The Seahawks have hired John Schneider. Again.
This time, however, Schneider has a new title and new responsibilities. The club announced Tuesday that Schneider will be the general manager and work in collaboration with coach Pete Carroll, who was hired last week.
Schneider, 38, will be introduced at a 10 a.m. news conference Wednesday.
He worked the past eight seasons for the Green Bay Packers, but also spent 2000 with the Seahawks as director of player personnel under then-GM and coach Mike Holmgren. After that one year with the Seahawks, Schneider went to the Washington Redskins as vice president of player personnel for a year. Before coming to the Seahawks, he had been director of pro personnel for the Kansas City Chiefs.
But Schneider, who is from DePere, Wis., got into the NFL with the Packers – as a summer intern in 1992 under Ron Wolf. The Packers’ former general manager was so impressed with Schneider that he hired him in 1993 as a pro personnel assistant, a role Schneider handled for three years before going to the Chiefs.
Schneider returned to the Packers in 2002 as personnel analyst to the general manage and was named director of football operations in 2008. During his second stint with the Packers, he earned a reputation as a personable and knowledgeable consensus-builder in the Green Bay front office, and Packers general manager Ted Thompson once referred to Schneider as a “strategic counsel” in matters dealing with free agency and the draft.
It is these skills that attracted the Seahawks to Schneider, who was hired after three other candidates also were interviewed for the job that opened when Tim Ruskell resigned last month. It also is these skills that should allow Schneider to work in that collaborative role with Carroll that CEO Tod Leiweke outlined last week.
“Can collaboration work? It does all the time, in all sorts of environments,” Leiweke said. “In fact, it’s how I lead. This is the model that makes sense to us – to get guys to work together, to share opinions. And the coach’s opinion is going to matter in who we pick (in the draft). But ultimately, that’s the general manager’s job: To go out and find those guys.
“And how can you not ask Pete Carroll what he thinks about the draft? That’s exactly what we want here.”
The Seahawks hold the sixth, 14th and 38th selections in the first two rounds of the April draft, and Schneider already is sizing up prospects for those lofty picks.
As Leiweke spelled it out, Carroll “will control his 53-man roster,” while the GM – Schneider – will be “not a jack of all trades, but a master of players and the draft board” and focus on getting Carroll the kind of players he needs to improve that roster.
“That is the model we were committed to, and that was something that Mr. Allen (Paul, the owner) was very committed to – that we get people who are good, and they’re disciplined, and that stay in their lane,” Leiweke said.
Schneider has the background and personality to do just that, which is why the Seahawks hired him. Again.
