New Seattle Seahawks OC Shane Waldron: 'so much philosophical alignment' with Pete Carroll

The Seattle Seahawks fired Brian Schottenheimer over “philosophical differences.”

So as it turns out (unsurprisingly), the man hired to replace him has core philosophies similar to coach Pete Carroll.

“It’s one of the reasons I feel that this interview process went so well,” new Seahawks offensive coordinator Shane Waldron said.

Waldron, speaking to Seattle media Tuesday for the first time since his hire was formally announced last week, said there was “so much philosophical alignment” between him and Carroll that the interview process felt natural.

The 41-year-old Waldron, who’ll be a first-time play caller at the NFL level with the Seahawks, pointed to three core tenets that Seattle’s offense will embody with him at offensive coordinator: “all about the ball” (ball protection), an emphasis on fundamentals and a balanced attack. Those are all principles, in some fashion or another, Carroll has been known to stress in his decade-plus in Seattle.

Waldron feels that Carroll has his back “fully” and that “it will be through my direction that this offense is being run with that great support of coach Carroll.”

“I think that was, in my opinion, what was so natural about the interview process, was that there was so much philosophical alignment between he and I,” Waldron said. “It wasn't like an interview where you're trying to sell yourself to win the job in any sort of sales pitch. It was a conversation and it was a football discussion that had so many things in alignment that it felt like a natural progression as we got to know each other and talk through things. So many of those things were just naturally in alignment. I think that's why I felt really good about the process."

Waldron comes in not only tasked with fixing Seattle’s offense,which reeled in the second half of the 2020 season, but also finding middle ground between the visions of Carroll and quarterback Russell Wilson.

Carroll wants to run the ball more in 2021, and saw Seattle’s hot start offensively with a pass-heavy approach this past season as a reason it was never able to adjust by the end of the year. Meanwhile, Wilson — asked at his end-of-season press conference about Carroll’s comments about needing to run the ball more next season — stressed that the offense needs to do “everything” better. The way the Seahawks’ offense looked in the first half of the 2020 campaign throwing the ball, in Wilson’s eyes? The best it has ever been since he arrived in Seattle in 2012. Wilson indicated that he wants to get back that.

Wilson said there’s no “contention”  between he and Carroll; that they’re on the same “wavelength,” because they want to do whatever it takes to get the franchise closer to winning championships. But based on their individual comments, their visions of how to do that may not be exactly in line.

Perhaps Waldron can be the bridge.

He — along with Andy Dickerson, who’s also joining Seattle from the Rams to be the Seahawks’ new run game coordinator — comes from a Rams’ system under Sean McVay that boasts one of the NFL’s most creative and balanced offenses.

The Rams have had a top-10 rushing attack in three of the last four years, including last year. But their offense is also predicated largely on getting the quarterback on the move (play-action passes, bootlegs, etc.), leading into the kinds of quick and intermediate throws Seattle struggled with in 2020.

Waldron also stressed that while he wants the Seahawks’ offense to be balanced, he doesn’t want it to be conservative (a long-time critique of Carroll-led offenses).

“We're going to be a balanced offense. It's going to have that ability to create explosive plays with that attack mindset. We want to be the one that the foot is on the gas pedal,” Waldron said. “Having that balanced approach that is able to adjust and adapt depending on the style of the game or what the score might dictate in any particular game.

“Just because I'm saying it's a balanced attack, doesn't mean that that's a conservative attack,” Waldron continued. “I don't ever want to get that confused. That will really be the core philosophy that we live by as far as the starting point of run vs. pass vs. any other schematic things we want to get into.”

Waldron added that he spoke with Wilson both during the interview process and since he was officially hired, with conversations spanning non-football topics.

“Had a great chance to get to know him as a person,” Waldron said of the conversations. "Talked a lot about our families and just really getting to know each other more as people because I do think the football part of it is an important part of it when the time is right, but our conversations were really center around who we are as people because when you’re in a room with some guys for a lot of hours every day when that season gets rolling. I think that compatible personality (is important). He seems like he has this unrelenting desire to be better, to be the best that he can be. I think that's when we started talking about those things, that’s when we had some really fun conversations.

“When you're able to sit there and have conversations that are natural and fluid and talk about everything and not just football, I think that’s a great foundation for where this relationship to go.”