Seahawks John Schneider address state of the Seahawks under Mike Mcdonald
Seahawks Football President and General Manager Schneider gave his annual state-of-the-team address to the media Wednesday afternoon. The Seahawks finalized their 53-man roster on Tuesday and signed 15 players to their practice squad on Wednesday.
After 14 consecutive seasons, Schneider will be entering the season with a new head. Schneider was asked what he has learned from head coach Mike Macdonald since he hired him to lead the Seahawks.
“Probably intent, clarity, knows exactly what he wants. Humble. Knows what he doesn’t know and knows what he wants and knows how to attack it. We’re still learning each other. Seven months really feels like maybe a month, the time’s gone really fast. Really impressed with the teaching that’s going on here. The one thing that really stands out, everybody’s asked me what would you say about this coach or that coach with Mike (Macdonald)? I would say clarity and there’s an intent to everything that we’re doing.”
With the majority of the roster moves completed, Schneider was asked how he felt about the current roster.
“That’s hard to tell. It’s hard to say, is this team more talented in this area, because the way we approach it is you’re looking at all these players, all these teams and trying to figure out what everybody else is doing so that you know how to adjust, whether it’s in October, late November, late January, making sure you have enough depth on your practice squad. We talk about 69 players not 53 or 48. Then really truly, we want 100 players that we want 100 guys that we can count on. We’ll have a ton of players through. We’ll probably bring about 100, maybe about 125, 130 players through here a year to get physical, spend time with the coaches so that they’re ready to go. To say this team is better than that team,
Several Seahawks are dealing with significant issues. Linebacker Uchenna Nwosu was not placed on the injured reserve but is expected to miss some time. Tackle Abe Lucas has been unable to practice all summer and was placed on IR. Other players nursing injuries were Cameron Young, Jerrick Reed, and Rayshan Jenkins, who suffered an ankle injury during practice last week.
(On Cameron Young and Jerrick Reed)
“Yeah, all (players) of them are doing great. Yeah, they’re all busting their tails to get ready, and they’ll be in a window that we’re going to, unfortunately, get banged up throughout the season, and these are extremely talented guys to have ready at a later date in the season to be able to go to if need be. And hopefully, when they’re ready to rip, we can do it. But it depends on what your depth looks like at that certain time of the year, so it’s not like, ‘Hey, they’re ready to go,’ and you just rock it. You have to be patient.”
“He’s doing well. He was out running this morning. I think everybody feels good about where he’s at. He’s made progress, but whether or not he’s able to go, we don’t know that yet.”
During the interview, Schneider revealed that cornerback Artie Burns suffered an injury during Wednesday’s practice.
“He got banged up a little bit today at practice, but he responded. It’s some sort of toe thing going on but it didn’t appear to be that bad. Those are painful I smashed mine at San Diego State like 10 years ago and I still feel it.”
One question Schneider passed on was a rumor regarding Geno Smith asking for a contract extension.
“Yeah. I think I’ll leave contract stuff aside. There’s a lot of people that want contract extensions. I’m not going to get into specific of who they are and all that, but that’s part of the job. It happens every year, all the time.”
As for the transition of a head coach and new staff, Schneider said the time had flown by.
“It’s been a whirlwind. It feels like Arizona just missed that field goal and we win the game down there and we’ve just had our head going the whole time. You look up and here we are and getting ready to play Denver already. It’s been an everyday grind, but it’s been fun and everybody’s had a great time with it. There’s been a lot of great communication going on. It’s been cool to see other coaches come from different clubs. We talk about no walls and constant communication and it’s okay to go into everybody’s offices and talk and work things out. We’ve been doing that since 2010.”
