Seahawks going to the 49ers for new OC; Seattle’s QB coach going to Raiders
· Yahoo Sports
Even with Klint Kubiak gone, the Shanahan offensive system will continue in Seattle.
The Seahawks are going outside their Super Bowl-champion organization to hire San Francisco 49ers run-game coordinator and tight ends coach Brian Fleury to replace the departed Kubiak as Seattle’s new offensive coordinator. That’s per multiple reports Sunday afternoon, including from ESPN and the league-owned NFL Network.
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Fleury, 47, assisted 49ers head coach Kyle Shahanan in game planning this past season, his first one as San Francisco’s run-game coordinator on top of being the 49ers’ tight ends coach. The former college quarterback at Maryland and Towson joined Klay Kubiak and Chris Foerster as Shanahan’s sounding boards. They suggested play calls on game days with San Francisco during the 2025 season.
“Those are the guys I rely on through play-calling throughout the game,” Shanahan told Bay Area reporters last month, per Eric Branch of the San Francisco Chronicle to The News Tribune Sunday. Fleury’s been on Shanahan’s staff with the 49ers the last seven seasons. Fleury is known for being understated. So was Kubiak.
A former quarterback at the University of Maryland and Towson, Fleury began coaching in the NFL in 2013. He was a quality-control assistant with Buffalo that year. He spent two years with the Browns as a linebackers coach. That no doubt interests Macdonald, a former Baltimore Ravens linebackers coach, for how Fleury understands how run-blocking schemes affect linebackers.
He began coaching All-Pro George Kittle and San Francisco’s tight ends for Shanahan in 2022. Fleury and Kittle had a 10-minute routine at the start of practices. An assistant threw Kittle short passes as Fleury tightly covered him on the All-Pro’s pass routes.
Why Fleury for the Seahawks?
At first glance, hiring Fleury is not the continuity coach Mike Macdonald talked this past week about wanting to keep on the offensive staff for next season, in the wake of Kubiak leaving to take the head-coaching job for the Las Vegas Raiders. Four internal candidates, including quarterbacks coach Andrew Janocko, interviewed with Macdonald and general manager John Schneider this past week for the Seahawks play-calling job.
But Fleury worked with Seahawks Pro Bowl quarterback Sam Darnold in San Francisco in 2023, when Darnold was the backup to 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy in that Niners’ Super Bowl season. Fleury runs the same Kyle Shanahan offensive system Kubiak did this season when he called the plays that resulted in Seattle scoring the most points in franchise history. It’s based on Mike Shanahan’s 1990s Super Bowl offenses with the Denver Broncos. Kubiak’s dad Gary was a quarterback then assistant coach and play caller for those Broncos.
So Darnold still gets a familiar face and voice to work with next season. And the Seahawks offense continues the same system Kubiak ran so successfully to the Super Bowl win this past season.
The next question: Who else goes or stays from Kubiak’s Seahawks staff from 2025?
Hiring Fleury means Janocko is now free to be Kubiak’s offensive coordinator with the Raiders. Janocko, 37, had one more year beyond the Super Bowl one that just ended remaining on his Seahawks contract. That had him as a primary candidate to be Seattle’s new OC. Instead, he’s going to leave for a promotion in pay and job title with the Raiders. NFL Network reported that Sunday.
It’s not yet clear if he left after Macdonald settled on Fleury, or he agreed to join Kubiak in Las Vegas then Macdonald pivoted to Fleury.
Keeping John Benton
The key position coach the Seahawks intend — need? — to keep is offensive line coach John Benton. To a man, Seattle’s blockers credited Benton’s clarity in teaching a singular concept, the outside-zone blocking system, as the reason for the line’s and thus the offense’s massive improvement all the way to winning the Super Bowl last weekend.
The News Tribune asked Benton in an interview outside the team’s hotel in San Jose, California, four days before the Super Bowl about the possibility of him leaving to join Kubiak’s staff in Las Vegas.
“I’m a Seahawks, dammit,” Benton said, tapping the table he was sitting at with his fist.
He declined to comment on if he was on a year-to-year or multiple-year contract with Seattle. But the 62-year-old veteran with 35 years experience coaching said he loves working for Macdonald, loves the Seahawks’ culture.
“I’m very happy as a Seattle Seahawk,” Benton told the TNT Super Bowl week in San Jose.
“It’s really an impressive organization. You can tell that right off the bat, you know, right when you walk in the door. John Schneider: Open. He talks all the time about, ‘We’re all together, and it takes input from everybody.’ And it’s really true.”
Benton has coached for eight NFL teams since he entered the league as the St. Louis Rams’ O-line coach in 2003.
He sure sounds like he wants, and will, stay with the Seahawks on Macdonald’s — and now Fleury’s — offensive staff for the 2026 season.
“(it’s) all the way to, shoot, everyone is so happy in the building,” Benton said. “I’ve never been in one like that. Just walking into work you have to say ‘Hello!’ 500 times. Which is a good thing.
“You can tell the work environment as a whole is very positive. And that is not true across the league.”
Benton chuckled.
“And Mike, what a tremendous job (he does),” Benton said. He preached ‘loose and focused,’ and that’s exactly what he is.
“It’s really, really been a pleasure. The whole experience.”