Seahawks GM Downplays Impact of Team Sale: ‘Business As Usual’

The Seahawks, still fresh off winning the franchise’s second Lombardi Trophy at Super Bowl LX earlier this month, are beginning to navigate the 2026 NFL offseason while simultaneously entering the early stages of the team being sold.

The estate of late Microsoft billionaire Paul Allen, which has been managed by his sister Jody, officially announced Feb. 18 that the Seahawks were going up for sale. 

At the NFL Scouting Combine on Tuesday, Seattle GM and president of football operations John Schneider was asked if the sale process is impacting his job yet. 

“No, I had a great talk with Jody the other night, and she’s like, ‘Let’s go for it. Let’s rip it,’” Schneider said during his podium press conference in Indianapolis. “And it’s just business as usual for us. Just business as usual and all football.”

Ahead of the 2025 NFL season, the Seahawks were valued at $6.7 billion, according to Forbes, 14th among NFL teams. The Commanders are the most recent NFL team to be sold—for $6 billion to a group led by Josh Harris in July 2023.

“We have no idea on timing and all that,” Schneider said during an interview on ProFootballTalk Live. “At the appropriate time, I know my role is going to be to get to know the ownership group, and educate them on how this place has been humming, and how we’ve been running it.”

“I don’t say that in an arrogant way,” said Schneider, citing the success he’s had recently and previously with former coach Pete Carroll, as well as Mike Holmgren, who coached the team in the early years of Allen’s ownership from 1998 to 2008. Allen purchased the franchise in 1997 for roughly $200 million.

Schneider said he was planning to seek advice from Broncos GM George Paton, who was hired in 2021 and lived through Denver’s sale in 2022 from the trust of former owner Pat Bowlen to the team’s current owners, the Walton-Penner family.

“I’ve never been through it,” Schneider said. “I don’t know what it looks like.”