The Raiders have made it official with Rick Dennsion.
Las Vegas announced on Thursday that the club has hired Dennison to be its offensive line coach under new head coach Klint Kubiak.
Dennison, 67, was Seattle’s run game coordinator and senior offensive advisor in 2025, winning Super Bowl LX along with Kubiak.
Dennison has a long history with the Kubiak family, having played with Gary Kubiak — Klint’s father — in Denver. Dennison also coached with the elder Kubiak with the Broncos, Ravens, Texans and Vikings and worked with Klint Kubiak in Denver, Minnesota, New Orleans and Seattle.
Dennison won Super Bowl 50 as the Broncos offensive coordinator in 2015 under Gary Kubiak.
Seahawks Clips
The dip in the ratings for Super Bowl LX wasn’t as big as initially believed.
Nielsen has revised the final viewership for the Patriots-Seahawks championship game across NBC, Peacock, Telemundo, NBC Sports Digital, and NFL+ from 124.9 million to 125.6 million. It’s an increase of 700,000 viewers.
“This update is due to the fact that a Big Data provider did not properly collect data from its devices on February 8, which impacted the Big Data + Panel count,” Nielsen said in a press release.
Super Bowl LIX averaged 127.7 million. That number didn’t include Nielsen’s new metric for measuring out-of-home viewership.
It’s still the second-biggest audience in U.S. TV history. The top 12 are Super Bowls; the final episode of M*A*S*H is the only top-20 show of all time that isn’t a Super Bowl.
The Seahawks’ continued reshaping of their offensive coaching staff includes a promotion for a returning member of the group.
Jeremy Fowler of ESPN reports that the Seahawks are promoting Justin Outten to run game coordinator. Outten was an assistant offensive line coach and run game specialist during their run to the Super Bowl LX title.
The Raiders wanted to speak to Outten about the same job on Klint Kubiak’s staff recently, but the Seahawks blocked the overture from their former offensive coordinator.
Outten spent two seasons with the Titans and a year as the Broncos’ offensive coordinator before joining Mike Macdonald’s staff in Seattle last year. He has also coached for the Packers and Falcons.
As expected, the Seahawks are for sale.
Despite recent denials, the inevitable is happening. Owner Paul Allen died in October 2018. He left an express directive that the team will be sold, with the proceeds going to charity. After more than seven years, the league leaned on his sister, Jody, to get it done.
The timing is no surprise. We’ve previously reported that the league held a $5 million fine in abeyance with the understanding that the team would promptly be put on the market after Super Bowl LX.
The goal will be to sell the team to the highest bidder, in order to maximize the charitable contribution. The price tag, despite valuations in the range of $6 billion to $7 billion, is expected to land in the range of $9 billion to $11 billion.
The Seahawks organization, along with the team’s fans, will be stuck with whoever the high bidder may be.
It’s currently not known who it will be, or what that person will choose to do once they acquire full control over the franchise. It will be the next owner’s prerogative to make changes, or not. To meddle, or not. To screw up a good thing, or not.
And the fans will be stuck. Owners can’t be fired. The fans can only hope the team lands in the hands of someone who will allow G.M. John Schneider to keep doing what he’s been doing.
But no one other than the next owner will have any control over the situation. The next owner could be closer to Dan Snyder than any of the various good owners. (If we name one as an example, the ones not named won’t be happy.)
The only thing that will matter is the money. As often is the case.
Either way, the Seahawks will soon be meeting a new boss. They can only hope it’s roughly the same as the old boss.
The Seahawks are officially for sale.
A statement from the team released today said that the estate of the late former owner Paul Allen will sell the team and donate the proceeds to charity, as had been his wish.
“The Estate of Paul G. Allen today announced it has commenced a formal sale process for the Seattle Seahawks NFL franchise, consistent with Allen’s directive to eventually sell his sports holdings and direct all Estate proceeds to philanthropy,” the team said in its statement. “The Estate has selected investment bank Allen & Company and law firm Latham & Watkins to lead the sale process, which is estimated to continue through the 2026 off-season. NFL owners must then ratify a final purchase agreement.”
Allen bought the team in 1997, and when he died in 2018 his sister Jody Allen took control of the franchise. Now the Seahawks will have a new owner, one who is expected to pay somewhere in the neighborhood of $10 billion.
The Seahawks, if you haven’t heard, won Super Bowl LX. One of the questions to be resolved in the coming weeks is whether they’ll make the annual visit to the White House to commemorate the achievement.
There’s speculation they won’t. Per the team, nothing has been offered or decided yet.
In situations like this, anything other than “yes” can fairly be interpreted as “maybe not.”
It used to be a no-brainer for the Super Bowl champion to make the trip. In recent years, that has changed. (At a time when Americans disagree on many things, that’s an undeniable fact.)
Last year, the Eagles made the visit to the White House. Whether the Seahawks do the same thing remains to be seen.
And while an invitation is a prerequisite to acceptance, it’s possible an invitation will not be extended if the White House believes it won’t be embraced.
Thomas Hammock is leaving his post as the head coach at Northern Illinois to join the Seahawks.
Pete Thamel of ESPN.com reports that Hammock will be the running backs coach under Mike Macdonald in 2026. Hammock will also have a senior offensive assistant title.
Hammock has spent the last seven seasons at Northern Illinois. He has a 35-47 record that includes a win over Notre Dame in 2024 and a 2-1 record in bowl games.
Hammock spent five seasons as the Ravens’ running backs coach before moving to the school. Macdonald was also on Baltimore’s staff at that time, so the Seattle partnership will be a reunion for the two men.
Seahawks assistant Rick Dennison is following Klint Kubiak to the Raiders, Matt Zenitz of CBS Sports reports.
Dennison served as Seattle’s run game coordinator and senior offensive advisor in 2025.
He has a long history with the Kubiak family.
Dennison played with Gary Kubiak, Klint’s father, in Denver, coached with him with the Broncos, Ravens, Texans and Vikings and worked with Klint Kubiak in Denver, Minnesota, New Orleans and Seattle.
Dennison, who began his coaching career in 1995, was an offensive coordinator with the Bills, Broncos and Texans.
Seahawks cornerback Josh Jobe was the only player fined for on-field infractions during Super Bowl LX and Jobe picked up a pair of them for unnecessary roughness on one play in the fourth quarter of the game.
Jobe decked Patriots wide receiver Stefon Diggs out of bounds at the end of a play with 13:24 left in the game and received a fine for that late hit. The other fine came for his response when Diggs came back at him in the wake of that shot.
Diggs and Jobe squared off briefly with Diggs grabbing Jobe’s facemask and the cornerback throwing a punch at the wideout’s head. Jobe was fined for that as well.
The NFL announced that both fines were for $9,222.
Kenneth Walker III could be the next player in the tradition of Larry Brown, Desmond Howard, and Dexter Jackson.
Each won the Super Bowl MVP and then became free agents. Each left for a larger offer from another team.
Brown, the MVP of Super Bowl XXX after catching two passes that Steelers quarterback Neil O’Donnell threw right to him, signed with the Raiders. Howard, who had 244 return yards in the game and scored on a 99-yard kickoff return to essentially ice Super Bowl XXXI, also signed with the Raiders. Jackson, the Super Bowl XXXVII MVP in a Buccaneers win over the Raiders, signed with the Cardinals.
Walker may now be free to do the same thing. Via Adam Schefter of ESPN.com, the Seahawks are “unlikely” to apply the franchise tag to Walker.
Tweets Schefter: “The Seahawks have multiple free agents they want to retain and sign. They also will try to extend WR Jaxon Smith-Njigba. There are enough Super-Bowl tax costs that now make using a franchise tag this offseason unlikely.”
The franchise tag would result in a one-year, $14.1 million contract for Walker. In four total seasons, he has made $8.44 million.
The fact that the Seahawks have leaked this nugget upon the opening of the two-week tag window likely wasn’t accidental. They want their fans to understand what’s going on, and in turn to short-circuit any speculation/anticipation that Walker may be tagged.
The implicit message is that the Seahawks believe Walker wants more on a long-term deal than the Seahawks can justify. The Seahawks may also believe that Walker won’t get what he’s looking for on the open market, either.
His agents likely will find out the answer next week at Tampering Central a/k/a the Scouting Combine.
Still, the best offer Walker gets may end up being better than whatever the Seahawks will pay. And the Seahawks are making their assessment not on three 2025 postseason games but four full seasons of working directly with Walker.
That’s always the most important thing to remember when free agency rolls around. In most cases, the team that has employed the player for four or five years has placed a lower value on him than a stranger will. There’s a chance Seattle has gotten it wrong (like the Giants did with Saquon Barkley), but it’s an assessment that needs to be made in light of the other areas of the roster that require the cash and the cap space.
Then there’s the basic supply/demand reality of the running back position. The Seahawks can draft Walker’s replacement, pay him a lot less than Walker wants, and plug him into the offense right away. Or they can sign a veteran who won’t be looking for an eight-figure average.
