No ho-hum OTAs: Seahawks begin practicing with new QB, new system, much to learn
The offseason practices aren’t the usual, perfunctory, run-of-the-mill walk-throughs in T-shirts and shorts.
These Seattle Seahawks have much to do on the field over nine organized team activities (OTAs). The practices begin Tuesday and run up to the mandatory veterans’ minicamp June 16-18.
Lead returning receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba, lead rusher Kenneth Walker, top tight end Noah Fant, plus many of the offensive linemen and everyone else who’s been around are in flush-then-learn mode. Again.
They are learning their third new offense in three years.
These OTAs are voluntary. Given all the players need to install and get from the coaches between now and training camp that begins the last week of July, the Seahawks would be wise — if not strongly encouraged — to be there.
“We’re going to challenge the heck out of them. There’s no doubt about that,” new offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak said.
The former OC for the Saints and Vikings, ex-top assistant for the 49ers and Broncos, Kubiak has arrived from New Orleans to replace failed, fired Ryan Grubb following the former Washington Huskies coordinator’s only season as Seattle’s play caller.
Kubiak is installing a new, outside-zone blocking scheme for the Seahawks’ recently stalled running game. To do that, he’s brought with him from the Saints John Benton, a veteran of two decades coaching NFL offensive lines.
Former Denver Super Bowl-champion assistant Rick Dennison is joining them. Dennison is an outside-zone disciple of former Broncos champion head coach Mike Shanahan. Dennison has Seattle’s new position of run-game coordinator and senior offensive advisor that coach Mike Macdonald created this winter.
Seahawks veterans get on the field this week for their first team football work since early January when their 2024 season ended without a playoff berth for the second consecutive year. They are doing more than meets the eye. They are learning Dennison’s and Benton’s new protection schemes. They are learning new line calls.
The players have been learning on film and white boards for a month of meetings in the first phases of the NFL offseason training program. This new phase of OTA practices will be their first time lining up in and using the new system on the field.
“I know that we have a darn good group of teachers. That’s our job as coaches to be excellent teachers and to get them up to speed with the verbiage,” Kubiak said.
“These guys are football players. We’re not reinventing the wheel. We’re going to say some things probably a little bit differently, but it’s important that we all get together early and often and start to learn this new language. For us as their coaches, we’re serving these guys. We’re going to be at our best to make sure we’re the best teachers for them, so they learn fast.”
Klint Kubiak’s Seahawks plans changed
Kubiak is adjusting on the fly himself this offseason.
The March day the Seahawks introduced him as OC, he said coaching Geno Smith and DK Metcalf was a huge draw to taking the Seattle job.
Then, the Seahawks traded Smith and Metcalf within three days in late March.
New quarterback Sam Darnold signed for three years and $100.5 million from Minnesota days after Seattle traded Smith to Las Vegas.
Darnold has a head start over Smith-Njigba, freshly signed former Super Bowl MVP Cooper Kupp, Walker, Fant and the linemen. Darnold has run Kubiak’s offense. He was a backup with the 2023 San Francisco 49ers. Kubiak, 38, was the Niners’ passing game coordinator that year when Darnold played behind then-second-year QB Brock Purdy in San Francisco.
“Yeah, it was definitely one of the things that I factored into signing here,” Darnold said. “Just being able to work with Klint, and having talked with Klint a ton in San Francisco about kind of what we liked, disliked, (I learned) we have so much in common when it comes to football.
“And, yeah, just very pumped to get this thing going.”
Beginning on the field Tuesday, Kubiak will have Darnold and backup quarterbacks Drew Lock and Jalen Milroe, Seattle’s third-round pick this month, on the move. The new offense will have the quarterbacks often throwing on the run with bootleg and roll-out throws, more than the more drop-back system Grubb had Smith doing last year.
One of the reasons Macdonald, Kubiak and general manager John Schneider pivoted so quickly and decisively to Darnold after Smith asked for more money on a new deal than Seattle wanted to give this spring was Darnold’s ability running to throw.
The Vikings had him running a similar system to Kubiak’s in Minnesota last season.
“Sam’s extremely talented. Obviously a great thrower of the football,” Kubiak said of the eighth-year veteran coming off a 14-3 season with 4,319 yards passing with 35 touchdowns for the Vikings last season. “His mobility sticks out. His toughness. His maturity.
“The thing about Sam that really sticks out is just he’s an A-plus teammate. Elevates those around him. The guys he plays with respect him, because when your best players are your hardest workers, that’s what you really strive for, and that’s what you want as a coach. And Sam has that, in spades.”
Darnold knows the reason Kubiak is here in Seattle, why Macdonald made him the team’s third offensive coordinator in as many years.
“I know foundation is the run game, and we’re going to run the rock,” Darnold said. “I know Klint is big on running the rock, and you’ve got to do that — and building that off of play-action keepers and dropping back when you have to.
“Again, just very — I know I keep using this word — but very excited to just get rolling on what this system, what the offense is going to look like.”
Seahawks OTA schedule
The Seahawks will practice in OTAs on their fields at the Virginia Mason Athletic Center in Renton beginning Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. They also have OTAs three days each of the following two weeks through June 12.
The lone accounts of the coming week’s OTAs will be photos and video from the team’s website. The only OTA practices open to the media are June 2, 4 and 5.
The mandatory veteran minicamp June 17, 18, 19 are open to the media.
This story was originally published May 27, 2025 at 5:00 AM.
