January 7, 2025 • 15 mins
Michael Shawn Dugar of The Athletic joins Dave Softy Mahler and Dick Fain to discuss the end of the Seahawks first season under Mike Macdonald, the firing of Ryan Grubb, what the team should now do with Geno Smith and his contract, plus John Schneider.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, joining us right now with the radio show.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
It's been a while, been a minute since this guy
joined us on the radio show. He had to call
and check and make sure he's okay. Our friend from
the Athletic Michael Sean Dugar, Mike.
Speaker 3 (00:11):
How are you?
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Man?
Speaker 4 (00:13):
Oh God, how you gonna doing?
Speaker 1 (00:14):
We're good, We're good.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
I was gonna open up with all kinds of like
cougar smack talk, but that just doesn't even seem anymore.
Speaker 4 (00:20):
Man, not nice.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Yeah, we're not We're not going down nice anymore. How
I can do it with the kooks these days?
Speaker 4 (00:25):
By the way, by man, I'm getting by. I feel
like I'm also the one of the few kooks. My
expectations are pretty tame, you know. I don't expect us
to be in the CFP every year. You know, I
just want to have fun. I just want to have
fun on Saturdays. That's generally my I want to have
fun to beat you guys like I just those the
(00:45):
two boxers I really want to check every year. I
don't need us to have Heisman candidates and and be
a national TV a budge and be in the CFP race.
I just just want to have my Saturday not ruined
by Cougar football. That's it, and then beat the Huskies.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
I love it all of a way to go through life,
and it's a great goal and I agree with it. Well, Mike,
let me just first of all ask you before we
get to everything that took place yesterday with Grub and
then with Gino and all that stuff, what did you
make of what you saw from Mike McDonald overall in
year number one? Because I think if a lot of
people told you back in July the Hawks are gonna
win ten games, I think you would have maybe signed
(01:21):
up for that. But they won ten but missed the playoffs,
and people are kind of bummed out.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
What's your take on year one under this new regime?
Speaker 4 (01:29):
Yeah, I think Mike McDonald did a lot of what
I expected, you know, giving the roster and the coaching
staff that he had and assembled. You know, Mike's a
really good defensive mind. Well he fixed the defense, you know, Mike,
he came off as leader guy, you know once I
met him, kind of a CEO type, and he laid
a good foundation I thought in that regard. He was
very big on accountability very early with his coaches, particularly
(01:53):
with his players and his roster. You know, he was
big kind of a meritocracy. You know, he kind of
didn't care how much money a guy was making, where
he was drafted, you know, how many years a guy
been in the league. He was very adamant about just
trying to put the best dudes on the field, even
if that meant getting rid of some guys that John
had just given some money to, particularly on defense. You know,
(02:15):
I thought that was really important, you know, because x's
and o's are kind of whatever for the head coach.
For me, my big thing was like, are you laying
the foundation? Are you holding guys accountable? Are you being
truthful with your guys in public and in private? How
you had no criticism? You know, you know, what are
your principles? All that stuff about being a leader. I
thought he did a really really good job. I just
(02:35):
never really expected much from the onfield product, because I
you know, I could read a roster just like everyone else.
You know, I understand the difficulties of coaching in the
NFL if you have literally never done it before, which
was the case for a few of his guys, including
Ryan Grubb and Scott Huff. So yeah, I would have
told I would have taken ten wins or whatever if
you told me that. But I would have been honestly
surprised if they had gotten there because of the roster
(02:58):
that Mike was given and all the inexperience on his
coaching staff, including his own inexperience.
Speaker 3 (03:03):
Well in the ten and seven mitigated a little bit
because when you look at those losses though, I mean
double digits to Detroit, double digits to San Francisco twenty
one to Buffalo seventeen to Green BA mean, when they
played the good teams, it's like they weren't even on
the same battlefield as them.
Speaker 4 (03:21):
Yeah, I think I don't have a full number in
front of me, but I crunched those numbers. I think
they were two and five against teams that made the playoffs,
and I think they were outscored I think prior to
the Rams game by like the final Rams game, that is,
by like fifty against those teams. You know, So to
your point about you know, kind of strength to schedule
or just how you performed against teams that were competent,
(03:42):
you know, and then the tenth win has an asterisk
to me, you know, because of the players that the
Rams are putting out there. You know, I came away
from that game on Sunday thinking if that game had
mattered to the Rams, the Rams would have probably won.
They almost won when it didn't matter to them, So,
you know, I think they had an okay season. I
think they an okay roster. So yeah, based on what
(04:03):
Mike was given, I thought he did an okay job.
You know. I would imagine the front office wanted them
to be a playoff team when the division make a run,
but that always just felt unrealistic to me unless they
were gonna make drastic changes to the roster, particularly in
the trenches.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
Michael Sean Dugar from The Athletic with Us, how come
the Seahawks keep hiring firing offensive coordinators?
Speaker 4 (04:27):
Yeah, I feel like every offensive coordinator can make a
similar argument, like, hey, if my offensive line was better,
I'd be better, you know, which is probably true. But
at some point, you know, you have to make do
with which you got, you know, because they're not firing
Josh Spatter anytime soon, I don't think, so you had
to just make do with the old lines you got.
And I think the thing that really hurt Grub in
(04:48):
particular was that we saw other offensive coordinators in Seattle
have offensive line issues and put out a better product.
You know, the offensive line that Grubb had was not
significantly worse than and what Daryl Bevell had towards the end,
what Brian Schottenheimer had the entire time, what Shane Waldman
had as recently as last year. And Greb's product was
(05:09):
worse than all that. And I think with Grub in
particular to this year, his inexperience was just showing up.
You know, he was losing the chess match two more
experienced defensive coaches, and that's fine. I expected that. I
didn't expect him to come in and you know out scheme,
you know, advanced Joseph for our out scheme of Brian
Flores and DC of the Vikings, or even out scheme
(05:31):
Shula who's the Rams DC, you know? Or Jonathan Gannon,
who's the Cardinals DC. You know, I just didn't expect that.
That's hard to do. These guys have seen it. They
may not have seen your scheme, but once you get
past the bye week, you've put enough on tape. Everyone's
got your tendency. It's your short yard and your red zone,
your third down, your two minutes, and Greb was getting
went in a lot of those situations, particularly in the
(05:51):
red zone and on third down. So I think that
you had to make do it with you guy, and
other guys did it better than Grubb, though not satisfactory,
which is why they too got fired. I think we
really heard Grubb was just he got hired on a
team that was trying to win, and he needed more
grace than one season. And I can see why Mike
didn't give it to him, but I think that's partially
(06:12):
their fault for hiring Grub with expectations of being better
than you know, he probably could have been given his roster.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
Was it just stubbornness with Ryan Grubb and just continually
not wanting to run a balanced offense or was there
maybe and we've kind of read insinuations of maybe some
insubordination by Ryan Grub where Mike McDonald Mike McDonald repeatedly
said hey, we need you to run, we need you
to run, and he's just like, no, forget that, I'm
(06:39):
gonna do what i'm gonna do.
Speaker 4 (06:42):
Yeah. I think what happened to Grub is not totally
dissimilar to what happened to Brian Schottenheim Gram twenty twenty.
You know, in fact, the language that both of their
bosses used when parting with them was very similar. They
cited philosophical differences when letting go of Shoty and cited
a difference in alignment and vision and fire and Grub.
That's just a lot of words to say the same thing.
(07:02):
We couldn't agree on how to continue with the vision
of the offense, right, same thing with Shoty, same thing
with Grub. And I think we heard both of them
for slightly different reasons. Was from Monday through Saturday, everyone
could agree. It was like, Okay, here's our plan, here's
often we're gonna get Chris Carson the ball or ken
Walker the ball or Doug in DK or Tyler and
(07:23):
DK or DK and Jackson. Like they were all in
agreement with their identity, their plan. But offensive coordinators have
to do a lot of adjusting on the fly, and
they got to go with their gut, and different offensive
coordinators have different fallbacks. You know, you learn a lot
about an offensive coordinator on second and ten after a
failed run, Like that's really when you learn about your guy.
(07:43):
If he runs it up the gut and gets nothing,
is he gonna run it again or is he throwing
a screen? Is he growing up a deep shot? And
we know we have the numbers in the film to
know what Grub was gonna do if they handed it
to Cannon. He got nothing on first and ten, Well
here comes the tunnel, screen, comes the shotgun drop back,
and that I think that's you know, he's not telling
(08:04):
Mike McDonald that on Saturday that that's gonna be the
plan or when that consistently was on Sunday because of
how the game script or the game flow or however
the old line was looking. I think that's where he
and his boss were not in alignment. And I could
see how you could be aligned during the week when
you meet with the media and then on Sunday watch
the product, get out the game and be like, damn, Ryan,
what was that?
Speaker 2 (08:26):
Michael Sean Dugar from the Athletic Film on Twitter at
Mike Dugar give him a follow as with us on
the air. So, Mike, the firing of Ryan Grubb, does
that increase, decrease, or have no impact at all on
the odds of Geno Smith's returning to the Seahawks next season.
Speaker 4 (08:45):
Yeah, I think I don't think it impacted too much
because the new guy. You can say, all right, I'm
not really filling Geno. But then you know, you wonder
what else are you gonna do? You know, I don't
think Geno was the greatest quarterback in the world, but
I think when you're talking about replacing any player, but
in particular your quarterback, you have to have a viable
option when you're picking eighteenth, you know, in any year,
(09:06):
but particularly this year, and you don't have a ton
of money in the fridge, and classes guys like Jamis
and mac Jones and one legged Kirk Cousins, you know,
justin fields. You know, you can't just say, hey, I
don't like this Geno guy. He doesn't do it for
me as the new OC and not have a good plan,
which I think would be hard to cook up. You
can cook up one, but I just don't think it
would be very great. So I think Gino will probably
(09:27):
be the quarterback in twenty twenty five, and I think
Grubb is gonna be He's gonna suck the blueprint for
what the new OC is going to come in here
and say he's going to come in here and say
how accurate Gino is, how competitive he is, and how
good of a ball he throws, and he's going to
get around him and call him a leader, and all
these things are true. And I think that also kind
of hurt Grub too, because he can he can kind
(09:49):
of fall in love with the idea of Gino throwing
deep passes to DK and Gino cooking with jsaying. I
think Shotty fell in love with that too, with rust
and the deep balls to DK. So I think that
Gino's going to be here in part because they don't have,
you know, a lot of options. But I do think
it was notable that Geno gave a ringing endorsement of
(10:09):
Greb on Sunday afternoon and what twenty four hours later
if that Grub was out of there. Clearly Mike McDonald
did not care how highly his quarterback thought of THEOC.
Speaker 3 (10:21):
Well, it's interesting you mentioned one legged Kirk Cousins because
we were talking about one legged Kirk Cousins and the
ability to get him for one million dollars, kind of
like Pittsburgh got Russell Wilson for one million dollars. Is
he truly only one legged Kirk Cousins or is he
one legged Kirk Cousins this year because he was playing
twelve months after tearing in Achilles, whereas next year he'll
(10:42):
be playing two years after tearing achilles.
Speaker 4 (10:46):
That's fair. I do think his movement will resemble more
of what Aaron Rodgers movement looked like this year. I
do think that, and Aaron, for all his faults physically,
he was moving fine, Like he actually moved really well
in that Seahawks game, probably the best he moved all year,
and that was Week thirteen in an outdoors game. Right,
So if he's moved, if he's getting better with this
movement as the season goes on, and he's older than
(11:07):
Haro Perk will be next year, I do think that's
fair To not totally call him one leg. I kind
of say that just to pok fun of him, But
you're right, he's probably going to move a lot better
this year and be able to do actual play action
handoffs from under center rather than the pistol, which is
all he did this year. I just don't think that
I wouldn't swap Gino for him. I could see why
(11:28):
some other teams who are not picking in the top
five would consider that viable, Like you're the Raiders you're like,
all right, we'll just take one leg at Kirk because
we're not gonna pick you know, the top five. I
think they're picking ninth or something like that. And then
you try to fill out, you know, the rest of
your roster or whatever, if the Browns don't like someone.
Speaker 3 (11:46):
Because you wouldn't be swapping Gino for him, you'd be
swapping Gino in thirty million dollars for him. I mean,
you'd be thirty million less on the cap if you
had Kirk plus Gino's buyout versus Gino at forty four
and a half million dollars.
Speaker 4 (12:02):
Yeah, it's a good point. I also just personally, I
just think Geno's better than Kirk. My leg, two leg,
three legs, That doesn't matter.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
But I do say you'd be pretty freaky.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
You make a lot of money with him.
Speaker 4 (12:15):
Yeah, it's true. I will say this though, and this
gets to what I'm sure you guys have talked about
on the air before, is all right, let's say you
get the money right, You're like, cool, we stopped Geno
for Kirk and we save a bunch of bread. Fine,
how much do we trust John to actually allocate the
bread accordingly? Yeah? You know, I've lost complete faith personally.
I don't know where the fan base kind of is
on that. But John has made very clear, whether because
(12:37):
of the budget Jody gives him or just because of
his own personal beliefs on how free agency should be
dealt with, He's just not casting out for anybody, and
when he does, it's a Draymond Jones. Well, if that's
what you do when you cash out, well I don't
want you cashing out unless it's some guys in the trenches.
So you're right, it's let's say you you get better
value with Kirk, which is the way to phrase that,
(12:58):
or Kirk or anybody else he cut. You know, you
get somebody else who's maybe not a better player, but
a cheaper player. Well, okay, John has all this cash,
then what how many add Dixon's are we going to
get with that cash? How many Luke Joes, how many
any Laceys? How many Greg Oltens speaking of three legs? Stop?
You know, let's see what I'm saying. Like, you're right
in theory. This sounds great, but now now we go
(13:18):
to the real issue. You know, what, what are you
going to do with that money? Do we trust the
people who are going to spend that money to spend
it properly.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
I think it's a great point, Mike, And uh, look,
I mean, obviously, uh, it's a major problem with the Seahawks.
You just mentioned that John's not going anywhere anytime soon.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
I mean should he be?
Speaker 2 (13:37):
If the guy can't build an offensive line and the
offense is going to continue to struggle, is it time
to maybe give this one more run with John and
Mike next year? And if we're looking at the same
type of thing, maybe just make a move and remove
John Schneider and the Pete Carroll era altogether.
Speaker 4 (13:56):
Yeah. I think if you want to give John and
Mike a full offseason to kind of hash it out
and see if they build something better, I think that's fair.
I don't know if I would do that, but I
would call it fair. But yeah, beyond that, yeah, I
just have kind of lacked faith. You know. I rattled
off some of the bad free agent signings. You know,
there's been like a couple of good ones here and there.
I think Julian Love was good. I think Chenna was good,
(14:17):
But generally it just hasn't been strong. And I think
the argument against trustin John comes down to the free
agent philosophy. Now again, if that's because of the budget,
everyone has a boss, if John, if Jody is telling
John you can only spend so much, then that kind
of is what it is. He swapped the guy. You
don't swap the problem. But if that's just his own
philosophy thing, and you're not willing to spend at these
(14:40):
positions that you don't consider premium premium in the draft,
excuse me? Then what I got you for? You know
John's he said last offseason that offensive interior offensive linemen
are overpaid and overdrafted. And John is actually correct, that's fine,
But if you think that, then you got to go
find me the bargains, right like you got to hit
on a Christian Haynes. You can't bring me a Tremaine Ankraum.
(15:02):
You can't bring me a Nick Harris. You can't bring
me a Lake and Tomlinson and tell me and tell
me that guards are overdrafted and overpaid when the guys
you brought me are getting a quarterback killed. You know so,
I think until until he changes philosophy or starts hitting
on some of these bargains that he claims that we
should go after as a franchise. Do what we need
you for, you know. So that's why I've personally lost faith.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
I love it, Mike Dugar, You're the man always spitting
the truth. Buddy. Appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
Follow on Twitter at Mike Dugar Mike enjoy the night
and we'll talk somebody.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
Thank you, pal.
Speaker 4 (15:34):
I appreciate it. You you guys have a goo.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
You got it man. Mike Dugar with us, and I
think he's right. And I just wonder if they've kind
of maxed out what they can do. I mean, the
Schneider carol Era bore a lot of fruit, and is
the uh is the tree dried up a little bit
here
All right, joining us right now with the radio show.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
It's been a while, been a minute since this guy
joined us on the radio show. He had to call
and check and make sure he's okay. Our friend from
the Athletic Michael Sean Dugar, Mike.
Speaker 3 (00:11):
How are you?
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Man?
Speaker 4 (00:13):
Oh God, how you gonna doing?
Speaker 1 (00:14):
We're good, We're good.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
I was gonna open up with all kinds of like
cougar smack talk, but that just doesn't even seem anymore.
Speaker 4 (00:20):
Man, not nice.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Yeah, we're not We're not going down nice anymore. How
I can do it with the kooks these days?
Speaker 4 (00:25):
By the way, by man, I'm getting by. I feel
like I'm also the one of the few kooks. My
expectations are pretty tame, you know. I don't expect us
to be in the CFP every year. You know, I
just want to have fun. I just want to have
fun on Saturdays. That's generally my I want to have
fun to beat you guys like I just those the
(00:45):
two boxers I really want to check every year. I
don't need us to have Heisman candidates and and be
a national TV a budge and be in the CFP race.
I just just want to have my Saturday not ruined
by Cougar football. That's it, and then beat the Huskies.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
I love it all of a way to go through life,
and it's a great goal and I agree with it. Well, Mike,
let me just first of all ask you before we
get to everything that took place yesterday with Grub and
then with Gino and all that stuff, what did you
make of what you saw from Mike McDonald overall in
year number one? Because I think if a lot of
people told you back in July the Hawks are gonna
win ten games, I think you would have maybe signed
(01:21):
up for that. But they won ten but missed the playoffs,
and people are kind of bummed out.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
What's your take on year one under this new regime?
Speaker 4 (01:29):
Yeah, I think Mike McDonald did a lot of what
I expected, you know, giving the roster and the coaching
staff that he had and assembled. You know, Mike's a
really good defensive mind. Well he fixed the defense, you know, Mike,
he came off as leader guy, you know once I
met him, kind of a CEO type, and he laid
a good foundation I thought in that regard. He was
very big on accountability very early with his coaches, particularly
(01:53):
with his players and his roster. You know, he was
big kind of a meritocracy. You know, he kind of
didn't care how much money a guy was making, where
he was drafted, you know, how many years a guy
been in the league. He was very adamant about just
trying to put the best dudes on the field, even
if that meant getting rid of some guys that John
had just given some money to, particularly on defense. You know,
(02:15):
I thought that was really important, you know, because x's
and o's are kind of whatever for the head coach.
For me, my big thing was like, are you laying
the foundation? Are you holding guys accountable? Are you being
truthful with your guys in public and in private? How
you had no criticism? You know, you know, what are
your principles? All that stuff about being a leader. I
thought he did a really really good job. I just
(02:35):
never really expected much from the onfield product, because I
you know, I could read a roster just like everyone else.
You know, I understand the difficulties of coaching in the
NFL if you have literally never done it before, which
was the case for a few of his guys, including
Ryan Grubb and Scott Huff. So yeah, I would have
told I would have taken ten wins or whatever if
you told me that. But I would have been honestly
surprised if they had gotten there because of the roster
(02:58):
that Mike was given and all the inexperience on his
coaching staff, including his own inexperience.
Speaker 3 (03:03):
Well in the ten and seven mitigated a little bit
because when you look at those losses though, I mean
double digits to Detroit, double digits to San Francisco twenty
one to Buffalo seventeen to Green BA mean, when they
played the good teams, it's like they weren't even on
the same battlefield as them.
Speaker 4 (03:21):
Yeah, I think I don't have a full number in
front of me, but I crunched those numbers. I think
they were two and five against teams that made the playoffs,
and I think they were outscored I think prior to
the Rams game by like the final Rams game, that is,
by like fifty against those teams. You know, So to
your point about you know, kind of strength to schedule
or just how you performed against teams that were competent,
(03:42):
you know, and then the tenth win has an asterisk
to me, you know, because of the players that the
Rams are putting out there. You know, I came away
from that game on Sunday thinking if that game had
mattered to the Rams, the Rams would have probably won.
They almost won when it didn't matter to them, So,
you know, I think they had an okay season. I
think they an okay roster. So yeah, based on what
(04:03):
Mike was given, I thought he did an okay job.
You know. I would imagine the front office wanted them
to be a playoff team when the division make a run,
but that always just felt unrealistic to me unless they
were gonna make drastic changes to the roster, particularly in
the trenches.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
Michael Sean Dugar from The Athletic with Us, how come
the Seahawks keep hiring firing offensive coordinators?
Speaker 4 (04:27):
Yeah, I feel like every offensive coordinator can make a
similar argument, like, hey, if my offensive line was better,
I'd be better, you know, which is probably true. But
at some point, you know, you have to make do
with which you got, you know, because they're not firing
Josh Spatter anytime soon, I don't think, so you had
to just make do with the old lines you got.
And I think the thing that really hurt Grub in
(04:48):
particular was that we saw other offensive coordinators in Seattle
have offensive line issues and put out a better product.
You know, the offensive line that Grubb had was not
significantly worse than and what Daryl Bevell had towards the end,
what Brian Schottenheimer had the entire time, what Shane Waldman
had as recently as last year. And Greb's product was
(05:09):
worse than all that. And I think with Grub in
particular to this year, his inexperience was just showing up.
You know, he was losing the chess match two more
experienced defensive coaches, and that's fine. I expected that. I
didn't expect him to come in and you know out scheme,
you know, advanced Joseph for our out scheme of Brian
Flores and DC of the Vikings, or even out scheme
(05:31):
Shula who's the Rams DC, you know? Or Jonathan Gannon,
who's the Cardinals DC. You know, I just didn't expect that.
That's hard to do. These guys have seen it. They
may not have seen your scheme, but once you get
past the bye week, you've put enough on tape. Everyone's
got your tendency. It's your short yard and your red zone,
your third down, your two minutes, and Greb was getting
went in a lot of those situations, particularly in the
(05:51):
red zone and on third down. So I think that
you had to make do it with you guy, and
other guys did it better than Grubb, though not satisfactory,
which is why they too got fired. I think we
really heard Grubb was just he got hired on a
team that was trying to win, and he needed more
grace than one season. And I can see why Mike
didn't give it to him, but I think that's partially
(06:12):
their fault for hiring Grub with expectations of being better
than you know, he probably could have been given his roster.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
Was it just stubbornness with Ryan Grubb and just continually
not wanting to run a balanced offense or was there
maybe and we've kind of read insinuations of maybe some
insubordination by Ryan Grub where Mike McDonald Mike McDonald repeatedly
said hey, we need you to run, we need you
to run, and he's just like, no, forget that, I'm
(06:39):
gonna do what i'm gonna do.
Speaker 4 (06:42):
Yeah. I think what happened to Grub is not totally
dissimilar to what happened to Brian Schottenheim Gram twenty twenty.
You know, in fact, the language that both of their
bosses used when parting with them was very similar. They
cited philosophical differences when letting go of Shoty and cited
a difference in alignment and vision and fire and Grub.
That's just a lot of words to say the same thing.
(07:02):
We couldn't agree on how to continue with the vision
of the offense, right, same thing with Shoty, same thing
with Grub. And I think we heard both of them
for slightly different reasons. Was from Monday through Saturday, everyone
could agree. It was like, Okay, here's our plan, here's
often we're gonna get Chris Carson the ball or ken
Walker the ball or Doug in DK or Tyler and
(07:23):
DK or DK and Jackson. Like they were all in
agreement with their identity, their plan. But offensive coordinators have
to do a lot of adjusting on the fly, and
they got to go with their gut, and different offensive
coordinators have different fallbacks. You know, you learn a lot
about an offensive coordinator on second and ten after a
failed run, Like that's really when you learn about your guy.
(07:43):
If he runs it up the gut and gets nothing,
is he gonna run it again or is he throwing
a screen? Is he growing up a deep shot? And
we know we have the numbers in the film to
know what Grub was gonna do if they handed it
to Cannon. He got nothing on first and ten, Well
here comes the tunnel, screen, comes the shotgun drop back,
and that I think that's you know, he's not telling
(08:04):
Mike McDonald that on Saturday that that's gonna be the
plan or when that consistently was on Sunday because of
how the game script or the game flow or however
the old line was looking. I think that's where he
and his boss were not in alignment. And I could
see how you could be aligned during the week when
you meet with the media and then on Sunday watch
the product, get out the game and be like, damn, Ryan,
what was that?
Speaker 2 (08:26):
Michael Sean Dugar from the Athletic Film on Twitter at
Mike Dugar give him a follow as with us on
the air. So, Mike, the firing of Ryan Grubb, does
that increase, decrease, or have no impact at all on
the odds of Geno Smith's returning to the Seahawks next season.
Speaker 4 (08:45):
Yeah, I think I don't think it impacted too much
because the new guy. You can say, all right, I'm
not really filling Geno. But then you know, you wonder
what else are you gonna do? You know, I don't
think Geno was the greatest quarterback in the world, but
I think when you're talking about replacing any player, but
in particular your quarterback, you have to have a viable
option when you're picking eighteenth, you know, in any year,
(09:06):
but particularly this year, and you don't have a ton
of money in the fridge, and classes guys like Jamis
and mac Jones and one legged Kirk Cousins, you know,
justin fields. You know, you can't just say, hey, I
don't like this Geno guy. He doesn't do it for
me as the new OC and not have a good plan,
which I think would be hard to cook up. You
can cook up one, but I just don't think it
would be very great. So I think Gino will probably
(09:27):
be the quarterback in twenty twenty five, and I think
Grubb is gonna be He's gonna suck the blueprint for
what the new OC is going to come in here
and say he's going to come in here and say
how accurate Gino is, how competitive he is, and how
good of a ball he throws, and he's going to
get around him and call him a leader, and all
these things are true. And I think that also kind
of hurt Grub too, because he can he can kind
(09:49):
of fall in love with the idea of Gino throwing
deep passes to DK and Gino cooking with jsaying. I
think Shotty fell in love with that too, with rust
and the deep balls to DK. So I think that
Gino's going to be here in part because they don't have,
you know, a lot of options. But I do think
it was notable that Geno gave a ringing endorsement of
(10:09):
Greb on Sunday afternoon and what twenty four hours later
if that Grub was out of there. Clearly Mike McDonald
did not care how highly his quarterback thought of THEOC.
Speaker 3 (10:21):
Well, it's interesting you mentioned one legged Kirk Cousins because
we were talking about one legged Kirk Cousins and the
ability to get him for one million dollars, kind of
like Pittsburgh got Russell Wilson for one million dollars. Is
he truly only one legged Kirk Cousins or is he
one legged Kirk Cousins this year because he was playing
twelve months after tearing in Achilles, whereas next year he'll
(10:42):
be playing two years after tearing achilles.
Speaker 4 (10:46):
That's fair. I do think his movement will resemble more
of what Aaron Rodgers movement looked like this year. I
do think that, and Aaron, for all his faults physically,
he was moving fine, Like he actually moved really well
in that Seahawks game, probably the best he moved all year,
and that was Week thirteen in an outdoors game. Right,
So if he's moved, if he's getting better with this
movement as the season goes on, and he's older than
(11:07):
Haro Perk will be next year, I do think that's
fair To not totally call him one leg. I kind
of say that just to pok fun of him, But
you're right, he's probably going to move a lot better
this year and be able to do actual play action
handoffs from under center rather than the pistol, which is
all he did this year. I just don't think that
I wouldn't swap Gino for him. I could see why
(11:28):
some other teams who are not picking in the top
five would consider that viable, Like you're the Raiders you're like,
all right, we'll just take one leg at Kirk because
we're not gonna pick you know, the top five. I
think they're picking ninth or something like that. And then
you try to fill out, you know, the rest of
your roster or whatever, if the Browns don't like someone.
Speaker 3 (11:46):
Because you wouldn't be swapping Gino for him, you'd be
swapping Gino in thirty million dollars for him. I mean,
you'd be thirty million less on the cap if you
had Kirk plus Gino's buyout versus Gino at forty four
and a half million dollars.
Speaker 4 (12:02):
Yeah, it's a good point. I also just personally, I
just think Geno's better than Kirk. My leg, two leg,
three legs, That doesn't matter.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
But I do say you'd be pretty freaky.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
You make a lot of money with him.
Speaker 4 (12:15):
Yeah, it's true. I will say this though, and this
gets to what I'm sure you guys have talked about
on the air before, is all right, let's say you
get the money right, You're like, cool, we stopped Geno
for Kirk and we save a bunch of bread. Fine,
how much do we trust John to actually allocate the
bread accordingly? Yeah? You know, I've lost complete faith personally.
I don't know where the fan base kind of is
on that. But John has made very clear, whether because
(12:37):
of the budget Jody gives him or just because of
his own personal beliefs on how free agency should be
dealt with, He's just not casting out for anybody, and
when he does, it's a Draymond Jones. Well, if that's
what you do when you cash out, well I don't
want you cashing out unless it's some guys in the trenches.
So you're right, it's let's say you you get better
value with Kirk, which is the way to phrase that,
(12:58):
or Kirk or anybody else he cut. You know, you
get somebody else who's maybe not a better player, but
a cheaper player. Well, okay, John has all this cash,
then what how many add Dixon's are we going to
get with that cash? How many Luke Joes, how many
any Laceys? How many Greg Oltens speaking of three legs? Stop?
You know, let's see what I'm saying. Like, you're right
in theory. This sounds great, but now now we go
(13:18):
to the real issue. You know, what, what are you
going to do with that money? Do we trust the
people who are going to spend that money to spend
it properly.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
I think it's a great point, Mike, And uh, look,
I mean, obviously, uh, it's a major problem with the Seahawks.
You just mentioned that John's not going anywhere anytime soon.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
I mean should he be?
Speaker 2 (13:37):
If the guy can't build an offensive line and the
offense is going to continue to struggle, is it time
to maybe give this one more run with John and
Mike next year? And if we're looking at the same
type of thing, maybe just make a move and remove
John Schneider and the Pete Carroll era altogether.
Speaker 4 (13:56):
Yeah. I think if you want to give John and
Mike a full offseason to kind of hash it out
and see if they build something better, I think that's fair.
I don't know if I would do that, but I
would call it fair. But yeah, beyond that, yeah, I
just have kind of lacked faith. You know. I rattled
off some of the bad free agent signings. You know,
there's been like a couple of good ones here and there.
I think Julian Love was good. I think Chenna was good,
(14:17):
But generally it just hasn't been strong. And I think
the argument against trustin John comes down to the free
agent philosophy. Now again, if that's because of the budget,
everyone has a boss, if John, if Jody is telling
John you can only spend so much, then that kind
of is what it is. He swapped the guy. You
don't swap the problem. But if that's just his own
philosophy thing, and you're not willing to spend at these
(14:40):
positions that you don't consider premium premium in the draft,
excuse me? Then what I got you for? You know
John's he said last offseason that offensive interior offensive linemen
are overpaid and overdrafted. And John is actually correct, that's fine,
But if you think that, then you got to go
find me the bargains, right like you got to hit
on a Christian Haynes. You can't bring me a Tremaine Ankraum.
(15:02):
You can't bring me a Nick Harris. You can't bring
me a Lake and Tomlinson and tell me and tell
me that guards are overdrafted and overpaid when the guys
you brought me are getting a quarterback killed. You know so,
I think until until he changes philosophy or starts hitting
on some of these bargains that he claims that we
should go after as a franchise. Do what we need
you for, you know. So that's why I've personally lost faith.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
I love it, Mike Dugar, You're the man always spitting
the truth. Buddy. Appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
Follow on Twitter at Mike Dugar Mike enjoy the night
and we'll talk somebody.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
Thank you, pal.
Speaker 4 (15:34):
I appreciate it. You you guys have a goo.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
You got it man. Mike Dugar with us, and I
think he's right. And I just wonder if they've kind
of maxed out what they can do. I mean, the
Schneider carol Era bore a lot of fruit, and is
the uh is the tree dried up a little bit
here
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