One thing the Seattle Seahawks cannot afford is to see offensive coordinators leave every season, unless, of course, that OC has done such a great job that teams cannot wait to have them try being their head coach. That hasn't been the case with Seattle lately. They have had to move on from OCs because of inefficiency.
2024 offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb appeared to be in over his head in his first season in the NFL. One part that Grubb could not transition to is scheming for opposing defensive players, as he did in college, to game-planning for the kind of defense the team the Seahawks were playing run.
After a decent start to the season. Seattle's offense digressed. There were several reasons for this. One is Grubb had no good designs for how to run a red-zone offense. Another issue is the offensive line was terrible, but Grubb and offensive line coach Scott Huff (who has also been replaced this offseason) appeared to have no idea how to fix it.
Offensive line expert slams former Seahawks offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb over use of Christian Haynes
Grubb also did not seem to give players a chance along the offensive line and skipped over them. One particular player is right guard Christian Haynes. He was a third-round choice in the 2024 NFL draft, but after starter Anthony Bradford got injured, Grubb and Huff decided to go with Sataoa Laumea to replace him. Until that point, Laumea had never played a down of professional football but he became the starter in Week 13.
Haynes, meanwhile, seemingly got the reputation that he was not preparing correctly to play. He had the size and strength to play in the league, but possibly not the drive to succeed. That is how it seemed from afar anyway.
Offensive line expert Brandon Thorn of Bleacher Report disagrees with how Grubb used Haynes, though. Speaking with The Athletic's Michael-Shawn Dugar, Thorn implied Haynes never got a real chance to play, even though in his limited reps, he was no worse off than anyone else the Seahawks tried at right guard.
Thorn said, "I saw (Haynes) get walked back a couple (of) times from bull rushes, but not anything out of the ordinary from anybody else — on that line especially, but just across the league. A rookie coming in where he was drafted, I thought there were some positives, too. It was a lot more even with some promise as opposed to, ‘We whiffed, and he shouldn’t have gotten drafted.’ I didn’t see that."
Moreover, Grubb and Huff might have done some long-term damage to Haynes and the offensive line, at least for the 2025 season. Haynes might turn out to be a decent player, but he will, in essence, be a rookie again in 2025 because he only received 167 snaps, and those were inconsistently spaced out over several games.
Had Haynes been allowed to play, and he almost certainly could not have been worse than Bradford and Laumea, he might be ready to be a productive starter in 2025. As it is, Seattle is basically starting all over again at right guard thanks to Ryan Grubb.
