Here’s a little behind-the-scenes look at what goes on here at 12th Man Rising. A couple of months ago, I wrote a “bold offseason predictions” article in which I said that both Geno Smith and D.K. Metcalf would be gone before the beginning of 2025. I’ve been bragging about that in every article I have written since, but my boast keeps getting cut. The only reason I ever get is that my predictions had absolutely nothing to do with the topic of the current article.
Today – finally – I get to crow.
In hindsight, it seems silly that any of us should have expected both the QB and the star receiver to remain. The history of the NFL – and of history writ large – teaches us that when a new regime comes into power, they begin systematically erasing all vestiges of the past. This is especially true with young, inexperienced head coaches in professional football.
To move forward, the Seahawks had to move on from Smith and Metcalf
In the Seahawks’ case, Mike Macdonald, who has never been a head coach at any point in his career, needed to jettison the old to have his voice be the dominant one in the room. We see this happen every year. Last year, it was Adam Peters and Dan Quinn in Washington. They turned over more than 60% of the roster in one offseason. The early results were spectacular but perhaps it is too soon to take any major lessons from the Commanders.
The Lions cleaned house in 2021. Three straight double-digit losing seasons can do that to a franchise. They hired Brad Holmes as GM and Dan Campbell as coach. Here’s what they did in that first offseason. As we can see, it is not too soon to learn from the Detroit Lions.
Like Seattle, they traded away their long-time quarterback. At receiver, they went one better than the Hawks. Seattle traded Metcalf and allowed Tyler Lockett to depart. Detroit waved goodbye to their three top wideouts before the 2021 season.
By the end of the end of the 2022 season, less than two years after Holmes and Campbell took control, the Lions had also traded their star young tight end T.J. Hockenson and essentially replaced their entire defense. They did have several good pieces on the offensive line when Holmes arrived. He held onto some of those players and built around them.
Holmes even replaced Dan Muhlbach, who'd been the Lions’ long snapper since Henry Ford set up shop on Mack Avenue. Within two seasons, Holmes and Campbell had wholly rebuilt the Lions roster. That first year was painful. The last three have been triumphant.
There is one superficial difference between the Seahawks’ situation and what happened in Detroit and Washington. The Lions and Commanders swept management clean. They brought in a new GM and a new coach, along with all the new staff that accompanies such moves.
Unlike Detroit and DC, Schneider bridges both eras
In Seattle, GM John Schneider remained when Macdonald was hired. Does that hinder progress? Brad Holmes and Adam Peters (in DC) had no link to the players they found on the roster when they took over. Peters seemed to almost relish dismantling every draft class of the previous Commanders’ regime. He traded away the club’s 2022 first-round draft pick and outright cut the first-rounders from 2021 and 2023.
Can Schneider be that ruthless? He is the one who drafted and/or signed every player on the Seahawks’ roster. If you want to see how that particular model might play out, look at the reigning Super Bowl champions. When the Eagles hired Greg Siriani as head coach in 2021, Howie Roseman remained in charge of football operations. Even so, the GM and coach made radical changes. Starting QB Carson Wentz was gone immediately. Every receiver had been replaced within two years as had tight end Zach Ertz. And this was on a team that had won a Super Bowl a few years earlier.
The 2025 draft is the make-or-break event for Schneider. Detroit, like Philadelphia and perhaps Washington, didn’t magically become good by getting rid of established players and allowing Dan Campbell to be the unequivocal alpha dog in the locker room. That was simply step one.
In the Lions' case, they also turned Brad Holmes loose on the draft, where he has proven to be an exceptional judge of talent. Trading away elite players like Matthew Stafford and T.J. Hockenson yielded a lot of draft picks, just like the trades of Smith and Metcalf have done. I will not attempt to tease out the paper trail of Holmes’ pre-draft and draft-day trades. There are PhD candidates in abstract algebra who cannot keep track of his wheeling and dealing.
Schneider will have to match the success of Holmes
Suffice to say that the capital acquired in the Stafford and Hockenson trades eventually led to the acquisitions of Jahmyr Gibbs, Sam LaPorta and Brian Branch in the 2023 draft. Those are all home runs. Gibbs is a grand slam. Holmes doesn’t hit on every pick but he acquires a lot of them, he hits on more than most GMs, and when he hits, he hits big.
John Schneider desperately needs a draft like that next month. Quite frankly. He has already done most of the pruning. In addition to trading Smith and Metcalf, he either cut or did not re-sign almost every veteran on the roster. Apart from re-upping Jarran Reed and reworking Uchenna Nwosu, almost every player with more than 6 years in the league is gone. (I don’t know if the need to purge rosters applies to kickers and punters because both those guys are still around.)
Now, Schneider must restock the roster with quality. If he has another draft like 2024, it is hard to imagine him being in charge much longer. So, in hindsight, we all should have seen the departure of both Smith and Metcalf this offseason. That won’t stop me from bragging. There is no need to rehash – or go back and reread – my other bold predictions.
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