Huard: How new OC Brian Fleury impressed Seahawks

As the Super Bowl champion Seattle Seahawks embarked on the process this past February of finding a new offensive coordinator to replace Klint Kubiak, many expected them to promote one of the four in-house candidates they interviewed.

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But in a somewhat surprising move, head coach Mike Macdonald and the Seahawks instead went with Brian Fleury – a longtime assistant from a division rival.

Fleury has spent the past 13 seasons working in a wide variety of NFL assistant and analyst roles on both sides of the ball, including the past seven seasons as an assistant on Kyle Shanahan’s San Francisco 49ers staff. He was the 49ers’ defensive quality control coach in 2019, their offensive quality control coach in 2020-21 and their tight ends coach from 2022-24 before adding the title of run game coordinator in 2025.

How did Fleury separate himself in the interview process? Former NFL quarterback Brock Huard dropped a nugget Wednesday on Seattle Sports’ Brock and Salk.

“I know he crushed the whiteboard,” Huard said. “I can say that confidently. I know he crushed the whiteboard. I know in the interview process it was pretty overwhelming to everybody in the room that his years under Kyle, and his understanding of situational ball, and the level and the depth and the detail was pretty overwhelming, because there were strong in-house candidates, a number of them.

“And to go this route, there’s a confidence that Mike has. And his judgement in these situations has been pretty, pretty, pretty strong once he moved on from (2024 Seahawks offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb).”

How Seahawks are preparing Fleury

The big question with Fleury is his lack of play-calling experience.

Speaking to media after Tuesday’s first OTA practice, Macdonald explained how he’s working to prepare Fleury to be a first-time NFL play caller this fall. He also described the play-design and play-calling process as “a team effort” that includes a number of offensive assistants.

“It’s my responsibility to design periods and an offseason and a training camp where we can have those types of exposures, so we can get that experience and have those conversations – much like we did last year with Klint – so we can always put our best foot forward,” Macdonald said.

“But there’s a lot of people that are contributing to designing calls … and the feedback loop that happens from play to play. Brian will have his own twist on how he calls it, and as we expect him to, we want to make it unique to him.”

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