By Gregg Bell AP Sports Writer
SEATTLE — The Seattle Seahawks have chosen Green Bay Packers executive John Schneider as their new general manager, according to a person familiar with hiring.
The person confirmed the agreement to The Associated Press today on condition of anonymity because the team had yet to officially announce the hire. ESPN first reported the deal ( www.espn.com ).
Schneider, a 17-year veteran of NFL personnel work, will share those responsibilities with new coach Pete Carroll under Seattle’s revamped football operations.
Schneider has been the Packers’ director of football operations since May 2008. He was the top personnel assistant to Green Bay’s GM for six years before that. He spent 2000 as Seattle’s director of player personnel in the Seahawks regime of former Packers coach Mike Holmgren and current Green Bay GM Ted Thompson. He was the vice president of player personnel for the Redskins for one year, 2001, before returning to Green Bay.
Schneider replaces Tim Ruskell. The Seahawks forced Ruskell to resign as GM and president last month as Seattle was finishing 5-11 and losing its last four games by a combined 123-37.
The Seahawks are 9-23 since their last playoff game in January 2008, a loss at Green Bay.
Seahawks chief executive officer Tod Leiweke said last week there will be three doors atop Seattle’s remodeled football operations: “a cap/contract door” for money and number crunching, a job returning vice president for football administration John Idzik is poised to handle; a GM door that Schneider will sit behind; “and Pete will have his own, unique door.”
Leiweke said his job will be to ensure collaboration between the three positions.
The lack of a single authority in football matters is something Seattle hasn’t had since before Holmgren arrived as a Super Bowl champion from Green Bay to become the coach and general manager in 1999.
The Seahawks have promised Carroll he will work “shoulder to shoulder” with the new GM.
“The cool thing is, we are getting an outstanding coach as the centerpiece, and we are going to build around that,” Leiweke said of Carroll, reinforcing that Schneider will not have the same kind of sweeping powers NFL GMs traditionally have enjoyed.
Schneider, a native of De Pere, Wis., interviewed with the Seahawks on Jan. 12, hours after Seattle introduced Carroll as their replacement for fired coach Jim Mora.
Schneider beat out Omar Khan, a contract administrator with the Steelers, New York Giants college scouting director Marc Ross and former Titans GM Floyd Reese in interviews that ran through last week.
