Commentary: Grubb-to-Seahawks news highlighted by a fun night on social media platforms

As excited as I am for Ryan Grubb, expected to be the Seahawks new offensive coordinator, I want to take a minute celebrate how the news broke on Friday night – and how much I value legitimate citizen journalism that sets the social media world on fire. 

Even before Fox 13 Sports digital reporter Curtis Crabtree and Seattle Times Seahawks beat reporter Bob Condotta broke the news that the Hawks were hiring Grubb (which eventually led Adam Schefter and Pete Thamel to report the same), a photo of Grubb with the Seahawks brass, including general manager John Schneider and new head coach Mike Macdonald, was making rounds on "X." The group was hanging out at Dino’s Pub in Renton, a noted regular hangout for Schneider et al, across the freeway from the Seahawks facility. 

In this day and age of deep fake photos and videos, of people trying to start rumors of coaching hires by allegedly tracking flights to and from various parts of the country, this was a more legitimate case of a bar patron that night – Kyle Baldwin, who goes by "UW Commentor" on X - making an observation, posting a few photos and putting 2 and 2 together. 

Now, Schneider and company aren’t so naïve to think that bringing a prospective offensive coordinator to a busy public venue on a Friday night– especially one as recognizable as the Huskies offensive coordinator the last couple seasons – was supposed to be discreet. If they wanted to keep everything completely under wraps, they would’ve kept that meeting as private as Schneider keeps his draft board.

Instead, that public display garnered so much attention that even the Seahawks official account posted a photo of a couple beers "cheers-ing" in recognition of all the buzz online. 

An official announcement for Grubb is expected this week. 

And frankly, pairing the best defensive-minded coach in the NFL in Macdonald with arguably the best offensive-minded coach in college football has a great majority of this fanbase completely fired up, myself included. It’s been close to a full month since Pete Carroll stepped down against his will, but this franchise has done everything right since. And I cannot wait to see how the roster evolves through free agency and the draft the next couple months.

But this weekend at least, I celebrate everyone following sports stories well enough, and keeping a keen enough eye out for things that just might be relevant to an entire fanbase. 

That’s what certain folks at Dino’s did in Renton on Friday night – and they essentially scooped all the main players in the process. 

We often see the negative effects of social media, but Friday night – it functioned beautifully. Which is why we’re able to give the random patrons-turned-citizen-journalists their due.