John Schneider says role is ‘exactly the same’ even without Pete Carroll

Seattle Seahawks general manager John Schneider has spent the last 14 seasons without full control of personnel decisions, but in 2024 he’s the main man in charge after Pete Carroll’s departure as both head coach and vice president of football operations.

Much has been made over the share of responsibility between Carroll and Schneider, particularly over higher profile moves such as the Jimmy Graham, Percy Harvin, and Jamal Adams acquisitions, the trading of Russell Wilson, and the draft process. Was Carroll overriding Schneider’s decisions? Were some moves ‘Pete decisions’ and other moves ‘John decisions’? We’ll probably never know the full answer, but on his weekly Seattle Sports 710 radio show, Schneider indicated that Carroll pulling rank was a rarity. When host Bob Stelton asked how much his role had changed without Carroll, who had final say over personnel decisions, Schneider insists nothing has changed.

“It’s exactly the same,” Schneider said. “Pete was amazing in terms of—he could have been that guy that put his foot down and was like, ‘Contractually, at the end of the day I have final say here.’ He rarely, rarely did in 15 years.

“He never said, ‘Hey, we’re not doing this or we’re going to do this.’ It was more along the lines of, I could tell he didn’t feel good about a trade or an acquisition or whatever. I could feel that, so why would we force that and why head down that road? But, yeah, it hasn’t changed in that regard.”

You can choose to believe Schneider is providing a diplomatic answer and that there was more dissenting than he’s letting on, or take him for his word and conclude that this was a largely harmonious, successful partnership in which Schneider has had a hand in the great, good, bad, and horrible moments the entire time. He’s not denying that there have been some overrides/rejections/reservations, but he specified that it wasn’t frequent.

Schneider also indicated that the types of players the Seahawks are looking at in the draft won’t change much with Macdonald as coach.

“Pete and I would always joke, ‘Oh, you know, the Seahawks, they like those big, tall corners that run 4.3.’ Who doesn’t?” Schneider said. “It’s like the Mariners guys: ‘You like the guys that hit home runs, right? And steals bases?’ We like those guys, too. Yes, we’ve listened to [Macdonald and his staff]. Obviously we want to know what they’re looking for by position and everything, but it really hasn’t changed all that much. I don’t think anybody really goes into it saying that you want to play with a corner that looks like me, you know?”

Listen and watch the full interview in the video below: