Seattle won Super Bowl 60 in February and immediately watched its offensive coordinator, leading rusher, top edge rusher and a starting cornerback walk out the door. Of those four departures, the coordinator was the easiest to absorb.
That was the conclusion of the latest Football Debate Club, where PFSN’s Ian Cummings and Josh Hite argued whether losing Klint Kubiak hurt more than the combined exits of Kenneth Walker III, Boye Mafe, and Riq Woolen. Cummings took the false side and won the round.
Brian Fleury Was Hand-Picked to Keep the System Running
The case for not panicking starts with who replaced Kubiak. Mike Macdonald passed on four reported in-house candidates and hired Brian Fleury, a longtime Kyle Shanahan assistant who served as San Francisco’s run game coordinator and tight ends coach in 2025. The 49ers connection is the entire point.
“As good of an offensive mind as Kubiak was, I’m optimistic about Brian Fleury as a replacement,” Cummings said. “Both of them were on the 2023 San Francisco staff under Kyle Shanahan, and he spent seven years with Shanahan in different roles.”
Fleury echoed that framing at his introductory press conference. “It looks very similar to the one that just won the Super Bowl,” he said of the offense, signaling tempo and physicality tweaks without a scheme overhaul. Sam Darnold gets the same playbook that produced his Pro Bowl season. Jaxon Smith-Njigba gets the same usage that produced an NFL-leading 1,793 receiving yards and Offensive Player of the Year honors.
Hite saw it differently and credited Kubiak as the central force of the championship run.
“Losing [Klint] Kubiak, who was an established offensive coordinator in the NFL for many years and really helped lead his team to the Super Bowl and winning the Super Bowl, is definitely more impactful of a loss than those three players you mentioned who were replaced pretty much in the draft,” Hite said.
That framing oversells Kubiak’s tenure slightly. He had one season in Seattle, his third stop as an offensive coordinator, with the two previous gigs in Minnesota and New Orleans lasting one year each. The Shanahan-tree concepts predate him. Fleury inherits the same toolkit.
The Edge Room Is Where Seattle Got Thinner
Cummings’ false vote wasn’t a full vote of confidence in the replacements. He flagged one specific concern.
“At the edge room, they’ve got DeMarcus Lawrence and Uchenna Nwosu, who are aging,” Cummings said. “Dante Fowler, who they got in free agency, in my opinion, is a rotational downgrade from Boye [Mafe]. So there are some questions. Ultimately, I think the coaching is elite and that’s going to help them. I trust Mike Macdonald’s judgment with Fleury.”
Walker’s departure to Kansas City made him the fourth Super Bowl MVP ever to switch teams the following offseason, but the Seahawks moved fast there too. They spent the 32nd overall pick on Notre Dame’s Jadarian Price, signed Emanuel Wilson and will get Zach Charbonnet back from an ACL tear. Woolen signed a one-year deal in Philadelphia. Josh Jobe likely steps into a full-time starting role across from Devon Witherspoon.
Mafe is the one player without a clean replacement. He signed a three-year, $60 million deal with Cincinnati. Fowler arrived on what reports peg as a one-year contract worth roughly $5 million at most. The cap savings are obvious. The production replacement is not.
That’s the debate in microcosm. The headset is fungible in the Shanahan tree. The pass rusher is not.
