About halfway through his first Seattle press conference in January, 2010, John Schneider proved who he was, and who he was going to be.
Himself.
All we had to do was listen, and we would have known the direction in which he would run the Seahawks for the subsequent 16 years – with more seasons to come.
Like other skeptics at the time, I thought it was obvious why head coach Pete Carroll wanted the 38-year-old Schneider to be the new Seahawks general manager.
Schneider would be somebody Carroll could charm or cajole, or easily pull rank on, to get any administrative rubberstamps he needed to rebuild and run the franchise.
The fresh-faced Schneider (could he even grow that beard back then?), looked even younger than he was, and had never been a top executive in the NFL.
Sarcastically, I suggested that we almost couldn’t see Carroll’s lips moving when Schneider answered questions. But he was nobody’s puppet. In fact, the collaboration quickly created a golden age for the franchise.
In response to a question that day from Hugh Millen of KJR radio, the real Schneider became evident. He was asked to share a few of the personnel moves he had spearheaded while in the front office of the Green Bay Packers.
Schneider stiffened, the concept of claiming personal credit for a team’s accomplishment was foreign to him. “We don’t go there, brother, it’s all about ‘we,’… ‘us,’ as a team,” he said.
He has maintained that no-ego, low-profile administration ever since, and the current success of the Seahawks – Schneider having redirected the franchise back to a No. 1 playoff seeding – has many suggesting he should finally be honored as the NFL’s Executive of the Year.
It’s a good time, then, to reconsider Schneider’s influence, and recount some of his benchmark moves, and instances when his actions revealed his mindset, which are now relevant to the success of the 2025 Seahawks
• When Marshawn Lynch was acquired from Buffalo, for what later would be seen as a steal (a fourth- and fifth-round draft pick) during the 2010 season, Carroll told reporters how dogged and driven Schneider had been in the pursuit.
Because Buffalo management had tired of Lynch’s off-field headlines, Schneider sensed he might be making himself a bargain. Lynch’s bullish style of rushing certainly matched Carroll’s ideal of a running back.
Schneider had started inquiring with the Bills in the spring, around the draft, and never let up. In a story by Dan Pompei, Schneider was quoted: “I just kind of kept bugging the crap out of them.”
In October, the deal was made, and a few months later, the first real evidence of Lynch’s influence on the Seahawks’ future was felt on seismographs around the Northwest, with his BeastQuake run in a playoff win over the Saints.
Schneider’s insistence regarding Lynch changed the franchise.
• In Schneider’s first year in the front office, he and Carroll conspired on nearly 300 personnel transactions.
He explained that if you upgrade the last person on the roster, even if in minute increments, you made the team better.
The philosophy is evident in the success of the 2025 Seahawks. Injuries and attrition affect every team in the NFL. The effect, though, can be minimized by stabilizing the roster, and creating depth within the franchise.
Safety Ty Okada, for instance, has been on and off the practice squad nine times since signing as an undrafted free agent in the spring of 2023. This season, he started 10 games and helped this defense to the top of many league statistics.
• The image of the Seahawk organization during the Carroll/Schneider collaboration was as a competitive meritocracy. If free agents or undrafted prospects showed up, they would get a chance to play. In fact, guys who wanted to prove their worth were aggressively courted.
Schneider’s wooing of undrafted receiver Doug Baldwin became the hallmark.
After every team passed on Baldwin, Schneider penned what amounted to a hand-written valentine to him. “Coach Carroll and I are trying to build this team with young players, like yourself, who can come in and grow together in order to be a consistently competitive, championship caliber football team,” Schneider wrote.
Baldwin had other offers, but the sincerity of Schneider’s letter, and his personal interest, lured him to Seattle. Eight seasons, nearly 500 catches and two Pro Bowls later, Baldwin had become an icon of under-dog success.
• Schneider was on the sidelines of the Rose Bowl when Russell Wilson led Wisconsin to a narrow loss to Oregon in January, 2012. Schneider was won over by Wilson, who was well below prototypical height.
Although the Hawks had recently picked up veteran quarterback Matt Flynn from Green Bay, Schneider made a huge pitch to Carroll to draft Wilson. He even pushed to take Wilson as early as the second round, but Carroll pointed out that teams weren’t exactly rushing to take the 5-foot-11 Wilson.
Carroll said, though, he trusted Schneider’s judgment, and they used a third-rounder on him. By the time that season started, Carroll had installed Wilson as the starter, and the franchise was in the Super Bowl after the following season.
• Picture, then, Schneider’s situation two years ago, after 14 successful seasons of collaboration with Carroll, recognizing that the team had grown stale. He and Carroll had always aimed to “do things better than they had ever been done,” but had gone four seasons without winning a playoff game.
Although it was described as Carroll taking on new duties within the franchise, he was fired after the 2023 season.
Surely, Schneider had to do considerable soul-searching. As GM, a string of dubious drafts was also on his resume as the Hawks slipped out of serious contention.
When Schneider’s contract was extended last summer, he talked, in general terms, about how his time with Carroll had influenced him, and how so much of it had been a matter of “putting our heads down, working together with everybody, and making strong, tough decisions every day.”
The dismissal of Carroll surely had to qualify as a tough decision. But it was hard reality that had to be faced.
In those times, he said last summer, you have to keep asking “…what’s best for the team … what’s best for the team … what’s best for the team … what’s best for the organization? And then once you’ve decided that, how are you going to communicate and express those thoughts, make those decisions, and handle yourself with grace?”
Schneider’s spoke haltingly, with obvious emotion at that point.
Almost exactly two years after Schneider replaced Carroll with Mike Macdonald, the Seahawks are considered by many, once again, to be the best team in the NFL.
For that stunningly swift revival, Schneider deserves every appropriate award.
Although he certainly will be reluctant to take the credit for it.