A promoted quarterbacks coach.
An expanded role on offense for Jake Peetz.
And a hint to why their key position coach stayed.
The Seahawks announced their head man Mike Macdonald’s coaching staff for 2026. The assistants on the NFL’s top-ranked defense remain mostly intact. The staff on the offense reflects the changes after coordinator Klint Kubiak left the Super Bowl champions to become the head coach of the Las Vegas Raiders last month.
The most important retention is offensive line coach John Benton. He made good on what he told The News Tribune in the Bay Area amid rumors he might leave with Kubiak to the Raiders days before the Super Bowl last month: “I’m a Seahawk, dammit.”
Benton got the added title of senior offensive assistant, and likely a pay raise with it, to stay in Seattle.
Right tackle Abe Lucas and all Seahawks offensive linemen credited the veteran Benton’s clear teaching and singular focus on the outside-zone blocking system as the basis for every one of 20 game plans through the Super Bowl win for why they O-line was so improved in 2025.
Seattle Seahawks offensive line coach John Benton speaks to the media during Seahawks team availability , at San Jose Convention Center on Wednesday, Feb. 4, 2026, in San Jose, Calif. Brian Hayes bhayes@thenewstribune.com
General manager John Schneider said it was the team’s most improved unit. The results spoke for themselves.
“There’s buy-in there, right?” Schneider said the day after he set the first roster for last regular season, in late August 2025. “There’s a legitimate scheme that they’re running off the ball, gaining confidence. And they’re confident in what they do. “Again, it comes back to the developers, and the teachers,” the GM said of Benton.
“I think you’ve seen a lot of growth within the group. There’s camaraderie that’s starting to come together, too.”
A new member of the offensive coaching staff is a graduate of Yale with a degree in cognitive science. Daniel Stern was John Harbaugh’s game analytics expert with the Baltimore Ravens. He will do that and more with the title of pass game strategist. Stern will work closely with Brian Eayrs, the Seahawks’ director of football analysis and special situations.
Eayrs got a game ball for his work at the end of Seattle’s last-second home win over Indianapolis late last season.
New Seahawks line coach John Benton (left in white cap), a veteran of 19 NFL seasons coaching, works right tackle Abe Lucas (72, center foreground) and the starting offensive line through a sled drill during organized team activities (OTAs) offseason practices June 4, 2025, at the Virginia Mason Athletic Center in Renton. Gregg Bell/The News Tribune
New offensive coordinator Brian Fleury, announced last month as in from being San Francisco’s run-game coordinator and tight ends coach to be Kubiak’s replacement, will have a new Seahawks quarterbacks coach. Tyson Prince, a 2018 graduate of Michigan State and University of Washington quality control coach in 2022, got a promotion from Seahawks assistant wide-receivers coach last season. Prince is the new position coach for quarterbacks Sam Darnold, Drew Lock and Jalen Milroe.
Prince replaces Andrew Janocko. Seattle’s quarterbacks coach last season left with Kubiak to be the Raiders’ offensive coordinator.
Peetz, a former LSU offensive coordinator, will also be a quarterbacks coach in addition to returing as Seattle’s pass-game coordinator.
Justin Outten, the Denver Broncos offensive coordinator in 2022, goes from run-game specialist and assistant offensive line coach to run-game coordinator. Outten replaced Rick Dennison in that job. Dennison left with Kubiak to be the Raiders’ new offensive line coach.
Thomas Hammock, the head coach at Northern Illinois University last season, agreed last month to be the Seahawks’ new running backs coach. He replaces Kennedy Polamalu, who took a leave of absence for personal reasons in the middle of the 2025 season. Hammock is the league’s highest-paid running backs coach. He and Macdonald coached together on John Harbaugh’s Baltimore Ravens staff for five years in the 2010s.
#Seahawks announce 2026 coaching staff:
Defense mostly same. Zach Orr in from Baltimore DC to inside LBs.
Jake Peetz pass game coord/quarterbacks. Tyson Prince new QBs coach. OL coach John Benton added senior offensive assistant title (and likely a deserved raise) to stay. pic.twitter.com/4NL9DXeber
— Gregg Bell (@gbellseattle) March 13, 2026 Defensive staff returns mostly intact
The Seahawks allowed the fewest points in the league en route to dominating New England in Super Bowl 60 last month. So Macdonald, the defense’s play-caller, didn’t change must of that champion staff.
Zach Orr is the new inside linebackers coach. Orr was the Ravens defensive coordinator after Macdonald left that job to become Seahawks head coach before the 2024 season. Orr replaces Kirk Olivadotti. Olivadotti remains on Seattle’s staff, as a senior defensive assistant.
Orr is a logical candidate to replace defensive coordinator Aden Durde, if Durde gets a head-coaching job after next season as some inside Seahawks headquarters believe he might. Durde impressed in interviews this winter for the head jobs in Cleveland and Atlanta.
Leslie Frazier, the former Minnesota Vikings head coach and Super Bowl-champion defensive back with the 1985 Chicago Bears, returns to be Macdonald’s top confidant as assistant head coach for a third season. Frazier turns 67 next month.
This story was originally published March 13, 2026 at 4:24 PM.
The News Tribune
Gregg Bell is the Seahawks and NFL writer for The News Tribune. He is a two-time Washington state sportswriter of the year, voted by the National Sports Media Association in January 2023 and January 2019. He started covering the NFL in 2002 as the Oakland Raiders beat writer for The Sacramento Bee. The Ohio native began covering the Seahawks in their first Super Bowl season of 2005. In a prior life he graduated from West Point and served as a tactical intelligence officer in the U.S. Army, so he may ask you to drop and give him 10.
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