Brian Fleury - Head Coach, seahawks Event: Press Conference | Date: 2026-09-06 | Full transcript (primary source).
On September 6, 2026, Brian Fleury addressed the media at a press conference for the Seattle Seahawks, discussing his experiences and preparations as the team gears up for the upcoming NFL season. The session provided an opportunity for reporters to ask questions about his insights and expectations as the team approaches their first game.
Transcript
Fleury: All right. Hi. How are we doing? Great. Anybody want to start? I don't have any opening remarks.
Reporter: How did you get your first chance to get plays in an NFL game and all that? How much are you looking forward to that?
Fleury: Obviously, I'm really looking forward to it. I've had more fun out here at practice these last two days than probably any of the last seven years. So I'm excited to continue this journey and get out there for the first time on Thursday.
Reporter: What have been fun?
Fleury: Just going into the game plan process with the guys. It's such a great group of guys. They have so much experience together. They all have great ownership of the offense. So being able to talk about things and how I see it and how they see it and make sure that it's all synchronized together has been really fun.
Reporter: Have you sought for advice on this whole experience?
Fleury: Unfortunately, the people I would seek advice from aren't really interested in seeing us do well. Not many.
Reporter: Obviously, your first camp working with Sam.
Fleury: It's my second camp working with Sam. His growth over the last three years since I've been with him and his confidence level has increased significantly. His ownership of the offense and his command over just the room and the group has been really impressive.
Reporter: A lot of guys today, the communication is super important week one when you're adjusting on the flight. When did you know you were over the hump and making sure that messaging was clear across all phases?
Fleury: Messaging has been clear since I walked in and that's a credit to Mike and John. We really kind of got over the hump as we got back into training camp, I think. It became really clear. We had some growth opportunities in the off season as they were getting used to how I see things. They were coming from Clint's offense and how they saw things. Then when we got here in training camp is really when we kind of hit the ground running within that first week.
Reporter: It used to be in the 80s that speed was about vertical stretch. Now you see it used for stretching field horizontally as well. Talk about how those two things work together.
Fleury: Obviously, you want mixed elements. There's vertical separation which you can create with speed down the field. Horizontal could be lateral quickness. The shorter area moves similar to a west welker or something like that. Then there's also the ability just to use the entire width of the field with the same type of speed that you would stretch it vertically with. If you're using it all 54, 53 and a quarter yards and whatever is left to the end zone, you're doing a great job.
Reporter: Are you going to be down on the field or up in the field?
Fleury: Yeah, I'm going to call it from down. I was really pleased with the communication from upstairs. Justin Alton is doing a great job. Tyson Prince is up there too. The information and Daniel Stern also, the quickness with which they're getting it to me has been outstanding. I feel very comfortable being on the field.
Reporter: What are the pluses to do it here?
Fleury: I just like being able to communicate in real time with the players. The way I want to call the game lasts about two series and then you get into the flow of it and there's adjustments being made. It gives me an opportunity to preview maybe things on the call sheet that I want to go to next and why. And anticipate just one little nugget of coaching point that I think might make a difference. It's just easier to communicate that in-person face-to-face when you're dealing in microseconds. I just like that part of it better.
Reporter: Your mind is two series. What do you mean?
Fleury: What I mean is we're dealing with outdated information in terms of what the New England defense is going to look like. And so how they decide to play us will start to take shape within the first two series is what I mean.
Reporter: You remind us which preseason games you did it from the field.
Fleury: I was on the field the first one against Dallas and the third one against Kansas City.
Reporter: Yeah, I mean we've all grown in that regard. Obviously this is a great coaching staff. They just come off winning the Super Bowl. There's a lot of great coaches. One of which I had the opportunity to work with before but in a different role. And so we kind of had to go through a process of our own of them learning exactly how I see things and how I want to call the game. And that was a lot of like me being the voice and them listening. And then once we got to a point where they felt comfortable with that it's been easier for me to turn things over to them because they can kind of see it through the lens that I would see it. And so that's been the really fun part of these three preseason games. And now going into this game is now kind of handing things back over to them and seeing what they can bring to me from a collaborative standpoint. It's been really cool.
Reporter: You were on the other side, the sideline for the first game last year in the field. And that was a game that kind of was different than all the other offensive games. We really want to play action pass. And so the Seahawks offense kind of changed identities a little bit in that game. How do you approach this game to make sure you call your game and maybe not fall to adjusting to your opponent too much?
Fleury: Yeah, I mean there's always an adjustment to the opponent, right? You want to take away their ability to do what they want to do well. But I think that fits well within what we want to do. We're just going to play Seahawk football. And that's what Mike has always said. We're going to be fast and aggressive and just try and control the game and put pressure on the opponent any way we can.
Reporter: Cooper Cup was telling us about the call-out periods in practice. How important do you feel like those have been for you and just getting ready to do it?
Fleury: Those have been great. Great for me, but also great for us as a unit for them to kind of hear in real time the way I would like to sequence things and how one play can lead into the next and the next and the next and just kind of feel the flow of it.
Reporter: The background with your stepfather, obviously. And it sounded like you kind of were thinking coaching maybe at a pretty early age?
Fleury: Yeah, at a pretty early age. I wasn't a very good football player after high school. And so as soon as I realized that that was the only way I was going to be able to stay involved, that's kind of the direction I went.
Reporter: Did you always think something like this was realistic for you?
Fleury: No, I didn't think that grandly. I mean, as a kid, I always wanted to be a part of the National Football League. So that part of it has always been there. I've always had a lot of respect and admiration for the people that play football in this league and the people that have helped built it from the ground up. But it was really more about the teaching for me early on, just like taking what I knew from a knowledge standpoint and just being able to help people get better.
Reporter: And I heard you describe yourself once as kind of a non-athletic quarterback, is that right?
Fleury: Yeah, I played a different brand of football than Jaylen likes to play out there.
Reporter: Given that the guys you're playing with on Wednesday haven't seen time during the preseason, are you kind of curious about how that communication is going to actually go when those guys are in the fire and how it's all going to work when you're going with the guys? Or did you get enough work?
Fleury: No, we got enough work. I'm not concerned about the communication at all. We've done enough simulations here where I feel good about that. I'm just excited to go out there and watch them execute.
Reporter: This is your first time actually being in the year of the quarterback before the microphone gets turned off. How has that communication been and what you try to communicate during this?
Fleury: To try to communicate beforehand, you've seen some clips, right? They don't like to hear too much information. And the sequencing is important. If I want to give them a reminder, it has to happen before I call to play. Because if I try to call to play and then tell them something else, then they get something lost. So that part of it is important. And I've had to learn that. And Sam's been great about giving me feedback from that. And I think we're going to be rolling just fine.
Reporter: Are you a wristband system, or do you like to call it?
Fleury: It's a mixture of both. We'll have some stuff on the wristband that is maybe a little bit more verbose or game plan specific. But anything that's something that we've been using from a terminology standpoint since we got here and it's a training camp that they're comfortable just hearing and saying. Then we just roll with that.
Reporter: You're a rookie tailback. I wish you were from every day, but he hasn't played since November. What are you curious about the points tonight?
Fleury: I'm just excited. I wouldn't say curious. I'm just excited to watch him play. I'm excited to see him get his first touch. I'm excited to see him be able to play in this atmosphere. And I think it's going to be the beginning of a really good career.
Reporter: Some of your players have described you as pretty even keel, stoic, reserved. Where do you think that kind of comes from, and do you agree with those assessments?
Fleury: Yeah, I would agree with their assessment. Portrait on the surface isn't always what's going on internally. So I would agree with that for the most part. Usually when something good happens, I'm thinking on to the next scenario and I'll celebrate at the end. That's kind of my personality.
Reporter: Were you able to talk to those lessons, or was that kind of organically?
Unknown: Were you on the field coaching for San Francisco previously, and do you like being on the field as opposed to being in the field?
Fleury: Yeah, there's advantages to both. I was on the field for the last four years in San Francisco and upstairs for the first three, and then upstairs everywhere else I was around the league. So I've had a lot of experience of both. Again, the communication part with the player, if you're trying to communicate directly with the player, there's something about picking up the phone that just doesn't vibe best for me. So I like to be able to have the face-to-face eye contact conversation with those guys whenever possible.
Reporter: Mike has talked about that he sometimes could be drawing things up and making adjustments the night before and implementing those in the game. What's your style? How quickly do you kind of lock things down?
Fleury: Yeah, I try not to make too many schematic changes. There was definitely a couple of times in the pre-season where I would add a play. But again, if I'm going to add a play, it's something that we're all comfortable with, and I can go position to position and say, hey, I think I'm going to call this on the next drive. Is everybody good? The way the game is going to be called can evolve right up until kickoff as you're thinking of match-ups and situations. And then, again, as you see how the defense is coming out and playing you. So there's an element of the game plan that shifts over the course of time, but not just adding random stuff.
Reporter: With Elijah's pre-season, he seemed to have it pretty good. What have you kind of seen about him and what are you excited about?
Fleury: I saw a lot of growth from what I saw on film last year. He still has a lot of room for growth, and I'm excited. Hopefully, he can put around some consistent playing time here early on and just continue to trend in the right direction. He'll definitely be out there. We've got some things that we're going to use him with for, and that'll be fun to see.
Reporter: How have you seen Sam take to the stuff that you're bringing? Obviously, it sounds like it's going to be a very similar offense to last year, but the stuff that you're bringing with you, how have you seen him take to that?
Fleury: He's taken to a great – it's just ongoing dialogue. There's things that he loves and things he maybe doesn't love so much that we can come to an agreement. Maybe we do want to try and push forward and get better at this, or some things that we've just said, you know what, this isn't worth the investment. He seems very comfortable overall with kind of where we've landed in terms of this game.
Reporter: The Rams ran a lot of 13 last year. You, of course, coached tight ends. What are some of the pros and cons from being able to get heavy like that in terms of whether they're going to match or they're going to play nickel?
Fleury: That's a really interesting conversation because last year, I think they caught a lot of people off guard by doing that, especially in those first few weeks. And so when you get into bigger groupings, usually it simplifies the defensive menu. But as they continue to put it on the field, the defensive menu continues to grow as people become more and more prepared. So going into this season, while that might seem like an advantage trends for an offense to do, the entire league has had the entire off season to come up with their plan for defending their team personnel. So I don't think you're going to see quite the same advantages. We will have some of it available and, you know, deploy it when we feel appropriate. But I don't know that you're going to get quite the level of production that the Rams had out of it. Just league wide.
Reporter: Anything else?
Fleury: Thank you.