This is not the kind of coaching hire that turns heads because it sounds glamorous. Brian Fleury has never called plays before, and in the modern NFL that usually invites a healthy dose of skepticism. But Steve Smith clearly sees something different, and the reason is refreshingly simple: he trusts the coaching lane Fleury has come through.
Speaking in 2026 while previewing Seattle’s wide receiver room, Smith praised the Seahawks’ decision to put Fleury in charge of the offense because of his background in the run game and with tight ends. That matters to Smith, who pointed to a broader trend inside the Kyle Shanahan and Sean McVay coaching tree. In his view, offensive coordinators who come up as tight ends coaches and run game coordinators often understand the whole picture better than people assume.
Why Smith likes the hire
Smith’s argument is not that Fleury is guaranteed to turn Seattle into a juggernaut. It is more specific than that. He likes the idea that someone who has lived around the blocking scheme, the running game, pass-game structure and the little details of offensive organization is now getting a bigger chair. In other words, Fleury’s value is not that he has a flashy reputation. It is that he has spent time in the part of the building where the offense is actually assembled.
That is where Smith’s comments become interesting. He flatly said that, in his opinion, offensive coordinators with tight ends coach and run game coordinator backgrounds tend to be really good coordinators. He even leaned into the role of those coaches as people who are around so much of the play-calling process and understand how all the moving parts connect. It is a practical endorsement, not a sentimental one.
What Brian Fleury brings into the job
According to the available timeline, Fleury started working on the offensive side of the ball in 2020. That is the key detail here. The Seahawks are not handing the offense to a stranger, but they are also not handing it to someone whose entire identity is built on years of play-calling experience. He is being framed as inexperienced in that specific sense, and that is exactly why Smith’s praise stands out.
It also explains why this hire has landed in the Sean McVay and Kyle Shanahan conversation. Teams keep chasing the same kind of offensive brain trust, and the labels matter less than the actual football underneath them. Smith’s point is that the run game and tight ends path can produce coordinators who see the whole field, not just the glamorous bits.
For Drew Lock, that is the sort of context that will matter quickly. The name on the coaching staff is one thing; the structure around the quarterback is another. Smith did not present Fleury as a finished product or a magic fix. He presented him as a coordinator with the right background to make sense of the job. And in the NFL, that is often where the real optimism begins.
