The Seahawks have sought this spring to, as their general manager has said, “run it back.”

They have re-signed as many of their core players as they could afford. GM John Schneider has brought back inexpensive, unheralded guys that were key to Seattle having the best special-teams unit in the NFL in 2025.

But their coach insists this is NOT going to turn into a summer, fall and winter of the Seahawks defending their Super Bowl title they won in February in Santa Clara, California.

“We’re not defending anything,” Mike Macdonald told reporters Tuesday at the league’s spring meetings in Phoenix.

The head coach made it as clear as the desert sky that this is a new year. This is a new Seattle team. And it has a new task — the job every one of the other 31 teams has. To win the Super Bowl.

Macdonald is emphasizing he and his Seahawks are starting over. Including at running back and at safety, following starters leaving this last month for free-agent riches elsewhere.

“All the guys who left, to a man, you want those guys back,” Macdonald told reporters in Phoenix. “But that’s just the way the NFL goes. You have success, guys are able to get paid and stuff. Really happy for them.

“Yeah, that’s not a thing; we’re not defending anything. I’ve already talked to some of the guys about it.

“This is our mentality of how we want to approach it. ...We’ll figure out ways for the guys to (it) really be their journey again.”

The 38-year-old head coach is in his third offseason leading the Seahawks. He constantly emphasizes to his players the importance of “the process.” The process, he tells them, will take care of the results.

Get the process right learning and perfecting Macdonald’s Seahawks way, as early in the offseason and preseason as possible, to establish the strong and proper foundatio. Then the winning will come in the season ahead.

“We’re a new team,” he said. “We have to kind of re-become the team that we want to be, like, destined to be.

“There’s a lot of new pieces. I think that’s where the focus is: How can we get those ground elements back to where we want them?”

What about running back?

The 2026 Seahawks will be newest in one of their most important positions: Running back.

It’s the spot Seattle relies on for running the ball on 50% of its plays. The Seahawks were among the top three teams in the league in percentage of plays that were runs last season.

But now they have lost Kenneth Walker. The Super Bowl MVP signed a three-year contract in free agency with Kansas City at more than $14 million per season. That was more than Schneider and the Seahawks budgeted to possibly retain their lead back. “Happy for him,” Macdonald said this week. “Was able to take care of his family.

“Yeah, he’s a great dude — and a great football player. Really excited for him.”

Seattle in the second wave of free agency signed Emanuel Wilson, from Green Bay. He rushed for 502 and 496 yards the last two Packers seasons.

“I’ll tell you this: People are kind of sleeping the guys we have,” Macdonald said.

Zach Charbonnet is Walker’s heir at lead back. Charbonnet shared the job with Walker last season and rushed for 12 touchdowns, the Seahawks’ most since Marshawn Lynch in 2024.

But Charbonnet tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his knee in the team’s divisional-playoff win over San Francisco in mid-January. The reconstructive surgery from that injury typically take eight to 12 months. That would put Charbonnet’s return to playing anywhere from mid-September, after the opener Wednesday, Sept. 9, at Lumen Field in the league’s kickoff game for the 2026 season, through the end of the next regular season.

Kenny McIntosh is returning from a season-ending injury the unproven, third-year back got in training camp in July 2025.

George Holani, the former rookie free agent from Boise State, is back for his third Seahawks seasons. He impressed coaches when he replaced Charbonnet behind Walker during the NFC championship game and the Super Bowl.

Holani and Wilson appear to have the inside tracks to the lead job as of now. McIntosh’s and Charbonnet’s returns and how effective they are in them are still to be determined.

“George Holani played great for us down the stretch,” Macdonald said. “’Charbs’ had 12 touchdowns. I mean, Zach’s great player. He’s not going to miss the whole year.

“And Kenny Mac being able to come back. And the guys we added.

“So I’m excited about how that room goes from here.

The Seahawks will continue to shop later in free agency to add a veteran running back at low cost to a non-guaranteed deal.

They hosted free-agent running back Najee Harris last week. A 1,000-yard rusher in each of his first four NFL seasons with Pittsburgh, Harris ruptured his Achilles tendon in September 2025. That was in his first games on a one-year contract with the Los Angeles Chargers that’s ended.

“Just like the rest of the team, any opportunity to take our team to the next level, we’re going to look at,” Macdonald said. “That’s how we’re going to roll.”

Offseason schedule change

The coach said he is giving veteran players two weeks off at the beginning of the league’s formal offseason training program at the team facility in Renton. Those begin April 20.

Veteran players will have the opportunity to participate in phase one remotely.

“It’s a shorter offseason,” Macdonald said of the time since Super Bowl 60 then the team’s victory parade in downtown Seattle seven weeks ago. “So I just feel like the guys needed a kind of standard time away from the building.

“Guys who really didn’t play during that whole playoff push, young guys we are trying to develop or guys that are injured that we are trying to get extra hands on, we’ll ask them to come back a little bit earlier.”

Phase two of the league’s offseason program begins in early May. That phase includes voluntary, walk-through practices on the field at team headquarters.

“Starting phase two is when we are hoping to get everybody back in the building and rolling,” Macdonald said.

DeMarcus Lawrence, veterans’ statuses

For the second time in a month, Macdonald said defensive linemen DeMarcus Lawrence and Jarran Reed, wide receiver Cooper Kupp and all the Seahawks’ 30-plus-year-old veteran starters have indicated to him they are coming back for the 2026 season. The coach said that at the league’s scouting combine in Indianapolis, as well.

Asked this week specifically of Lawrence, who just won the first Super Bowl of his 12-year NFL career and turns 34 the last week of April: “To my knowledge, he’s coming back. He always has the right to change his mind, but as of right now he’s coming back.”

Tory Horton’s status

Tory Horton was emerging as a rookie wide receiver and kick returner following his two touchdowns in the team’s win at Washington in early November.

He didn’t play after that game last season. A shin injury the Seahawks haven’t detailed — and their coach again this week would not specify— is going to have Horton out during offseason practices this spring, too.

“Probably not going to be 100% starting day one,” Macdonald said. “Not really sure on the timetable.

“But we expect him back for training camp. (That) is a fair statement to make.”

Seahawks to take a next step?

Macdonald did specify younger players he wants to see step into bigger roles in 2026.

He will focus on them in the first phase of the offseason program, to give them a jump start for the preseason.

The coach mentioned linebacker Jamie Sheriff first. Then, inside linebacker Connor O’Toole, “all of our young linemen,” 2025 rookie tight end Elijah Arroyo, linebacker Jared Ivey and defensive linemen Rylie Mills.

Mills missed almost all of last season recovering from reconstructive knee surgery following his injury in his final college game for Notre Dame in the winter of 2024. He had his first career sack in the Super Bowl.

Safety post-Coby Bryant

Macdonald also mentioned AJ Finley as a younger player he’s excited to see progress into a larger role. The coach said the safety impressed coaches last offseason and into training camp, and that Finley was competing with Ty Okada to be the third safety behind Julian Love and Coby Bryant last season. But Finley sustained a season-ending injury during a training-camp scrimmage last Aug. 2.

The Seahawks re-signed Finley for 2026 three weeks ago. He will get a chance to compete with 2025 surprise standout Okada, Rodney Thomas (a former Colts starter signed in March from Indianapolis) and re-signed D’Anthony Bell to replace Bryant.

Macdonald said of Thomas: “On the tape I’m really excited about (him).”

Bryant signed a three-year, $40 million contract with Chicago in free agency.

ESPN.com’s Brady Henderson reported from the league meetings the Seahawks are going to give Bell a Super Bowl ring. The team won the tile after Carolina claimed Bell, one of Seattle’s special-teams standouts from last season, off waivers in week 18 of the regular season. Bell was not on the team for the playoffs and Super Bowl.

Riq Woolen got too expensive

Macdonald said “Nehemiah Pritchett is going to have a great opportunity to compete” at cornerback. That’s following the departure of one-time Pro Bowl cornerback Riq Woolen to Philadelphia in free agency.

A reporter from Philadelphia asked Macdonald “what went into the Seahawks letting Woolen go” to the Eagles.

“We didn’t let him go,” Macdonald said.

“(The Eagles are) getting a great player. We love Riq. He’s a great player. Just can’t afford him.”

Woolen signed for $12 million and one year on a prove-it deal with Philadelphia.

Macdonald and Schneider instead chose to invest $8 million per season on a three-year contract to bring back Josh Jobe to be Seattle’s starting cornerback opposite three-time Pro Bowl star Devon Witherspoon.

NFL rules changes

At the meetings, teams voted in minor rules changes for the 2026 season.

The most notable: The kicking team can now declare an onside kick at any time in the game. Previously, a team had to be trailing in the fourth quarter to do one. Kicking teams recovered only five of 52 onside kicks last season.

League personnel, primarily those in the NFL officiating office monitoring games in New York, may now consult with on-field officials when considering disqualifications for flagrant “football acts and non-football acts” that were not called on the field. DK Metcalf pushing and swiping at a fan in Detroit seated behind the Pittsburgh Steelers’ bench during a game last season is an example of an instance this new rule may come into play.

For this coming season only, the NFL officiating department may correct “clear and obvious mistakes made by on-field officials that impact the game, in the event that there is a work stoppage involving the game officials represented by the NFL Referees Association.” The league and the referees’ union are at an impasse in negotiations on a new contract.

A new league bylaw will allow on the reserve/physically-unable-to-perform list to begin a 21-day practice period after his team’s second regular-season game.