly hire.
“Right now I can’t give you a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ on that one,” he said.
Scott Huff’s future
Macdonald acknowledged the new offensive coordinator coming will likely want to bring some of his own guys as assistants for the Seahawks — and that he is going to grant the new guy that leeway.
That leaves offensive line coach Scott Huff in a wait-and-see mode for a return to the team in 2025.
The offensive line will be a primary subject for any OC candidate that speaks to Macdonald and Schneider. Specifically, any candidate is going to ask what the Seahawks’ plan is to fix the unit that subverted most of what Smith, Metcalf, Walker and, yes, Grubb, did and tried to do in the 2024 season.
Huff came with Grubb to the Seahawks 11 months ago, after both were assistants on the same prolific, national-championship offense at the University of Washington through January 2024.
This story was originally published January 7, 2025 at 4:35 PM.
