Former NFL exec Michael Lombardi: Seahawks have good players, but scheme was off on offense

The Seahawks showed Wednesday that they weren’t happy with their offensive production by parting ways with offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell and offensive line coach Tom Cable. But with defensive coordinator Kris Richard’s future also uncertain, it’s sure seems like the defense is also under the microscope.

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Michael Lombardi, former NFL GM and current host of The Ringer’s GM Street, joined Danny, Dave and Moore on Wednesday and provided some insight on both fronts.

First, regarding the offense, Lombardi said that the Seahawks had lost their identity, which led to Wednesday’s changes.

“You’ve got to figure out what’s wrong with your football team – is it players, is it coaches, is it scheme?” Lombardi said. “And when I looked at Seattle, I thought their scheme wasn’t really tied to the coaching of what they wanted to do. I thought they had enough players to be more effective on offense.”

As for the Seahawks’ defense, he gets the impression that head coach Pete Carroll is feeling that the Seahawks would be better served with Richard in another position. It was reported Wednesday that Seattle would let Richard out of his contract if he wanted to pursue another opportunity, something the NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport said “generally … means the person is not coming back.”

“Obviously if Pete’s thinking about making changes on defense … where Kris is at this point in his coaching career might not be what he wants,” Lombardi said. “Maybe he feels like Kris needs to have somebody else to come in – I know they were interested in (Chargers defensive coordinator) Gus Bradley to come back there (before he re-signed with Los Angeles).”

You can hear a clip of Lombardi’s interview embedded above, or find the entire interview in the podcast of the second hour of Danny, Dave and Moore’s Wednesday show at this link.

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