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| Two-time Super Bowl winner John Schneider |
By
Mike Bara
As some of you may know, I've found myself in a battle from time-to-time over on Rob Staton's Seahawks Draft Blog over some of the decisions made over the years by Seahawks General Manager John Schneider. It has become unpleasant to the point that basically Staton criticizes everything I post there. I reached the point of responding to one attack by stating "The Sun rises in the East and sets in the West" simply to see if he'd argue with me. Naturally he didn't take the bait, but neither did he acknowledge the humor and show a little introspection.
That's fine. I'm not a therapist and don't wish to be. I just want to engage in an open, honest and REALISTIC dialog about the past and future of the NFL team we are all fans of.
About a year ago, I decided that the level of discourse on Seahawks Twitter was so lame, with only Staton standing out as a voice I trusted, that I created a separate Twitter ID, Seahawk Boy MikeB, strictly to comment on football. As most of you know, I have an established professional identity in other areas of endeavor.
I immediately ran afoul of the "Geno Smith is a superstar" crowd because I correctly predicted that Geno would never repeat his career best 2022 season. I further added that if the Seahawks were ever going to get back to (let alone win) another Super Bowl under the current ownership regime, they needed to face facts on Geno and find a franchise quarterback to replace future Hall of Famer Russell Wilson.
My stance was based on the fact that, no matter how good he looked in 2022 (and he looked far better than any of us could have guessed), no journeyman quarterback who had his career year after the age of 30 had ever repeated that level of performance. History is history, and it simply doesn't happen. Geno Smith was not a unicorn.
Some of Seahawks Twitter, notably "leSpoon," Corbin Smith, Dan Viens, and Seahawks Retard Nelson, took issue with me. They all threw Rich Gannon out as an example. As I however pointed out, Gannon's career year was his MVP season of 2002, when he threw for 4,689 yards, 26TDs against only 10 interceptions, and a career best 97.3 Passer Rating.
Then of course, we all remember what happened in the Super Bowl. Tampa coach Jon Gruden, who had coached Gannon into an above average game manager, exposed all his flaws in that game when he fooled him into an Elway-esque 2 touchdown/5 interception 48.9 PR debacle that burst his media created bubble. Two years later, he was out of football.
And please don't get me started on how ridiculous it is that an average game manager like Rich Gannon actually WON an MVP award and the great Russell Wilson NEVER EVEN GOT an MVP vote from the east coast dominated AP reporters.
But I digress.
Geno Smith is not a winner. Geno Smith doesn't have the heart or the poise to ever be a champion. Anyone could see that for years before 2022 came along.
Anyone except Pete Carroll and John Schneider, who continued to gaslight us into the idea that we could win it all with Geno at the helm, and didn't need to upgrade at quarterback.
So I became a strong advocate for the Seahawks to simply do something, anything, at the quarterback position. I just wanted them to identify a guy they liked who had some traits that they valued and take him in the draft and try to develop him behind Geno. In 2022, the first year after the Russell Wilson trade, of course they didn't do that. The argument was that there were no quarterbacks worth taking in that draft. It was much like the discourse about this year's 2026 draft. There simply isn't a franchise talent in the quarterback pool. I still thought the Seahawks needed to take one. They refused to. Of course, we've all seen how the very last player taken in that draft, Brock Purdy, has turned into a Super Bowl level quarterback in just a very short time. He has a good arm, excellent mobility, smarts, savvy and poise. He led the 49ers to the Super bowl a few years ago, but they lost and I can't actually say it was his fault.
As it turns out, we now know that if the Seahawks had taken a quarterback in 2022, it would have been Sam Howell not Brock Purdy. They obviously didn't recognize Purdy's talents. But that's OK because nobody else really did either. If anybody knew how good Purdy was, he probably would have been the 1st overall pick, not the last overall pick.
So, then we moved on to 2023, where once again because of the Russell Wilson trade we had two first round picks and two second round picks. In that draft, partly based on Rob Staton's analysis, I absolutely fell in love with Ohio state's CJ Stroud. He was tall, smooth, had an excellent arm, good mobility, and had won big games at the college level and played very well in them. And from a character perspective, he was everything you look for in a franchise quarterback.
I got very excited when the Chicago Bears, who had drafted Justin fields just a couple of years before, put the 1st overall pick up for auction. However, I became increasingly frustrated when despite having the 5th and 20th picks in the 2023 draft, the Seahawks simply sat on their hands and didn't make a move for the first overall pick.
It turns out that was probably a blessing in disguise, as we now know that Schneider and Carroll preferred Anthony Richardson, who's done nothing at the NFL level, over CJ Stroud. They ended up taking pro bowlers Devon Witherspoon and Jackson Smith Njigba with those two picks. Richardson is a washout so far in his NFL career. Stroud however, had a brilliant rookie season but has since trailed off. This seems due to what appears to be a system that doesn't match his skills very well and very weak offensive personnel around him. I remain confident however that Stroud is a Super Bowl winning talent and with the right team, he will win a Super Bowl someday.
However, I will acknowledge that if that trade had gone through, we probably would not be Super Bowl champions in 2025. Witherspoon JSN and Byron Murphy, the 16th pick in the 2024 draft, would have all probably had to have been part of the deal to get to #1. So, although we wouldn't have a second Super Bowl in our back pocket, I believe firmly we still would be on the track to one.
That does not mean that my philosophy of prioritizing quarterback over the "building in the trenches" mantra is wrong. The Seahawks built in the trenches. They took Murphy, who had a terrible rookie season but a great sophomore season. They took edges Boye' Mafe and Derek hall, who made major contributions to the Super bowl win. And they got JSN and Ken Walker in those drafts. All were key pieces to the Seahawks winning the 2025 Super Bowl.
By the way I also loved Will Levis in the 2022 draft and would have been fine if we had taken Spoon and JSN and then traded up to get Levis. He struggled in his first twenty starts, but many future Hall of Fame quarterbacks have. Levis possesses amazing physical tools and in the right system and with the right coaching, he also could still become a championship caliber quarterback. I would love to see the Seahawks trade one of their draft picks this year to replace Drew Lock as the backup. His size and skill sets are a close match for Sam Darnold. Levis could be brought up behind him to take over in a couple of years if the team ultimately decides they don't want to pay insane money to Sam.
Now, post-Super Bowl 60, the vibe on Staton's draft blog forum has been to the effect that John Schneider is now a two-time Super Bowl winner, he's a Hall of Fame general manager, and none of his decisions should be questioned.
However, I have PTSD from seven or eight straight years of terrible off seasons by the Seahawks, and in spite of them catching lightning in a bottle in 2025, I just can't bring myself to trust John Schneider that much. It's not about simply being a contrarian.
We've had some debates in the forum and one of the seasons that came up was 2014. The 2014 draft was one of the great disasters in Seahawks history. Coming off a Super Bowl win they had lost wide receiver Golden Tate to free agency. They were in a much tighter salary cap situation at that time than they are this year for example. Everyone knew going into that draft of the Seahawks #1 need was at wide receiver, and their second need was along the offensive line, preferably at right tackle. The Seahawks traded down twice to the 45th pick and took a wide receiver named Paul Richardson. You don't remember Paul Richardson for a reason. Because he's a stiff. Richardson was small, skinny (and I know this because I ran into him at Fry's electronics in 2014 when the Seahawks were in mini camp), and he simply didn't have the body to take NFL hits. Schneider and Carroll chose him over Hall of Famer Davante Adams and Pro Bowler Alan Robinson because Schneider "wanted somebody who could take the top off the defense." The reality is Richardson was a fourth-round talent who they probably could have gotten with the pick they used on washout receiver Kevin Norwood. They also chose Justin Britt who never found a real position with the Seahawks over future all pro Trai Turner. This was a historically bad draft for the Seahawks. Of course, guys like Rob have accused me of using hindsight. But the reality is I was on Twitter back in 2014 (on an account that no longer exists because I've been banned so many times) advocating for Adams as the perfect replacement for Golden Tate.
Another offseason that really bothers me is 2019. The Seahawks couldn't come to terms with pass rusher Frank Clark, traded him away and had two picks in the first round. They needed one or even 2 pass rushers desperately. But when their pick came up at #21, they decided to get cute and instead of drafting Montez Sweat, who has 21 career sacks, they traded back to #29. Sweat went to the Redskins and the Seahawks panicked and took washout LJ Collier instead. They had another chance in that draft to take the guy they almost traded for at the deadline this past year, Maxx Crosby. But they had decided they had solved their pass rush problem with Collier and instead took journeyman linebacker Cody Barton at pick #88. Crosby went just a few picks later in the early fourth round.
Now as Rob and other critics have claimed, hindsight is 2020. But my positions on these specific players were crystal clear at the time. Of course, as they say, even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while. But this completely misses the point. These guys are SUPPOSED TO BE SMARTER THAN WE ARE. They're supposed to be smarter than Mike Bara. They're supposed to be smarter than Rob Staton. That's why they're getting paid 10s of millions of dollars to be general managers. So, when I'm told to just trust the plan and trust John Schneider, I look back over the history of this club and I just can't do that.
Now you can argue that this makes me cynical. You can even say that it was actually Pete Carroll that was the problem during those drafts and not John Schneider. Staton's friend Curtis Allen did an article recently on his blog arguing that John Schneider was a genius because of the way he has handled the quarterback position. I look back on the team's decisions at quarterback and I think luck has four more to do with the Seahawks Super Bowl success then genius level 4D chess.
You have to give Schneider credit for wanting Russell Wilson. He identified him early, championed him and really wanted him in that 2012 draft. But after taking Bruce Irvin & Bobby Wagner in the 1st and 2nd rounds, they could have also traded up and taken Wilson rather than waiting until pick 75 for him to fall into their laps. The truth is the Seahawks are extremely lucky that Jacksonville didn't take Wilson early in the third round. For some strange reason, they took a punter instead and that allowed Wilson to fall to the Seahawks. The rest is Super Bowl 48 history. But the truth is they got kind of lucky there. It's amazing when you look back on that 2012 draft. Everybody thought that the Seahawks, who were in need of pass rush help at that time, were going to take Future Hall of Famer Chandler Jones. Instead, Pete decided to get cute and take Bruce Irvin instead. Now, Bruce Irvin turned out to be a pretty good strong side linebacker in the Legion of Boom defense. But imagine if they had just done the conventional thing and taken Jones. Their first 3 picks in that draft Jones, Bobby Wagner, and Russell Wilson, would have been Hall of Famers. That would have been something to look back on.
But let's Fast forward now to the 2025 offseason. I openly praised the business that Schneider conducted last offseason because it was the first time he did things I actually agreed with. He drafted an interior offensive lineman in Gray Zabel, who played fantastic. He finally got rid of Geno Smith and upgraded to Sam Darnold at quarterback. So, I'd like everyone to know that when the Seahawks finally did what I wanted them to do, which is to find a better quarterback than Geno Smith, they won the Super Bowl. I don't think that's a coincidence.
But when it comes to giving John Schneider a free pass for the foreseeable future, I think it's important to remind readers of a few other things. Sam Darnold was not John schneider's first choice to quarterback the 2025 Super Bowl champion Seattle Seahawks. His first choice was Geno Smith.
A lot of people seem to want to forget that prior to trading Smith, the Seahawks made him a sizeable contract offer. Smith, thank God, turned it down. It was only after Smith turned down Schneider's offer that the Seahawks pivoted to Sam Darnold and traded Geno to the Raiders. Had Geno said yes, it is a safe bet that we would not currently be celebrating our second Super Bowl championship. You are not beating the Rams twice, the 49ers twice and the Patriots in the Super bowl with Geno Smith at quarterback. You just aren't.
Now as far as the 2026 off season goes again I have issues. Seahawk apologists are constantly talking about how cap space doesn't matter, it's cash that really matters and the Seahawks don't have any cash. The reality is that according to Forbes magazine, the Seahawks have lots of cash. They made a $137 million profit in 2024, and probably far more than that after winning the Super bowl in 2025. But truthfully, we don't know what the budget is. However, we can look back at the history of Jodi Allen owning the Seahawks and say that in these five or six years they've averaged spending about 97% of their available cap space. Schneider likes to roll over the other 3%.
That's fine. But the biggest decision I disagree with in the 2026 offseason is the decision not to franchise tag or sign Ken Walker to a long-term deal. A lot of people say that Walker is not elite. At least that's what Staton seems to think. However, the reality is he was the best back in the NFL in the second half of the 2025 season and through all the way through the Super bowl. That's not even disputable. He was explosive like few other backs in the league are this year. So, you can say that Walker is not elite all you want, but the Kansas City Chiefs seemed to think he is because they gave him the 15,000,000 a year he was looking for.
When asked about Walker, Schneider simply said that they had a plan and they had a budget. He has not said they did not have the money to sign him. We will watch and see what they do with their remaining cap space and cash outlays. That will pretty clearly tell us whether they had the money in the budget to pay Walker. I believe they firmly did. I think that Schneider simply had a number in his head about what he was willing to pay for a running back room. I think this is his decision based on his principles. Not a financial decision based on budget constraints.
Right now, I don't see how the Seahawks beat the Rams in 2026 without an explosive backfield threat like Walker. Now it's also true that sometimes the answer is already on your roster. It's possible some of the players the Seahawks already have can be the explosive threat that Walker was last year. But I doubt it. It's also possible they can find someone in the draft who can provide that. But it would have been nice not to blow a gigantic hole in your roster over a few million dollars and be forced to reach for a need in a below average draft.
So yeah, the truth is I just don't completely trust John Schneider. But if he finds a way to go out and get what he needs to win it again this year, I will definitely take it a lot easier on him.
But I also make no apologies for my criticism. He's supposed to be smarter than us. I think it is yet to be proven that he is. The Geno Smith offer last year being the latest example of why I think that.
I think if they had brought Walker back taken a big interior offensive lineman like Jennings dunker in the first round, and maybe one of the running backs in the second round, we'd be in great position to win another Super Bowl in the next couple of years. Maybe not this year because stuff can happen; injuries and so forth. But right now, I feel like we've created holes that weren't there a month ago and I'm completely not buying that the reason for it is because the Seahawks just don't have enough money.
I hope I'm wrong. We shall see.
One last thing. One decision John Schneider deserves unyielding praise for is the hiring of Mike McDonald. In an era where everyone wanted the next Sean McVay type offensive hotshot, Schnider went against the grain and took another young defensive mastermind. We can all see what a great leader and technique coach MM is. That was a brilliant stroke.
So, is John Schneider the best GM in football? Maybe. I'd actually place him 4th, behind Howie Roseman, Les Snead and Andy Reid and Brett Veach of Kansas City. So he's right there.
But that doesn't make him infallible.
Hopefully by this time next year, he is...
