From this vantage point, the Seattle Seahawks are relatively well setup to compete this season and in the future. With a few notable exceptions like Geno Smith, Leonard Williams and Tyler Lockett, the core pieces of their roster are young and mostly still playing on their rookie contracts. And so we're confident that they will become an NFC contender again, perhaps as soon as the 2025 season.
Not everybody agrees, though. ESPN has come out with their annual future power rankings, which ranks teams based on how they think they'll do over the next three years. Naturally, the reigning Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs are at the top, followed by the Baltimore Ravens and the Buffalo Bills. We were expecting to see Seattle ranked somewhere in the top 10, but instead they came in at number 16. Apparently what hurt the Seahawks' score was getting ranked 23rd in the coaching department.
Louis Riddick writes that the coaching change from Pete Carroll to Mike Madonald is the biggest cause for concern:
"There is new leadership in the Pacific Northwest with Macdonald taking over as head coach, replacing the legendary Pete Carroll after a 14-year run. Macdonald has been a fantastic defensive coordinator in the NFL, and his credibility and competency in that regard are without question. But he is now in charge of the entire operation, and his offensive coordinator for 2024 (Ryan Grubb) has never coached in the NFL. We will find out in a hurry how quickly these two can adapt to new roles."
It is admittedly extremely difficult to predict how a new head coach will impact a team's projected win totals. As far as we're concerned that should put this head coach uncertainty somewhere in the middle of the pack, as it could break either way depending on how much the Seahawks buy in to what Macdonald is selling.
Even still, this ranking feels too low. We're expecting good things from Macdonald and Ryan Grubb, plus Seattle has a strong quarterback room, an excellent backfield, an awesome wide receiver corps, a radically-upgraded interior defensive line and three Pro Bowlers on the back end of their defense. While they don't have rankings for specific units, our suspicion is that the team's thin offensive line really hurt their non-QB roster ranking, which was 14th overall.
The offensive line is certainly a potential game-breaking flaw for this team, but everywhere else that matters they have either a passable unit or one that should thrive under new, more forward-thinking leadership. Our guess is that this Seahawks team is going to surprise a lot of people in Year 1 under Macdonald and they'll be ranked no lower than 11th next year.
