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Why Seahawks GM John Schneider encourages his staff to keep a book

Pete Carroll and John Schneider have talked often about seeking out players who have overcome failures and shown perseverance.

Carroll points to his experiences of being fired twice as an NFL head coach before finding success with the Seattle Seahawks. And Schneider has his own story to tell. He spent time in Green Bay, Kansas City, Seattle (a first time) and Washington before eventually teaming up with Carroll as the general manager in 2010.

Schneider signed a five-year contract extension earlier this week. During an interview with John Clayton on 710 ESPN Seattle, he talked about preparing for the opportunity to become a general manager.

"You take little bits and pieces from everything," Schneider said.

"When you do what we do, you always have this thought in your mind like, 'If I was in this situation, this is what I would do.' And I always encourage guys on my staff that want to be general managers, keep your own little book. You don't have to necessarily agree with me on everything we do or what you see people doing throughout the league. There's no school for this. You don't go to university or get a college education for this job. So it's really all about learning as you go. So keep that book. And whatever situations come up, whether it's players getting in trouble or coaching situations or decisions that are made, how would you do it? How would you handle it? That's what we did over the years."

Schneider has a talented staff that includes co-directors of player personnel Trent Kirchner and Scott Fitterer, along with director of college scouting Matt Berry and director of pro personnel Dan Morgan.

One key to the Seahawks' success has been the manner in which the scouting side has worked with the coaching side. That starts with Carroll and Schneider and trickles down to others in the organization.

"We have a really, really good group of guys working together that push the envelope," Schneider said. "And it's OK to come up with what some people might think is a crazy idea. We're gonna work through it. We're gonna go through every door. We're not necessarily gonna make every deal. I would say that we don't make 90 percent of those deals, 95 percent of those deals. But at least we're in that arena.

"Ego is the enemy. We're gonna just work together because we want to win championships. And we can't get caught up in that, 'This is my guy. That's your guy.' The tug of war that goes on. If we have issues, we know that we're just going to continue to work through them. And we don't have the blowups. We have just long nights of communication basically."

The Seahawks have won 60 regular-season games since Schneider and Carroll teamed up in 2010. With a young core of talented players under contract, the organization believes its window to win another Super Bowl is wide open.

"We talk about what you want to do every single year is have your fan base feel like these guys have a chance to win a championship," Schneider said. "That's our goal. That's our charge here every single day."