PALM BEACH, Fla. — It was a head-spinning turn of events in the moment.
On the morning of March 5, barely a half-hour after the Seahawks released Tyler Lockett, news broke that DK Metcalf had requested a trade.
Four days later, Metcalf’s request was granted, as the Seahawks dealt him to Pittsburgh for a 2025 second-round draft pick.
The trade came barely 48 hours after another stunner — the trade of quarterback Geno Smith to the Raiders for a third-round pick.
To Seahawks coach Mike Macdonald, each move reinforced an eternal lesson he learned anew in his first year as a head coach in the NFL — that the one constant is change and the key to success is how well teams deal with that inevitability.
“You’ve just got to be flexible in how that works and be able to make those decisions when those opportunities arise,’’ Macdonald said Tuesday when he met the media at the NFL’s annual meeting. “And we did that.’’
The more than 35 minutes Macdonald talked to reporters Tuesday offered a chance to reflect on the dizzying turn of events of replacing Smith and Metcalf with Sam Darnold and receivers Cooper Kupp and Marquez Valdes-Scantling.
It also offered him a chance to say that some things haven’t changed — notably, the team’s expectations.
Tuesday, he stated that same faith in Darnold, who signed a three-year contract worth up to $100.5 million.
“I do, yeah,’’ Macdonald said. “I do, absolutely.’’
He said those events don’t change his stated goal for every season — to win the Super Bowl.
“That’s the expectation, man,’’ he said. “Every time you step on the field, your expectation is to win. … If you go through this whole process not expecting to win, you’re not doing it the right way.’’
As the trades of Smith and Metcalf occurred, some league observers wondered if the Seahawks were embarking on a rebuilding process. Macdonald insisted the trades were simply the team’s best reaction to events that unfolded.
Macdonald and general manager John Schneider said at the NFL combine in late February the hope was that the Seahawks would re-sign Smith and keep him as the team’s QB into the future.
When their contract offer made a few days after the combine was met with no real negotiation from Smith’s side, the Seahawks changed course quickly, in part with to the knowledge that signing Darnold was a realistic option. It wasn’t known for sure that Darnold would become a free agent until March 3.
“You have the best intention to try to make something happen,’’ Macdonald said, reflecting on a hectic few days. “But I think of it like this computer process in the back of your head like ‘OK, well is this still in line with what’s going to be best for us right now and long term?’ And when it became obvious that, ‘Hey, this is not going to happen,’ well you don’t want to be caught without a chair at the end of the deal.“
After trading Smith on a Friday afternoon, the Seahawks had to wait until Monday to negotiate with Darnold.
The Seahawks felt confident in getting Darnold because of his relationship with new offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak (who coached him with the 49ers in 2023) and others on staff, and that they represented a clear option for Darnold to be a starter.
Still, those days created a few nervous moments.
“Sitting around staring at each other I guess,’’ Macdonald joked of what he and the rest of the staff did that weekend. “It was a leap of faith to a certain extent. But we were confident in the options that were available at the time and obviously it helped that Sam’s opportunity worked out. We’re really fortunate that we got the situation that we kind of prioritized. So it was good.’’
Matters quickly shifted to Metcalf.
“When those things happen there’s a process behind the whole thing,’’ he said of Metcalf’s trade request and the deal with the Steelers. “So you have to understand who is interested in him, what are the possible opportunities for him to go and then you just never know when it’s time to make the decision until it’s time to make the decision.’’
Metcalf, a source confirmed, targeted the Chargers and Houston. Neither team was willing to offer the kind of contract Metcalf preferred. The Steelers and New England offered Metcalf contracts he liked.
Of those two, Pittsburgh was Metcalf’s choice. The Steelers signed him to a four-year extension worth up to $132, on top of the one-year and $18 million he had left on his Seahawks deal.
“Probably to an outside observer it seemed like it was really fast,’’ Macdonald said. “But kind of inside we were saying like ‘OK, this is kind of the end of the process that we went through with DK and felt like it was best for both parties.’”
That the Seahawks weren’t going to offer Metcalf the kind of deal he got with the Steelers — and wanted to wait until after the draft to negotiate, which is the Seahawks’ normal time frame for extensions to players still under contract — was probably the main reason for Metcalf’s trade request.
Metcalf said during a recent appearance on the “Da Get Got Pod” with former Seahawks Marshawn Lynch and Michael Robinson that he and other players who were with the team since at least 2019 felt like outsiders last season when Macdonald and his new staff took over.
“Now it was just six outsiders trying to get a new message,’’ Metcalf said referring to himself, Smith, Tyler Lockett, Jason Myers, Michael Dickson and Jarran Reed.
Macdonald said Metcalf never relayed that feeling to him.
“We never talked about that,” Macdonald said. “Not sure what he’s talking about, honestly.”
In that same interview, Metcalf cited an incident in an October game against the 49ers when he felt the suggestions he and Lockett made during the week to offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb were ignored. That led to Metcalf having a heated conversation on the phone with Grubb in the coach’s booth. Metcalf said he and Lockett stopped offering suggestions for the rest of the season.
Asked about that incident Tuesday, Macdonald initially responded with a smile and a joke, saying, “I may or may not remember that.”
Then he delivered a lengthy answer:
“I’m not going to say that his experience wasn’t what he felt in that time. But, look, we’re not going to be perfect in how we operate. But our players’ opinions, how they operate, what’s important to them, that’s always going to be really important to us.
“They are the ones who’ve got to do it, they are the ones who drive the bus. It’s our job to help it make it come to life. We fell short in that sometimes last year, probably more so than we wanted to. But I think if you ask, if you get a real good feel for the locker room about how well we take guys’ input and value their opinions, I think you are going to get an overwhelming majority of guys saying that they feel heard and valued. And it’s an unfortunate situation that he felt that way for that time.”