Mina Kimes Breaks Down How Ryan Grubb Can Help Geno Smith in 2024

The Seattle Seahawks are going to be a really intriguing team to watch in 2024. For the first time since 2010, the Seahawks will have a new head coach with Mike Macdonald replacing Pete Carroll. The defensive mentality will remain but things are looking to change.

One of the elements of change with the Seahawks is Ryan Grubb, who will take over as the offensive coordinator replacing Shane Waldron. He had a lot of success at the college level, leading Jake Haener and Fresno State to some excellent seasons and of course at Washington with Michael Penix Jr., which included an appearance in the National Championship game last season.

During a recent appearance on ESPN's NFL Live, Mina Kimes had a lot of really good things to say about Grubb's offense and how he runs it.

"First I'll say, I loved this hire for the Seahawks because I loved watching this Washington offense. Obviously, Ryan Grubb had quite a bit of talent to work with there, as evidenced by the fact that half of the offense was drafted in the first three rounds. But I do think he also brought so much creativity to how he deployed them in terms of his use of formations, personnel groupings, motion, it was like watching a mad scientist at work. Now he has to bring that skillset to a Seahawks team that really, really strong personnel, particularly at wide receiver, of course."

- ESPN's Mina Kimes

The element that Kimes mentions about personnel being really strong at Washington is important. It wasn't just a great offense, but the raw talent they had was recognized by the NFL in the draft this past April. It can be seen as a cheat code to have that kind of talent.

One of the other interesting elements that Kimes mentioned was the talent disparity between Washington and their opponents. She does believe that Grubb can take advantage of some things to maximize the Seahawks' offense, including what the Huskies didn't do much of: throw over the middle of the field and maximize Geno Smith.

But I think he's going to face a couple of challenges, Kevin starting with this. At U-dub (Washington), typically the Huskies had a better offensive line than the team they were playing across from them. That might not be the case in Seattle, it's part of the reason why they struggled so much on third down last year. They did add players, but it might take a second to integrate some of those offensive linemen. So that's something Grubb is going to have to scheme around to protect Geno Smith. The other thing I think he needs to do to make Geno Smith's life easier is dial-up simpler competitions for him over the middle of the field. Geno is fantastic throwing over the middle of the field, but last season he ranked eighth-least among all quarterbacks in passes per game between the numbers. That needs to change. I want to see more Jaxon Smith-Njigba and I think Grubb can do so because he is proven to be so good at using the talent at his disposal as he was at Washington.

- ESPN's Mina Kimes

How Grubb runs this Seattle offense is going to be a really fascinating watch, especially when it comes to maximizing Smith this season and beyond.