Field Gulls
The Seattle Seahawks are entering one of the more fascinating offensive transitions in the NFL this season.
When Klint Kubiak departed after helping establish a clear offensive identity in Seattle, the obvious question became whether the Seahawks could maintain that momentum under new offensive coordinator Brian Fleury.
The answer isn’t simple.
Kubiak’s influence on the offense was immediate. Seattle leaned heavily into the run game, married its passing concepts to play-action, and consistently used motion and formation variation to put defenders in conflict. The result was an offense that often made life easier on the quarterback while creating favorable opportunities for its skill players.
Replacing that kind of impact is never easy.
At the same time, Fleury’s promotion doesn’t carry the same uncertainty that surrounded Ryan Grubb’s arrival a few years ago. Grubb was tasked with making a difficult jump from the college game to the NFL, and Seattle often looked like an offense trying to fit pieces into a system rather than building a system around its personnel.
Fleury enters under different circumstances.
While he has never served as an NFL play-caller, he has spent years working within offenses that share many of the same principles Seattle wants to preserve. His extensive background coaching tight ends and his experience in run-oriented systems provide legitimate reasons for optimism.
Of course, optimism and production aren’t the same thing.
Until the games begin, Fleury remains one of the biggest unknowns on Seattle’s coaching staff.
But every coordinator change creates opportunities, and a handful of Seahawks appear particularly well positioned to take advantage of this new chapter.
If there is one player whose skill set seems tailor-made for Fleury’s background, it’s tight end Elijah Arroyo.
Long before becoming Seattle’s offensive coordinator, Fleury built his reputation coaching tight ends. Throughout his NFL career, he worked with a wide variety of players at the position, helping maximize both traditional in-line blockers and athletic receiving threats.
Arroyo falls firmly into the latter category.
His combination of speed, burst, and movement skills gives him a profile unlike any other tight end currently on Seattle’s roster. At Miami, he was deployed in multiple alignments, operating from the slot, moving across formations before the snap, and occasionally functioning almost like a wide receiver.
That versatility matters.
The modern NFL increasingly values tight ends who can stress defenses horizontally and vertically, creating matchup problems against linebackers and safeties. Arroyo’s athletic profile gives Seattle exactly that type of weapon. And can help him to improve his blocking skills.
More importantly, Fleury’s coaching background suggests he understands how to create opportunities for players like him.
The second-year player may not immediately post eye-popping numbers, but it’s easy to envision a scenario where Arroyo becomes one of the most dangerous mismatch pieces in Seattle’s offense before the season is over.
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