What the Seahawks are saying about new OC and his offense

As the Seattle Seahawks aim to become just the third repeat Super Bowl champions this century, they head into 2026 with mostly the same cast that raised the Lombardi Trophy this past February.

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One of the few differences is new offensive coordinator Brian Fleury, who takes over Seattle’s offense after Klint Kubiak departed to become the Las Vegas Raiders’ head coach.

Fleury, who spent the past seven seasons as an assistant on Kyle Shanahan’s San Francisco 49ers staff, will be a first-time play caller in Seattle. But the 47-year-old Fleury hails from the same Shanahan coaching tree as Kubiak and will be running a similar offense, so it’s not as if the Seahawks will be starting from scratch.

How’s the process of installing the offense coming along? And what the team’s early impressions from the Fleury’s coaching style?

Here’s what head coach Mike Macdonald and various players said over the past few weeks during OTAs and minicamp.

What they said about the offense

• Head coach Mike Macdonald: “It’s this year’s version of last year’s offense. So it’s the Seahawks’ offense, and Brian’s brought some great ideas and some things that we can kind of move and shift. But right now it’s more of an installation, it’s more of a put guys in positions where, ask them to do certain techniques and protections and plays that they need to be shown before we go and start executing a plan and start kind of carving out ultimately what we’re gonna look like. So right now it’s more of an installation phase.”

• Quarterback Sam Darnold: “It’s a lot of the same stuff (with) Fleury obviously coming from San Francisco, but a couple different wrinkles here and there. So it’s been good that way to be able to get some of that same verbiage but just a couple different wrinkles.”

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• Left guard Grey Zabel: “It feels extremely close to being the same. He does an awesome job blending kind of his version with our version to make it simple and easy for us to understand. And that’s kudos to Fleury for doing that. And he’s an unbelievable coordinator. As you can tell this spring, he’s really brilliant in what he does and I’m super excited this fall to get going.”

• Right tackle Abraham Lucas: “It helps not having to learn a whole total new system this year, so we’re all just kind of picking up where we left off and just continuing to go forward.”

What they said about new OC Brian Fleury

• Head coach Mike Macdonald: “He’s very detail-oriented. I love how we coach the whole offense, much like Klint did, but it’s gotta all be connected. All the details matter, the fundamentals matter, the drills matter on how we build out our offense. And he’s very aware of that. It matters to him. He’s very detailed. He’s doing a great job with the staff. So I’m excited.”

• Quarterback Sam Darnold: “Fleury has been great. His command, his presence, the way that he installs it with the run game, pass game, his command over the entire system has been incredible. … His standard’s really high for our group, not only for us but himself as well. … He’s going to hold us to a high standard and not let us stoop down to a certain level knowing that we can continue to rise and continue to get better, especially during this time. He’s been great.

• Wide receiver Cooper Kupp: “Brian has done an unbelievable job himself of meeting that standard and coming in with an ability to challenge people and push people, find ways to tinker, find ways to get the best out of people and recognizing personnel – what the strengths and weaknesses are here. He’s been awesome in terms of just how he’s installing things and the detail of all that. … There’s no false energy. It’s just, hey, this is what I know to be true. This is how we’re going to execute it. These are my expectations. We’re going to go out there and make it happen and make corrections and move forward. I think you allow a lot of freedom in that. Guys can just play free.”

• Tight end AJ Barner: “We’re excited about coach Fleury and just know like how much he’s prepared for this moment. This is a guy that’s been around in different spots and different roles. And we’re excited to play for coach Fleury and I think he fits right into the culture that Mike has and the person that Mike is.”

More on the Seattle Seahawks

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• Macdonald hints at Seattle Seahawks’ plan for Nick Emmanwori in Year 2

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