Mike Macdonald isn’t interested in a “replace Klint Kubiak by cloning Klint Kubiak” approach.
As the Seahawks settled into training camp, the conversation around Seattle’s offense has centered on Brian Fleury, the first-time play-caller stepping into the void left when Kubiak departed for the Las Vegas Raiders to chase his first head-coaching job. The move made sense for Kubiak, but it also left Seattle searching for a new voice after a season in which the offense had a clear identity.
Macdonald made it plain that Fleury won’t be asked to simply copy and paste last year’s system.
“The play calling is going to be different,” Macdonald told Seattle Sports. “I mean, if he goes and tries to copy what Klint did, then we’re going to be in trouble.
That’s the last thing we want. We did a lot of great things last year, but that was that team and Klint was making those decisions for that team.”
That doesn’t mean the Seahawks are tearing everything down. The core ideas and much of the personnel remain in place, but Macdonald’s point is that the NFL doesn’t give anyone the luxury of running the same script twice.
Defenses spend the offseason studying every tendency, every wrinkle, every decision. Standing still is a quick way to get exposed.
There’s also the reality that Fleury is walking into a tough assignment. A first-time play-caller taking over for a defending champion naturally brings some questions, especially when the staff change came late and the market for top offensive candidates had already thinned out. Still, Macdonald and general manager John Schneider have earned some trust for how they’ve handled the bigger picture.
Part of that trust comes from the coaching tree Fleury comes out of. Macdonald pointed to his background with Kyle Shanahan, saying that experience has sharpened the way Fleury sees the game.
“He sees it in 360 degrees, which is rare. It's a lot of fun to talk football with him. I'm learning from him,” Macdonald added.
Seattle has already shown it’s willing to bet on experience levels that might make other teams nervous. The organization took a chance on a young head coach with limited background, and it paid off. This is another version of that same belief: let the new voice build something of his own.
Kubiak helped lay the foundation by fitting the system to the roster and drawing the most out of the Seahawks’ weapons. Now Fleury gets his turn to make the offense his own.
The job isn’t to be Kubiak 2.0. It’s to prove the Seahawks were right to hand him the keys in the first place.
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