One big unknown heading into the Seattle Seahawks’ Super Bowl title defense is how new offensive coach Brian Fleury’s scheme will work.
Since his introduction, the former San Francisco 49ers assistant has said he plans to keep as much of Klint Kubiak’s scheme in place as possible. So far he has achieved it.
“Fortunately, it hasn’t been too much of a transition,” quarterback Sam Darnold said Wednesday, via ESPN .
By hiring Fleury, who had spent the last seven seasons with the Niners in various roles, coach Mike Macdonald sought to create cohesion after Kubiak left for the Las Vegas Raiders’ starting job. Darnold spent the 2023 season with Fleury in San Francisco, where he was tight ends coach at the time under Kyle Shanahan – Kubiak was also on staff. The sister relationship between the Kubiak and Shanahan systems makes the transition easy.
“It’s a lot of the same stuff [with] Fleury obviously comes from San Francisco, but a few different wrinkles here and there,” Darnold said. “So it’s been nice to be able to get some of the same verb but just a few different wrinkles.”
Breaking in a new offensive coordinator is nothing new for Darnold. The 28-year-old hasn’t started a season with the same player since his last two years with the New York Jets in 2019-2020 — even then, Adam Gase relinquished the role midseason.
“Going all the way back … to Carolina with McAdoo, a little transition to Shanahan’s system in San Francisco, and then we did a lot of the same thing in San Francisco to Minnesota,” Darnold said. “Minnesota [then] Coming here was back to the Shanahan type of rhetoric with Klint. And then this year is more of the same. So it’s been really good to have that kind of exposure, not only for myself but also for the other guys.”
Bouncing around the last handful of years has given Darnold experience picking things up quickly. Fortunately, this will not be his toughest shift. The QB even compared Fleury’s personality to Kubiak’s, noting the rookie’s stoic confidence.
“Fleury has been great,” Darnold said. “His control, his presence, the way he sets it up with the run game, the passing game, his command of the whole system has been unbelievable. [To] to be able to learn each other, kind of what he’s thinking by calling it and just keep feeling each other, it’s been really good so far.”
Setting up a similar offense and principles is a good plan after last year’s success. The system is not the main concern. The main question is that Fleury has never called a play. We’ve seen several new OCs pick up the keys, fly out of the driveway and cruise with ease. Others immediately collapse under the pressure of the concert. We won’t know how Fleury will handle it until September.