Brian Fleury has spent the offseason installing his version of the Seattle Seahawks offense.
Now comes the part he has never done before.
Fleury will call plays in a regular-season NFL game for the first time when the Seahawks open their Super Bowl defense against the New England Patriots, and head coach Mike Macdonald acknowledged there will be some nerves attached to the moment.
His advice to Seattle’s new offensive coordinator was simple: trust the work that got him there.
“I think it’s like with the rest of our players, it’s trusting our training, trusting the preparation,” Macdonald told reporters on September 5.
Macdonald knows the feeling himself.
“You feel the butterflies. I mean, shoot, I still do that,” he said. “You’re always going to feel — is it anxiety, is it excitement? Those things are natural. It means you care. It means it matters to you.”
Then came Macdonald’s message for Fleury and the rest of the Seahawks.
“Take a deep breath and go let it rip and let’s rock and roll.”
For Fleury, that first opportunity comes with unusually high stakes.
Brian Fleury Takes Over a Super Bowl-Winning Offense
Seattle hired Fleury in February after former offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak left to become head coach of the Las Vegas Raiders.
Fleury had most recently served as the San Francisco 49ers’ run game coordinator and tight ends coach. The Seahawks hired him despite the fact that he had never previously been an NFL offensive coordinator or regular-season play-caller.
Macdonald made clear at the time that he did not view that lack of experience as a major concern.
“I do think it’s a bit overrated,” Macdonald said in February of the importance of previous play-calling experience. “All play-callers have to be first-time play-callers at some point.”
Now that point has arrived.
And Fleury isn’t taking over an offense coming off a rebuild.
He inherited a unit that helped Seattle win Super Bowl LX and finished third in the NFL in scoring last season. The Seahawks also returned quarterback Sam Darnold, AP Offensive Player of the Year Jaxon Smith-Njigba and most of the personnel from that championship offense.
That made continuity a priority when Macdonald hired Fleury.
The Seahawks viewed Fleury’s background in the Kyle Shanahan coaching tree as a way to retain many of the concepts that worked under Kubiak without simply copying the 2025 offense.
Macdonald described it during the offseason as “this year’s version of last year’s offense.”
Fleury has spent the months since putting his own fingerprints on it.
The first real test comes against New England.
Seahawks Expect Brian Fleury to Adjust in Real Time
Fleury’s debut will come against the same Patriots team Seattle beat 29-13 in Super Bowl LX.
But Macdonald stressed that the Seahawks cannot assume Wednesday’s matchup will unfold like February’s championship game.
“The first game of the year is a little tricky,” Macdonald said. “You don’t want to fall in the trap of applying last year’s things that you see too much to what’s going to happen this year.”
That makes Fleury’s first game about more than simply getting the initial script right.
Macdonald expects Seattle to encounter looks it could not have completely prepared for and said the Seahawks will have to adjust during the game.
“There’s going to be some things that we’re going to be required to make adjustments in game,” Macdonald said, “because there’s inevitably going to be things that happen that you haven’t prepared for.”
That is where the job changes for a first-time play-caller.
Fleury has had an entire offseason to install concepts, run training-camp practices and work through preseason situations. A regular-season game brings a different set of decisions: when to abandon part of the plan, when to attack a defensive tendency and which call to make when the opponent shows something unexpected.
Macdonald’s answer suggested he does not want Fleury thinking about the significance of those decisions any more than necessary.
Prepare. Trust the preparation. Then call the game.
Mike Macdonald Has Backed Brian Fleury From the Start
Macdonald’s comments are consistent with how he has talked about Fleury since Seattle hired him.
He has repeatedly emphasized Fleury’s command of the entire offense rather than focusing on his lack of previous coordinator experience.
During training camp, Macdonald praised the details Fleury had added to both the passing and running games while giving him room to shape the offense around his own ideas.
Quarterback Sam Darnold has also praised Fleury’s command, saying during offseason workouts that the new coordinator had done an “incredible” job leading the group.
None of that can completely simulate what happens when Fleury has to make a fourth-down call with the play clock running in a regular-season game.
Macdonald seems comfortable with that reality.
He has been a first-time NFL play-caller himself. He still feels the nerves.
The objective, as Seattle prepares to begin another season, is not to eliminate them.
It is to trust the work anyway.
For Fleury, the offseason audition is over.
Against New England, he finally gets to “let it rip.”
Mike Macdonald Gives Brian Fleury Advice Before Seahawks-Patriots Debut