New Seahawks OC Ryan Grubb is ‘wild,’ says coach Macdonald

New Seattle Seahawks head coach Mike Macdonald is an early riser, as he told Seattle Sports’ Brock and Salk on Monday that he’s up at 5 a.m. while the team is going through training camp.

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There’s somebody who’s usually already at the team’s headquarters in Renton to greet him when he gets there, though: offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb.

“I’m up at 5, working out here at 6. Nothing crazy compared to some of these coaches, man,” Macdonald said. “Some of these coaches – Grubb’s wild. He beats me in the office every day.”

That seems to suit Macdonald and his new-look Seahawks just fine.

Like Macdonald did as defensive coordinator for the University of Michigan in 2021 and the Baltimore Ravens the past two seasons, Grubb earned a strong reputation through the success of his unit while OC for the UW Huskies under coach Kalen DeBoer in 2022 and 2023. And how he runs his offense fits right into what Macdonald is hoping to accomplish in his first year as a head coach.

“It’s mirrored to how we want to run our program,” Macdonald said of Grubb’s offense. “It’s rooted in, like, hardcore fundamentals. We want to be smart, we want to be flexible, we want to be complementary, but we want to be diverse in what we can get to.”

Grubb had big weapons while with the Huskies, including quarterback Michael Penix Jr., a trio of talented wide receivers and a dominant O-line. The way Grubb tailored UW’s offense around those players is serving as a bit of a blueprint for what the Seahawks want to do with QB Geno Smith, his top receivers (DK Metcalf, Tyler Lockett and Jaxon Smith-Njigba) and a pair of running backs drafted in the second round in recent years (Kenneth Walker III and Zach Charbonnet).

“We want to build it around our quarterback, which is really building it around our players and what they can do,” Macdonald continued. “We want to get the ball to our playmakers. Being aggressive and getting the ball down the field, and we got guys that can go get that thing, and then we got a heck of a couple runners too that can tote it, as well.

“Without speaking generalities, that’s the vision, you know? It’s like, hey, we can hit you at all parts of the field at different tempos and different operation styles, and we got the triggerman for the job, too. Above all else, it’s like, hey, what’s the mentality of this guy and how he wants to run the offense within the scheme of how we want to be as a football team? And it felt like there was a connection there and there is alignment. So it’s been fun to work with Ryan.”

Hear the full Brock and Salk conversation with Seattle Seahawks coach Mike Macdonald in the podcast at this link or in the player near the top of this post. Click here to subscribe to the Seattle Sports YouTube channel.

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