The Seahawks really like rookie quarterback Jalen Milroe. They like him enough to give him a package of plays, despite being the backup quarterback.
The news emerged unexpectedly, when coach Mike Macdonald was asked an unrelated question: “Could Milroe be a scout team quarterback?”
“Of course,” Macdonald told reporters. “First of all, he needs reps, as does Drew \[Lock\], We’re going to have plays for Jalen and game plans, and he’s going to rep those with the ones. However we build the package for him, going into games, he needs those reps in walk-through and full-speed, so that’s going to be important. How we do it, who gets how many reps, all that, I mean Sam \[Darnold\], it starts with how many reps he needs to get ready and then we work off from there.”
The fact that Macdonald blurted it out absent a specific question invites speculation that he’s simply trying to force opponents to spend time to be ready for Milroe. Which will necessarily eat into the time available to get ready for the base offense, under Darnold.
Regardless, Macdonald said it. It’s a thing now. And we’ll see whether and to what extent that’s how it all plays out. And whether Milroe gets playing time with the first-team offense.