Seahawks OC Brian Fleury challenged by Macdonald’s defense

Published 9:41 am Wednesday, August 5, 2026

The Seahawks’ new offensive coordinator is getting the Mike Macdonald treatment.

Seattle’s opponents know all too well what that is. Changing looks at the snap. Blitzing from everywhere. Exotic substitution packages. And more from Macdonald’s top-ranked defense that allowed the fewest points in the NFL last season while winning the Super Bowl.

The Seahawks’ head coach is using this training camp to give the same to his new offensive coordinator and play caller, Brian Fleury.

It’s been blitz-a-palooza from Macdonald and his defense through nine camp practices. He’s been sending Pro Bowl cornerback Devon Witherspoon, veteran safety D’Anthony Bell playing hybrid linebacker, nickel defensive backs, dime defensive backs — everyone except the sideline DJ — at Fleury’s offense during 11-on-11 scrimmages.

The head coach, eight years younger than his new offensive play caller, is also setting game-like scenarios in practice periods that put the offense in binds Fleury must scheme to get out of. Tuesday it was: Offense’s ball inside the final minute, in its own end of the field, with no way to stop the clock.

“Mike is doing a great job of putting me through the ringer in terms of challenging situations. We go through different ones every day,” Fleury, with his bushy, brownish-red beard and closely shaved head, said following practice Tuesday.

“For some reason, we’re always down by a touchdown with 50 seconds left and no timeouts. I don’t know who’s burning through the timeouts.”

The Seahawks’ third offensive coordinator in three summers smiled.

“It’s more challenging in practice than it will be in a lot of the games, with the variety and the pressure packages and the movement and the physicality they come with every single day,” he said. “It’s good to face that and then transition. When you’re game-planning, and things are a little bit slowed down and a little bit more specific, it makes it seem easier and slower for the players.

“But it definitely helps me adjust to those situations.”

This is a summer of adjustments for the 47-year-old Fleury. The last four years he was the tight ends coach for the Seahawks’ rival 49ers. Last season he got the added title of running-game coordinator for coach Kyle Shanahan. He began with San Francisco as a low-level, quality-control coach in 2019.

The only other time Fleury has called plays and been a coordinator, it was for defense. That was 18 to 20 years ago, when he was the defensive coordinator and coach of two positions at Sacred Heart of the Football Championship Subdivision in Connecticut from 2006-08.

“I’ve thought as a play caller for a long time,” Fleury said.

“Obviously, doing it for the first time at this level is going to present some challenges.”

So is Macdonald, each day in practices and scheme meetings. That’s to prepare him for what opposing defenses are going to throw at him when the games get real, beginning with New England Sept. 9 in the NFL’s kickoff game at Lumen Field.

Yet the initial reviews from the players and coaches Fleury is working with for the first time have been glowing.

Fleury said the day in February Macdonald introduced him as Kubiak’s replacement two weeks after the Super Bowl that continuity was his key for the 2026 season compared to 2025. Indeed, his players say Fleury hasn’t changed a ton from what Klint Kubiak, another disciple of Shanahan’s offensive system, ran with Seattle in his only season as its coordinator and play caller last year. Kubiak left the day after the Seahawks won Super Bowl 60 in February to replace Pete Carroll as the first-time head coach of the Las Vegas Raiders.

It’s Fleury’s exacting persona and demand for accountability that stand out to the Seahawks offensive players, including its most important one.

“With Fleury, (it’s) his mentality,” quarterback Sam Darnold said.

Run game must get better

Darnold was starter Brock Purdy’s backup with the 2023 49ers. That was when Fleury was in his second year coaching San Francisco’s tight ends.

“Whether it’s a good play or bad play, his mentality never changes out there on the field, which I already knew about being in San Francisco with him,” Darnold said. “But he was always very even-keel.

“Now, getting to spend a lot more time with him as the offensive coordinator, it’s fun to be able to watch him work every single day and see his mentality out there. He wants our offensive line to attack and take control, and that’s a good mindset for an offensive coordinator to have.

“He’s going to continue to be that driving force behind our offense. And it’s going to be fun to figure out what our identity is here in camp and going into the season with him.”

Fleury wants that identity to be to run the ball, as Kubiak did 50% of the time last season. Seattle had the NFC’s highest rushing rate in 2025 and the third-highest rushing rate in the league, barely behind only Baltimore and Buffalo.

Left guard Grey Zabel is a Ford F250 lover from South Dakota. He said he knew Fleury wanted to run the ball the first day he saw his new offensive coordinator show up to Seahawks headquarters driving a pickup truck.

“I like to run the football,” Fleury said. “I’m not sure what the pickup truck has to do with that.”

Continuing to be based on the run is why Macdonald hired Fleury.

It’s why the Seahawks have brought back all five of their starters on the offensive line, which Fleury noted is “extremely rare…especially for a Super Bowl team.”

“I’m walking into a good situation,” Fleury said, referencing Seattle’s veteran offensive-line coach. “I’ve worked with John Benton before. He does a phenomenal job of coaching that group.

“The cohesion that they already have makes it easy to implement stuff. When you do realize that an adjustment needs to be made, they are so used to working with each other and communicating, that adjustments happen lightning fast. That’s a nice advantage to that situation.”

Running the ball again this season is why the Seahawks drafted running back Jadarian Price in the first round this spring, to replace Super Bowl MVP Kenneth Walker. Walker left in free agency in March to sign with Kansas City.

Fleury’s exacting persona comes out when he’s asked where his running game is at this point in camp.

“I want us to be better,” he said.

“We are moving in the right direction. We have been efficient in practice. But I see things through a different lens. It’s not the success of the play on the practice field. I’m looking at everyone’s alignment and technique. And there’s a lot of room for growth there.

“Not to say that we’re doing poorly, but I expect that to be an extremely reliable portion of our game. And it’s not there yet.”

Personnel challenge at fullback

Macdonald’s daunting schemes and scrimmage scenarios are Fleury’s only challenges in his first preseason as Seattle’s offensive coordinator.

It’s clear from camp practices that Fleury intends to use quick motion just before the snap more in this Seahawks offense.

He’s intent to feature tight ends further down the field on more of Darnold’s passes.

He wants to throw to running backs more. San Francisco threw to backs last season at more than twice Seattle’s 16% rate. Seahawks running backs say they’ve never had as extensive of a route tree as Fleury has given them for this 2026 offense.

Fullbacks in two-back formations is another scheme Fleury wants to make a Seattle staple.

“I like using two backs because it can change the formation strength after the snap, as opposed to the whole defense being able to identify it before the snap. It creates some fit problems,” Fleury said. “It’s becoming less and less common across the league, so it’s more difficult to prepare for. Those are the elements I like about it.

“I’m more of an old-school traditionalist because of my upbringing in football, and so I’m always going to want to play with two backs at some point. I like the guys we have in that role right now.”

But the guy Macdonald and general manager John Schneider drafted last year to be their starting fullback for years is in jeopardy of not playing. Robbie Ouzts, the team’s 274-pound rookie fullback from Alabama last season, missed the last two games of last season with a neck injury. He’s missed the last three practices.

Monday, Macdonald had this ominous-sounding answer to what’s sidelining Ouzts: “We’re going to try to find some more information with Robbie’s situation. I’ll just leave it at that right now. But we’ll have an update for you sooner than later.”

In practice Tuesday, Brady Russell was the only fullback. He’s also a part-time tight end plus a mainstay on special teams.

Does Fleury need to add more players at the fullback position before the opener?

“I don’t know that we need to bolster it,” the new, fullback-loving OC said. “We are going to find creative ways to get a second back into the backfield. It doesn’t have to be a traditional fullback.

“We’ve found ways to use receivers in lead blocking roles, other tight ends, even other running backs. We’ll find a way to get it done.”