Klint Kubiak, Seahawks Plan to Bring Back Seldom-Used Position

The Seahawks haven't employed a fullback since the mid-2010s when Mike Robinson helped pave the way for Marshawn Lynch. Could Patrick Ricard be an option to bring the positon back to Klint Kubiak’s offense?

RENTON, Wash. - For the past decade and change, the once-prominent fullback position has slowly been on the road to extinction in the NFL with few teams maintaining a traditional player at the position on their 53-man roster, often using tight ends or even defensive tackles in the role when needed.

But while many teams continue to prefer to live in 11 personnel groupings with one running back, one tight end, and three receivers in modernized NFL attacks, as confirmed by new offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak in his introductory press conference on Tuesday with a simple “yes,” the Seahawks will soon be jumping back into a more old school approach thrusting the fullback back into action as a key part of his scheme.

“Certainly love playing with a fullback,” Kubiak explained. “Like being in 21 and 12 personnel. That’s going to come down to the strength of our players, who we have on our roster. And let's use the best 11 out there to get the five best eligibles deployed out into the route scheme. So those are things we're working on right now, who that's going to be. But we got to adapt as coaches to our best players on the roster.”

A scholar of the Mike Shanahan system, which was championed and adapted by his father Gary Kubiak, who won a Super Bowl as head coach of the Broncos in 2015, Kubiak has stayed in camp as one of the league’s last few holdovers still employing fullbacks, zigging while most play callers have zagged. In his two previous stints as an offensive coordinator for the Vikings and Saints, he has utilized 21 personnel groupings with multiple backs on the field as much as any play caller in the sport, including 16.1 percent of the time last season, the fourth-highest rate in the NFL.

Digging deeper into those two seasons, Kubiak went against the grain compared to his peers around the league, plugging fullback C.J. Ham into the lineup on an astounding 32 percent of Minnesota’s offensive snaps in 2021 and Adam Prentice on 25 percent of New Orleans' snaps last year. For context, only Baltimore, Miami, and San Francisco used a fullback on more than 25 percent of offensive snaps in 2024.

With that heavy utilization of two-back sets compared to most other teams in the league, Vikings running back Dalvin Cook benefited from Ham’s presence as a lead blocker with 1,159 rushing yards and a healthy 4.7 yards per average, while Alvin Kamara rushed for 950 yards and six scores despite missing three games due to injury with Prentice often lined up in front of him in the backfield.

As Kubiak noted on Tuesday, he and the Seahawks coaching staff have much work ahead of them evaluating the team’s offensive personnel to figure out how to maximize on that talent within the confines of his system. In regard to who may line up at fullback, he indicated that tight ends such as Noah Fant, AJ Barner, or Brady Russell and even defensive tackle Byron Murphy II could be used that role in certain situations, but they are keeping all options on the table for the position.

Seahawks offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak discusses plans for implementing multi-back and multi-tight end sets in his offense.

“We're going through that process now with [general manager] John [Schneider] and [head coach] Mike [Macdonald], but I think we're going to take a look at all those things,” Kubiak said. “I'm excited about the guys we do have on the roster. We'll play tight ends in the fullback position for sure, but those are, that's a process right now.”

In house, as is the case for most teams in the league, the Seahawks don’t have a traditional fullback currently on the roster, a trend that has lasted for a decade since Mike Robinson retired after Super Bowl XLIX. Last season, they only ran 11 plays out of two-back personnel groupings, mixing in Russell, Murphy, and running back Zach Charbonnet for those limited opportunities. From that group, Russell would seem to be the most natural fit to see more snaps there under the presumption an outside addition isn’t brought on board.

If Kubiak desires someone like Ham or Prentice who can play extensive snaps out of the backfield, which is most likely the case, Seattle will have some options to consider when free agency opens next month. Interestingly, Prentice will be an unrestricted free agent and should be affordable to sign if the team wants to go that route, while Macdonald could put in a call to Baltimore fullback Patrick Ricard, whose presence would instantly bolster the team’s run game with his physicality as a punishing downhill blocker.

As for the upcoming draft, the Seahawks may have a few potential alternatives to consider in later rounds on that front as well. North Carolina guard Willie Lampkin, who emerged as a standout at the Senior Bowl, doesn’t have the prototypical size for an NFL offensive lineman at 5-10, 270 pounds, but his athletic profile and build match up quite favorably with Ricard and he could be a devastating lead blocker at the next level. If the team prefers a player more in the Kyle Juszczyk mold who can run and catch the ball as well as block as a multi-tool formational chess piece, Utah’s Brant Kuithe could be worth a roll of the dice despite battling injuries throughout his college career.

Regardless of how the Seahawks address re-implementing the fullback into their offense, whether with an in house player, free agent, draft pick, or a combination of those options in the next several weeks and months, Kubiak’s usage of personnel groupings and formations should be dramatically different than any system that has been deployed by the franchise since coach Mike Holmgren still roamed the sidelines in 2008. It remains to be seen what the results will look like on the field, but with improving the run game being a top priority, turning back the clock schematically may be the best path to fulfilling Macdonald’s vision of restoring a physical, tone-setting offense in the Pacific Northwest.