Fareed from Longview, Texas asks, “Do the Seahawks have enough pieces on both sides of the ball to make the playoffs next season?” While Scott from Listowel, Ontario asks, “What are the realistic chances of this completely revamped Seahawks team competing for the playoffs and/or playing deep into the playoffs?”
A: Relaying a story from his earliest days as a coach, Mike Macdonald told a story earlier this offseason that illustrates the type of expectations he brings into every season.
“I want to win the Super Bowl,” Macdonald said Tuesday at the NFL Annual Meeting. “That’s the expectation, man. Every time you step on the field, your expectation is to win. When I was a high school coach, our head coach, Xarvia Smith, got the staff together in the summer and he’s like, ‘Hey, write down what you think our record is going to be this year.’ And guys would turn in like 8-2 or 7-3, 9-1 or whatever. And to those people, he was like, ‘What games are we going to lose so we can just go ahead and not play those games?’ So if you go into this whole process not expecting to win, you’re not doing it the right way.”
So what’s realistic? Well considering the Seahawks won 10 games last season, missing an NFC West title by the fifth tiebreaker, strength of victory, it’s hardly a stretch to suggest that they can be a playoff team in 2025. This is Macdonald’s second season as a head coach, meaning he and his staff should be that much more in sync and prepared for what a season can throw at them, and on defense in particular, the Seahawks are expecting to be way ahead of where they were at the start of last season. And that brings me to Scott’s question, which refers to the Seahawks as “completely revamped.” Yes, there are a lot of changes on offense—we’ll get to that in a second—but on defense, the Seahawks have a ton of continuity. The only starter from last season not back is Dre’Mont Jones, who was released in a salary-cap related move, but the Seahawks were able to add veteran defensive end DeMarcus Lawrence to help fill that void, and rookie Rylie Mills, when fully healthy, will provide another versatile inside-out option on the line. With nearly every starter back from a defense that was, over the second half of the season, one of the best in the NFL, the Seahawks have every reason to expect to be very, very good on that side of the ball.
As for the offense, yes, there were significant changes, most notably moving on from three key players in Geno Smith, DK Metcalf and Tyler Lockett, but the Seahawks also are very excited about the players they added both in free agency and the draft on that side of the ball, and they’re also counting on new offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak and his staff to help get more out of that unit, particularly when it comes to having a more balanced and physical attack.
Obviously the play of new quarterback Sam Darnold will be key, as is the case for quarterback play on every NFL team, but given how well he played in a similar offensive scheme last year, the Seahawks are expecting big things from the 2024 Pro-Bowl selection. It’s fair to wonder just exactly what the offense will look like after so much change, but overall, considering how close the Seahawks came to the playoffs in Macdonald’s first season, a playoff berth and even a deep run are realistic expectations, both for Macdonald and for fans.