One of the cool things about the Seahawks winning the Super Bowl in February was the longtime veterans who got rings out of it.

Some of the thirtysomethings — Jason Myers, Leonard Williams, DeMarcus Lawrence and Jarran Reed – played huge roles. Then there were former Seahawks whom John Schneider and Mike Macdonald brought back – like Shaq Griffin and Quandre Diggs – who were mostly along for the ride. Macdonald got them the rings that Pete Carroll could not.

Diggs recently talked to Brian Nemhauser (HawkBlogger) about why the Carroll era ended, why he followed Carroll out the door in 2024 and why he wanted to come back last November even though he knew his on-field role might be minimal.

Let’s walk through Diggs’ journey, from the 2019 trade that brought him to Seattle to the end of the Carroll era and Diggs’ return for a shot at the Super Bowl.

Diggs was a great trade pickup in 2019 by Schneider, who swapped a 5 for a 7 with Detroit to add the safety in October of that season.

The Legion of Boom was mostly gone by the time Diggs arrived. Only Bobby Wagner and K.J. Wright remained. Earl Thomas had left in free agency earlier that year, and the Hawks were weak at safety beyond Bradley McDougald.

Diggs went on to make the Pro Bowl in 2020, 2021 and 2022 – tallying 14 interceptions in that time. The Hawks made the playoffs in three of his five seasons, but he was one of the few standouts on an otherwise constantly bad defense.

Carroll’s post-LOB units during Diggs’ years averaged 20^th in scoring, 26^th in yards, 23^rd in EPA, 20th in DVOA. They were largely a bottom-third defense, which is why the Hawks won one playoff game in Diggs’ time (and in Carroll’s final seven seasons).

By December 2023, it was clear Carroll had lost control of his team and really had no clue how to put together a winning defense in this era of offensive brilliance. He was routinely outcoached by Mike Shanahan, Sean McVay and other sharp offensive minds. On top of that, his players just started tuning him out.

Wright (then retired) called out the lack of chemistry and discipline on his radio show in late 2023, saying, “No brother is holding the other brother accountable. So Coach Carroll, if the players are not doing it, doggone it, you’ve got to do it. You’ve got to do it. You don’t have a strong enough locker room … so you’ve got to be the one to execute it.”

Diggs confirmed that was the case, in his talk with Nemhauser.

Diggs said the pandemic cost the Seahawks their connectedness, then the team got too young and Carroll and his staff did not bring any discipline to the young players.

“My last couple of years in Seattle, I had problems with guys not being held to a standard. Not from players, kind of from the coaches,” Diggs said.

“If we are going to do this and we want to talk about championships, it’s gotta be some type of discipline around here. We can’t have guys coming late to meetings. We can’t have guys late to practice, missing meetings the night before the games.”

At that point, the only real vets on the team were Diggs, Wagner, Geno Smith and Jarran Reed. The few of them who said anything were not listened to.

The rule breakers would say, “Well I talked to Coach, and he ain’t trippin.’”

Diggs said, “We can’t have those types of things to be a winning team, to hold the culture and standard about who we want to be. Yeah, the players can lead, but the discipline is going to come from up top. (Players) can’t discipline players. What can we do? We can’t fine them. I can’t fine a guy if he is late to a meeting.”

Diggs said it started going downhill in the two Covid years of 2020 and 2021, when players were not able to spend time together and bond. He said the defensive backs used to go to Griffin’s house on Tuesday nights, eat dinner together and talk football and life. “Then Covid rolls around and you can’t do any of that.”

By 2022, vet leaders such as Wagner, Wright, Duane Brown and Mike Iupati were all gone (Wagner returned in 2023). And Carroll’s Club Med style of coaching – with basketball hoops and other distracting games – did not work with so many young players who needed better direction.

“Pete is trying to give the younger guys room to grow,” Diggs said. “Sometimes, when guys come into Seattle, it’s a fairytale: ‘Dang, this is how stuff goes around here?’

“The job at hand is to win football games. We’re gonna have fun, but we gotta win. Sometimes that can cloud a young player’s mind.”

Diggs relayed something former DC Ken Norton Jr. used to say, “We gotta keep the main thing the main thing. And if we don’t, we’re gonna get lost in the sauce.”

Diggs said, “I think that’s kind of what happened.”

Young players “don’t know any better. They’ve never been anywhere else. Then boom. We’re not growing anymore and we’re not as close as we were anymore. … It can really mess up how things go.”

Even Carroll’s veterans – Wagner, Jamal Adams, et al. — had tuned him out in 2023. And after a third straight year with fewer than 10 wins and no playoff victory, Carroll was fired.

He was replaced by a much more cerebral and structured coach who did not tolerate anyone who was not 100% bought into the program.

Eric Weddle, Marlon Humphrey and other safeties told Diggs he would love Macdonald: “I was excited for Mike to be my head coach.”

He said he talked to Macdonald for 45 minutes after the coach was hired. But, knowing his cap situation, he also told Macdonald, “I don’t know if I’m going to be here.”

Diggs had restructured his contract in 2023 to help give the team cap space. He knew his cap number for 2024 was too high (the team reclaimed $11 million in space by cutting him).

Diggs told Nemhauser, “I should have just reached out to John and told him I (was) willing to take a pay cut.” He said he and Schneider both wished they had worked something out.

Diggs ended up signing with Tennessee to be with his cousin, No. 1 overall pick Cam Ward. He played in eight games before landing on IR. He returned to the Titans in 2025, but the team was 1-8 at the bye, good buddy Tyler Lockett (who had joined Tennessee after being cut by Seattle in March) already had been granted his release, and Diggs was ready to go.

“I didn’t see things going too much further,” he said. “We didn’t really have anything to play for. They started trading guys away. It was one of those things where I just told my agent, ‘Hey, I would rather be done. Can they find a way to get me released?’ Obviously, I had to pay back some money and all that other stuff. It didn’t matter to me. I just wanted the opportunity to win.”

Diggs said he was being recruited by other playoff-caliber clubs but wanted to go back to Seattle, where the Hawks were 7-2 and Coby Bryant had been trying to get him to return ever since he left. He was on the street for a couple of weeks longer than he expected – he missed Seattle’s Week 12 win over Tennessee.

Diggs said the Eagles called him just before he flew out to Seattle. They told him, “Hey, we need you to come in and play on Friday.” But he made it back to Seattle and onto the active roster in time for the Hawks’ 26-0 shutout of Minnesota in Week 13.

He suffered a quadriceps injury in that game and sat on the practice squad the rest of the season. But he was a veteran voice in the defensive backs meeting room, with secondary coach Karl Scott often soliciting his opinion.  

Meanwhile, other teams kept trying to sign Diggs off the squad.

He said, “I would tell John every week, ‘Hey John, so-and-so is trying to sign me, but I’m not going.’ And he would be, ‘Bro, I appreciate you so much.’ (I said) I just want to be part of something special.”

That’s exactly how it turned out, with the Seahawks blowing out the 49ers 41-6 in the divisional playoffs, then winning another shootout against the Rams, 31-27, in the NFC title game before dominating the Patriots 29-13 in the Super Bowl. And just like that, Diggs had a long-coveted ring along with the other veterans mentioned at the top of this piece.

Diggs is one of the fan favorites and best defensive players among the post-LOB Carroll Seahawks (2018-23). In franchise history, we put Diggs in the third tier of stars — below the Pro Football Hall of Famers and Ring of Honor guys. He is right there with Pro Bowl-caliber players like Cliff Avril, Darryl Williams and Sam Adams.

Diggs, 33, indicated he will take it to August to see whether he plays in 2026. He would love to return to Seattle, but the additions of second-rounder Bud Clark and others make that unlikely. So Diggs probably has to be content with one Super Bowl ring.

But, like most of us, he thinks the Hawks are going to win another next season.

“I think they will just do what is expected,” Diggs said. “Nobody on the outside world should be surprised if the Seahawks go back to the Super Bowl and win it again.”