Team Preview: Seattle Seahawks

 

After just barely missing the playoffs a season ago, the Seahawks are looking to set the tone early in 2024. The team was a bit shaken up this offseason and will have a whole new dynamic added to them this upcoming season. 

The biggest story of the offseason for Seattle was the departure of Pete Carroll. Carroll was the head coach of Seattle for the past fourteen seasons, one of the longest tenured coaches in the league. Carroll had brought the city of Seattle a lot of success during his tenure, but the front office felt it was time that the Seahawks took a new course of direction. 

Seattle went out and hired Mike Macdonald to take over the helm of the coaching position. Macdonald was the defensive coordinator of the Ravens for the past two seasons and the Seattle front office was quite impressed with what he was able to do there to say the least. He now takes over as the youngest head coach in the NFL at just 37 years old. 

Despite the Seahawks completely rebuilding their safeties room, not many big headlines came across them this offseason. They moved on from safeties Quandre Diggs and Jamal Adams. They signed Rayshawn Jenkins as a free agent and promoted Julian Love to take over the safeties room as of now. They also selected a Byron Murphy II, defensive end out of Texas, to bolster the front of their defense. 

The offense remains the same after there was some speculation that Seattle would move on from Geno Smith. They did trade for Sam Howell to backup Geno Smith, but other than that this offense still looks very reminiscent to last year's. If Kenneth Walker, DK Metcalf, and Geno Smith are all clicking, this offense can get scary. I also expect a big jump for Jaxon Smith-Njigba this year and could possibly take that WR2 away from Tyler Lockett. 

Seattle is definitely going to have an uphill climb not only with a rookie head coach, but also playing in the same division as the Rams and the defending NFC Champion 49ers. A new era of Seattle football will get underway in September and I'm intrigued to see what the Pete Carroll-less Seahawks are all about.